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Author Topic: BLACK SWAN (2010) Ian Parfrey Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1049 From: Imbil Australia 26 deg 27' 42.66" S 152 deg 42' 23.40" E Registered: Feb 2009 posted 03-22-2011 06:46 PM                     Hmm. This may need more research than I originally thought.  |  IP: Logged Stu Jamieson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 524 From: Buccan, Qld, Australia Registered: Jan 2008 posted 03-22-2011 06:59 PM                     Oh, I'd say so. You'll need to go long and deep, mate.  |  IP: Logged Gerard S. Cohen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 975 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 03-22-2011 10:06 PM                     There is in "Black Swan" one major theme that has been given much thought in the arts recently. In her essay "Outsmart, Outwork, Outrival and Outdream" in the New York Times Magazine of March 20th ("You could look it up") Carina Chocano treats the topic of self-perfection as discussed vy Pelagius, St. Augustine, Amy Chua's "Battle of the Tiger Mother, and the films "Limitless" and "The Adjustment Bureau". In "Limitless" the character Bradley Cooper takes pills that change him from a disorganized shlep to a perfect self-directed go-getter who becomes insanely rich and perfectly successful in every way. Whereas in "The Adjustment Bureau" the characters are controlled by (if not fate or God) "something like luck, birth order, genetics, macroeconomics, the law of big government or your damnable big boss." In "Black Swan" the dancer strives for perfection, which enables the choreographer to victimize her. Her dying words are noe "Rosebud" but "I was perfect!" This theme of the striving for perfection seems like something thrown into the mix to justify the making of the fil. But maybe that's better than the fuckbucket-full of forensic fetishes the filmmakers ended up with.  |  IP: Logged Stu Jamieson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 524 From: Buccan, Qld, Australia Registered: Jan 2008 posted 03-22-2011 10:32 PM                     The theme of perfection no more justifies the making of the film than, say, a narrative does. Can I just add that the choreographer (Vincent Cassel) seems to be the most misunderstood character in the film. He doesn't victimise Portman, nor is he a "sexual predator". He is merely playing her (possibly in concert with Kunis - that's never made clear), pushing her to find her dark side in an effort to squeeze out her best performance. Examples of this kind of directorial behaviour litter the history of the arts. Whether you condone such methods or not is an entirely different matter.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 03-23-2011 12:32 AM                        People who idolize Natalie Portman's beauty amuse me. Yes, she is very pretty. But certainly you all have heard of people who are butterface's, right? Well, Natalie is a butterbod. Great face, body of a 12-year-old boy. I guess that's why she's perfect as a ballerina. Why do ballerinas even exist, by the way?  |  IP: Logged Stu Jamieson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 524 From: Buccan, Qld, Australia Registered: Jan 2008 posted 03-23-2011 01:38 AM                     They don't. Well, okay, they barely exist.  |  IP: Logged Gerard S. Cohen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 975 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 03-23-2011 08:11 AM                     Though the choreographer may claim to be "pushing her to find her dark side in an attempt to squeeze out her best performance", this seems to me a ciche' rationalization of the "casting couch." "I'll make you a star" or "I'll perfect your abilities" etc. This rationalization has been used by a sexual preditor priest convicted in Philadelphia (one of more than 20 disciplined by the Archbishop from a list of 42 he submitted to the District Attorney); he told the altar boy he was raping "Now you are a man" and turned him over to two of his colleagues for similar use. Nobody's penis is a magic wand.  |  IP: Logged Stu Jamieson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 524 From: Buccan, Qld, Australia Registered: Jan 2008 posted 03-23-2011 08:24 PM                     Yes, but he never actually "does the deed" though, does he? Look at that sequence where the pair of them are alone in the dance studio; he could have had her right there and then but, significantly, he doesn't. That is because that is not his intention. Indeed there's nothing to suggest (that I can recall) that he actually beds his primas at all other than the idle, bitchy gossip of the other ballerinas no doubt born of jealousy.  |  IP: Logged Gerard S. Cohen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 975 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 03-23-2011 09:29 PM                     Who was screwing whom on the table slightly offstage when the lights went out as she was rehearsing alone to become perfect?? It certainly upset her --possibly knowing she was in line to be next, or angered that she was being deceived by the guy's line?? She lashed out in anger and became more self-destructive. Which fits everyone's obsession with the dying swan allegory. (I never really liked that ballet; it seems to me part of the 19th Century romantic obsession with death and beauty during the period of Victoria's mourning for Prince Albert that Mark Twain ridiculed in "Huckleberry Finn.)  |  IP: Logged Stu Jamieson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 524 From: Buccan, Qld, Australia Registered: Jan 2008 posted 03-23-2011 09:48 PM                     ^ Was that actually real? Did that actually happen?  |  IP: Logged Kurt Zupin Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 989 From: Maricopa, Arizona Registered: Oct 2004 posted 03-24-2011 04:43 AM                     quote: Joe Redifer People who idolize Natalie Portman's beauty amuse me. Yes, she is very pretty. But certainly you all have heard of people who are butterface's, right? Well, Natalie is a butterbod. Great face, body of a 12-year-old boy. I guess that's why she's perfect as a ballerina. Why do ballerinas even exist, by the way? Joe have you seen her in the "Your Highness" trailer? She sure doesn't have a 12-year-old boys body in that one.  |  IP: Logged

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