Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky - Essay Example

Black Swan Black Swan The Black swan is a movie directed by Darren Aronofsky and was released on 17 December, The screen play writers of the movie included Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz whereas the leading character, Nina, also known as the Black queen was played by Natalie Portman and Lily or The Black Swan was played by Mila Kunis. The rest of the cast involves Mila Kunis, Vincent Casse, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey, Sebastian Stan and Kistina Anapau. The movie is a psychological thriller- horror film and was a success on the box office. The film runs for 103 minutes and was rated ‘R’ because of the sexual content, disturbing images, language and due to the use of drugs. The movie was released by Fox searchlight pictures. (IMDb, n.d.). The black swan is a thriller that has actually portrayed the hidden reality of the ballet world. The director of the movie is widely known because of the creative depiction of his imagination. The movie is actually inspired by a popular play; the swan lake by Pyotr IIyich Tchaikovsky. The play is actually about a princess who is changed into a white swan by the curse of a witch; the princess falls in love with the prince but then commits suicide because the prince confesses his love for the black swan. The opening stage of the movie is seen with the ballerina on stage dressed in a white tutu, focused by a bright light whereas everything else seemed to be completely surrounded by darkness. The ballerina is approached by another dancer who moves her in a circular motion. The scene which was filled with serenity is at once transformed in to a scene of horror which gives a sense of control of the dancer over the ballerina. The feathered dancer twists and turns the ballerina in the opposite direction of the camera and then releases her at once leaving her in a state of ecstasy and contentment and then dances away into the far away, abating spotlight. Ever since the beginning of the movie the director clearly indicates the clash of personality between the lead actress and her inability to distinguish the reality from dream. Nina has always wanted to play the lead character in the play and this is what fuels her ambition and passion and this is what drives a person to achieve his dreams. The director has also tried to show to that there always comes a time when one’s personality must be overtaken by the other. The movie has also portrayed ambition through the protagonist of the movie whereby she transforms to another form. The movie has tried to replicate the themes of the swan lake because of similarity in multiple subjects such as romanticism, transformation and duality. In the process of displaying romanticism, he mostly allows the artist to explore his sensuality and also allows the actors to do so. The dialogues such as ‘Lose yourself’ are heard multiple time during the movie. The scene that occurred during the beginning of the movie shows the sensuality of Nina with which she tries to seduce the director into hiring her. Nina is seen telling the director that she has practiced her coda last night which is then received by a reply from her director that she should know that it is not about the practice. The scene then ends with Thomas telling the ballerina that perfection is not about control rather it is about letting go. The movie has also portrayed the human character as going through transformation of the body which can also be referred to as the mutation of the physical appearance of human body. There are various instances in the film where the female characters are indulged in the art of ballet and the ambition to be perfect. There are also certain instances where Nina is asked to explore her sexuality in order to let go. This can be seen as a sense of transformation where in the actress attains sexual maturity. The importance of the scene can be realized just by the fact that it is a dream which mina confuses with reality yet again and this dream also hints at the white and black swan transformation. This transformation might be dangerous for the white swan herself. The duality that had been presented in the movies is more than often symbolized by the use of mirrors which hint on the doppelganger theme that the movie focuses on. A doppelganger is a german word for double goer which originially points towards a ghost or a person haunting a person. However, in the recent years the eaning has shifted towards look alike or a person who serves as someone else’s double. Dopplegangers have the ability to take various forms and may existin many different versions such as an evil twin or the spirit of a Comatosed person (Westfahl, 2005). Mirrors have always thought to represent the ‘other truths’. It gives an idea of the identity and subject. The reflection that is seen through the mirror represents the various natures of a person and they often help to portray power or even allurement. Mirrors are a symbolism of themes such as those of power, mystery, to represent the dark themes of a movie or to hint upon the dual nature of a person (Ruddell, 2013). Mirrors are seen in a number of scenes in the entire movie. Nina is seen stretching in front of a mirror and telling her mother about the dream that she saw where she isn’t met by any response from her mother. In another scene Nina is seen applying lipstick in a subway window. The mirror also serves as an object of reflection when Nina is seen doing pique and bourrees, when the camera shifts focus from Nina to the dancing instructor, Thomas. In the entire movie, these mirrors served as for conceptual and visual focus. The personality of the black and white swan is seen through these mirrors and it also reflects the performance of Nina when she is not on stage and her actual figure as a person. The movie also has several instances when Nina sees herself in the mirror and sometimes she sees the other side of herself, also known as the doppelganger. This doppelganger is played by Lily who is another ballerina, chosen to play the part of the black swan and thus Lily is often considered as Nina’s live doppelganger. There is this one scene during which