Black Swan

WOW.. My mind is still spinning from seeing this!! I was amazed by everything in this movie. Natalie Portman deserves every award this year. To me, she was meant to play this part. Kunis, she played the perfect bad girl...such a change from Jackie on That 70s Show. Barbra Hershey, she was the scariest stage mother and you could almost taste the bitterness and envy in all the scenes she shared with Portman. Ryder, I was surprised that she was in this and she was eerie almost to say ''Look at me. Learn from me'' Cassell, smug and condesending to the point of hatred. I loved the way it was filmed, the costumes, and just everything about this movie.

I throughly enjoyed this movie and will probably own it once its available on DVD.

I'll throw this up---simply because I had such a weird take on the film:

The Drama Queen

This season, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is moving onto the next stage of her artistic development and ballet career. Although technically flawless, she's not emotionally engaging and her ascension in the ranks may end here unless she surmounts this obstacle (this is higher than her ballet dancer mother ever got)

Dance is her entire life and she has few interests outside of it. She's essentially a virginal momma's boy (can you say that?) The night she's named prima ballerina doesn't the artistic director---for homework no less, ask her to go home and rub one out?

The intrigue? How does a young artist manufacture the representation of emotional states like great love or the heart breaking loss without having ever experienced either?

By simply becoming emotional---by deliberately inducing psychic turmoil. The early moments of the film has the camera literally pulling up within inches of the back of her head---seriously restricting the POV to her eyes and her mind only.

In a nutshell, everything was a subjective internal representation and had nothing to do with objective reality---which may have been totally indifferent if not innocuous. In this world, someone dashing down a hallway without a glance sideways becomes a deliberate snub. Assigning an understudy becomes a Machiavellian plot to get rid of her, etc, etc.

So ... SPOILERS!

That's one hell of an interpretation, and I would gladly agree with and support it if I didn't know Aronofsky's connection between this film and The Wrestler.

Whether she or Randy dies or not is irrelevant to the validity of your interpretation, since death (as opposed to demise) always holds the same position in relation to your being---the perpetual possibility of the end of all possibilities. Aronofsky specifically does not show the aftermath of their demise---even going as far as to maintain the very question of its occurrence. Rather, in his films, death is the thing very that motivates them throughout the story regardless of the reality of their demise. In Black Swan, Nina's realization of her authentic being-towards-death is made all the more literal in her fidelity to her stage-role---her existential role. The same goes for The Wrestler. In short, if we are to play a role, we should always play that role to its fullest extent.

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

I saw it, I loved it, I shall most likely see it again.

I thought the cocept was unique and brilliant. Deffinately worth seeing. 9 Stars.

I seriously couldn't give this movie anything above a 7 or so. Overall it wasn't terriable but I found it pretty boring in general.

Care to say why?

Re: the whole "what's real? what isn't?" thing,

Just got back from this - fantastic film.

More later!

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I thought it was an excellent film, but I'm not sure I ever want to see it again. Deeply disturbing stuff if you ask me.

Loved it. The Red Shoes is clearly a big influence but the film works nicely by itself. Will probably buy it on DVD

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You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never. (The Red Shoes, 1948)

truly the worst movie i have ever seen. Really hated it. would not recommend anyone to see it.

Black Swan reminds me of the same carnal psuedo-symbolistic crap I would have written as a snub would-be writer in my youth, made me roll my eyes at both the film and myself.

Is this the only film you've ever seen?

Another vague statement, how can something be pseudo symbolistic...if there's a relationship between the two ideas? Even so, there wasn't a whole lot of under the skin symbolism, the ideas behind the film are pretty simple, and compared to the writings of yours, which are I'm assuming based on similar peoples' "philosophy" essays, the film isn't arrogant or humorously, offensively ostentatious.

Symbolism itself isn't nessesarily complicated. 'black' meaning 'erotic b.s. with the most wangeresque tchaikovsky climax' THE MOVIE HAS NO STORY, Gag me with a spoon!

The symbolism may not be very complicated, but does it matter?

It has a story, it's just very simple. Black Swan is more like a fairytale. In fact, Mulholland Drive works in a similar way...and pretty successfully, I might add.

And if this is another one of those gross exaggerations, like the ever popular,"....this was one of the worst films I've ever seen..", then just forget about it. This isn't worth anyone's time.

Oh don't say that. I'm already doing my best to convince myself to sit and watch this (only for Portman's performance, as the film has no pull for me) but mentioning "fairytale" in relation to the film maybe enough to make sure that never happens.

Yeah, that fairy tale stuff makes Black Swan sound like Ever After or several other Drew flicks.

NOTE: Exist, I didn't realize that Waco was in a San Fernando Valley Time Warp c. 1982.

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I don't like Ever After. Love Drew, watched the film a couple of times, but I don't like it.

Looking forward to seeing Everybody Love Whales, but I don't think I'm going to like it. I'm only seeing it for Drew as it doesn't sound like something I'm going to like.