We've hit what I think is our final milestone. Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is the first movie on our countdown that I've reviewed once before. If you want a horny nineteen-year-old's thoughts about this movie, you can dig back to find that. I do not much recommend that piece - I was even worse at editing back then, and it all reeked badly of adolescent edge.
When I saw Black Swan in theaters in 2010, I loved the Hell out of it. Black Swan was one of my favorite movies of that year, it made by Top 10 at #6. It was thrilling and scary and sexy and twisted, those are all things I enjoy, even now. Eleven years later, however, I found Black Swan to be a very rough watch. It was much more uncomfortable than I remember.
A lot of what's changed in my perception is also how culture has moved in eleven years. Aronofsky was making a movie to disturb his audience, so the movie's emotional affect is still very successful. However, I do have to wonder if he meant for the film's abuse subplot to be more terrifying than the psychological thriller at the heart of Black Swan. This is one of those movies where it is very difficult to know what is real and what is fantasy, what is desired and what is feared. You're stuck in the mind of a woman who is disintegrating mentally, and a bit physically as well. However, that's still less hard to watch than the more mundane power dynamics at play.
The obvious sister movie to Black Swan would probably be Suspiria, the classic Italian horror film also about ballet dancer. But actually I think the better companion piece is 1995's experiment into NC-17 for the masses, Showgirls. They're both queer dramas set in deeply-gendered power structures. Power and temptation are enforced by sleazy male directors over women who are driven to compete. And yet the women escape those male structures briefly in erotic feminine ways. It could be that Showgirls is less complete trash and Black Swan is less classy than its Best Picture-nominee reputation implies.
Or maybe everything is trash in truth.
Black Swan is the story of Nina (Natalie Portman, Sarah Lane as her dance-double), a talented but repressed ballet dancer working for the New York City Ballet. The company is in upheaval because their bankable star, Beth McIntyre (Winona Ryder) has chosen/been forced into retirement. The scummy director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel) wants to put on a new more erotically-charged version of Swan Lake. He believes Nina is perfect for the virginal White Swan character, but doubts she can pull off the darker, hotter Black Swan role. Nina wins the job and digs deep into her psyche to find the sexual strength and darkness.
In the midst of her awakening, Nina is terrified by visions of a dark version of herself. Meanwhile, she is also attracted to a more sexually-open rival, Lily (Mila Kunis). Nina's grip on reality breaks down throughout the film, losing track of where she ends and where a Dark Nina begins. In turn, the Dark Nina and Lily are merged in some way.
The issue here that stands out the most to me now in 2021 is Thomas. This guy is the fucking worst, I cannot overstate this. His entire style is a sort of ballet method acting where Nina should not merely dance, but also inhabit a sexual role for him. He demands that she masturbate at one point. (The results are unwatchably uncomfortable.) He humiliates her repeatedly. "Would you fuck that girl?", Thomas asks Nina's male co-star right in front of her.
This is awful, but what makes this more awful is the reality of ballet since 2011. In 2017, the real-life NYCB director, Peter Martins was accused of sexual misconduct. He was one of the first #MeToo dominoes to fall after our old friend, Harvey Weinstein. Martins continued to deny all wrong-doing, but retired in 2018.
Black Swan is also heavily concerned with the physical toll ballet dancing takes on a body. You might be surprised in how gleefully I have described faces melting in past movies, but I actually cannot take much pain on screen. Black Swan is a brutal movie if you're repulsed by bad things happening to nails and feet. I had to cover my eyes when Nina was ripping off a hang-nail or breaking her toes back into place. This is also a bit of a body horror movie, as Nina either is transforming, or is imagining some kind of transformation into a swan-like creature. So her toes merge together on her left foot. She's developing a rash on her back that might be wings. Again, hard to tell what is real and what is fantasy.
On the other hand, reality is also creeping in here. Both Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis had to endure starvation diets to stay in shape. They both weighed under a hundred pounds, creating serious health consequences. Black Swan is a movie about the physical abuse of performers that is actually abusing its performers. The lesbian scene becomes a lot less sexy when you realize how unhealthy and skinny both actresses are.
Black Swan is still a great movie, I will not deny this, even with having trouble watching it. I love how this movie is shot on grungy 16mm and handheld cinematography. Lincoln Center is a gorgeous space and makes for a beautiful setting, contrasted well with the dirty subway right underneath it. Black Swan was prescient about the power structures at play in both dance and Hollywood, it deserves some credit there. It further complicates its argument by having Nina dance in breath-taking sequences of artistic mastery. That's the kind of unsettling question of "did the ends justify the means" that other great artistic dramas leave you such as 2014's Whiplash.
And it's fucking scary on many levels. This is horror, after all. Isn't this what we're here for?
Next time we travel to 2011, the year of the Forever Win earning itself a ten year extension thanks to assassinating Bin Laden, Maroon 5 fraudulently claiming they can dance like Mic Jagger, and our next movie, Fright Night (the remake).
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