Nina sees herself in the mirror but she sees the evil side of her in the reflection instead. This metaphorically represented the actual darkness within herself and so it can be believed that the reflection often exposes our actual identity that we subconsciously believe in. In another scene, where Lily is seen first time in the movie, her reflection is seen in the mirror in front of Nina, but Nina herself cannot be seen in the mirror. This pointed towards the feeling of black swan opposing the white swan. This can also be signified in another manner such that it signifies the transformation of Nina towards the black swan. This is seen in the entire movie where Nina sees hints of lily in the mirror which showed that Lily was actually the subconscious that Nina was showing signs off, the evil that resides within the black swan being transformed into the white swan. The mirror also serves as an object that has been utilized in many movies which portray the art of ballet. The mirror is used to show the training that these ballerinas have to endure in order to achieve their dreams. Similarly, breaking glasses and distortions are also another ways which symbolize the use of mirrors in movies (Blanco Borelli, 2014). In Black swan, there are various instances of breaking glass which coincide with the advancements in Nin’s character which continually break her personality and transform her into the black swan. The mirror also plays an important part in the last scene of the movie in which Nina hallucinates on stabbing Lily but instead she ends up stabbing herself, in this last incident the broken mirror shows that Nina is not a victim of the black swan anymore rather she now controls the powers herself. It is in the final scenes that we truly see the transformation of the white swan into the black swan. She grows black feathers and black wings and her eyes change to the color of red. She is seen in a completely euphoric state as she sees her transformation through her own eyes and her body is soon covered in black feathers. Her Dance gains her a standing ovation from the audience. This is when the black swan completely takes over the white swan and Nina’s death then becomes apparent as people think that she has committed suicide while in actual, Nina thinks that she stabbed Lily. As Nina is seen performing the last act on stage, she starts bleeding and it is then that she realize that it wasn’t others who were trying to harm her rather it had been herself, it was her who had been her own personal nemesis all along. However, Nina is still delusional over the act and she claim to feel how being perfect felt; being perfect is what she dreamt about. There are also various hints in the movie which often remind the audience that Nina is more than meets the eye, as observed in a number of scenes Nina is quite forgetful and tends to vaguely remember the details of any of the incidents that took place with her. The most evident scenes to exemplify this is the sexual encounter between Nina and Lily which was actually a dream whereas Nina take it as a real event and hence again she confuses dream with reality. Nina considers Lily as the ultimate person to portray the black swan character as she feels that Lily’s nature will damage her own innocence and purity. Black swan is the best example of a doppelganger movie where the evil wins over the good and whereby the evil presence plans on completely wiping out the other personality. The sensations that the audience gets from watching from the movie is never from the horror, drama and sexuality, rather it is all due to the camera. It is because of these reasons that the movie was able to transfer its message across the audience. It is through the technicalities such as close ups, blurriness that help create intense perceptions of the scenes. When Nina sees herself in the mirror, practices in front of the mirrors, she notices herself being transformed from a human in to a swan which gives rise to the feeling of being aware of herself and her alterations that she is going through. The director has intelligently utilized mirrors to create the line between imagination and reality and creating difference between the cinematic techniques that help the viewer’s become aware of the physical transformations that the protagonist is going through. The scenes of growing out feathers, the painful mutilations of the body, breaking of the toe nails, stabbing, and the scenes where Nina dance movement gradually progress are all instances with which the director gives the audience the perception of transformation that Nina is going through and how she is slowly yet constantly developing in to the black swan. The movie, Black swan is a remarkable personification of the ballet world and the doppelganger affect with a multiple thematic screen play which is often difficult to perform by the characters. It is a movie which depicts the aspiration and ambition of Nina to achieve her dreams and how these were necessary and destructive for her own self. Nina’s evolution into a swan are seen as a course of action which contains a variety of symbols such as the feathers which characterize the loss of her personality, her wings represent completeness that she always dreamed on achieving; the perfection that she had her eyes on ever since the beginning of the film. However the doppelganger theme was the most prominent throughout the movie which seemed to pick up right from the beginning of the movie until the very end and signified towards the constant progress and advancement of the white swan towards the black swan which at the end showed the complete transformation or taking over of the good over the bad and completely eliminating the previous personality from the very core. References IMDb,. Black Swan (2010). Retrieved 6 June 2015, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947798/ Westfahl, G. (2005). The Greenwood encyclopedia of science fiction and fantasy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Ruddell, C. (2013). The besieged ego. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Blanco Borelli, M. (2014). The Oxford handbook of dance and the popular screen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read More