BLACK SWAN Discussion - Page 6

Just got back from this this afternoon. I have officially reached the point with Aronofsky that I'm in with the likes of Scorsese, Spielberg, the Coens and Kurosawa. That innate feeling that you're in the hands of a master, an artistic genius that breeds a sense of trust whereby you're not just comfortable, but excited to let them take you wherever they wish to go with their tales. Two minutes into Black Swan this feeling took hold of me, and my faith was rewarded - of course - by this most incredible of modern auteurs.

Yet another look at a person being destroyed by their own passionate obsession, as all of Aronofskys work orbits, this film will stay with me for a long time. Portman doesn't just deserve the oscar, it will be a crime unless she recieves it. She gives a truly classic performance essaying this study of dark metamorphosis. That said everyone is note-perfect and the film for me simply didn't skip a single  beat while keeping me tensely coiled like a stressed spring throughout its run time.

That said, this is Aronofsky and Portmans show. A beautiful dance betwene director and star that creates the sort of cinematic perfection that highlights the incredible potential movies have to effect you that so few seem to realise in this day and age.

I got chills from watching this. Seriously, it's been forever since a movie got to me so much. What a tremendous achievement. I don't even want to think about this movie in a deeper level. Or talk about awards. At least not for a while more. I just want to savor this sensation and blindly heap praise upon it.

Of course it helps that Tchaicovsky's Swan Lake is one of the best pieces of art in the history of mankind. But wow, what a fucking movie.  

Saw this yesterday. It's essentially another SCOTT PILGRIM for me - where I break from the majority of CHUD responses. I didn't care for this film at all.

And I'll admit it's a really subjective, personal reaction. While I agree with many of Tyler Foster's criticisms voiced earlier in this thread, I do appreciate the film's excellence, especially in the performances. But I didn't like it - I can't imagine willingly ever watching it again - and didn't gain any kind of enjoyment from watching it. (FWIW, I am a HUGE fan of THE FOUNTAIN [I pimp it at every possible opportunity] and THE WRESTLER tore me up in some really great ways, so this isn't an anti-Aronofsky thing.) I don't like ballet at all, and monumentally, destructively self-involved artists aren't the types of characters I generally like watching films about. I'm not saying they're bad films or that they shouldn't be made - just not my cuppa.

At the risk of having scorn and derision heaped on me, the camera work bugged the shit out of me. Way too much handheld and shakycam. Like most movies employing this, it'll fare better on the small screen, but on a theater screen, it was frustrating and took me out of the film.

Actually - and to risk even more scorn and derision - the film, frankly, felt to me far too on the nose and full of itself. Maybe that was an unavoidable result given my view of its chosen artistic medium (ballet, something I hardly view as epic or world-changing). But I felt like it was much ado about....not much.

Shrug. I know, I know. Between this and SP, I'm about to be drummed out of CHUD.

That's too bad, Michael.  But understandable.  I have a friend who saw it a while before me and found it too 'deliberate,' which is a reaction I could understand.  But like it did for stelios, the film shook me up with its operatic splendor.  And for that, I must now plunge a glass shiv into your tummy (like I did to my 'friend').

"Too deliberate" is a fantastic summation of my least subjective criticisms. And I fully expected to go out via shivving for bad taste!

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Originally Posted by MichaelM 

"Too deliberate" is a fantastic summation of my least subjective criticisms. And I fully expected to go out via shivving for bad taste!

No one is going to jump on you for having a differing opinion. And any shivving will be purely in jest. There is a difference between saying "LOL WTF this movie sucks! Ballet is teh gay!" and "I didn't like this because of A, B and C."

I hate only getting to see such a discussion worthy film only after the discussion has died down. Before saying anything you have to go and scan every other previous post just so you won't end up repeating stuff for the umpteenth like a buffoon.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by stelios 

I hate only getting to see such a discussion worthy film only after the discussion has died down. Before saying anything you have to go and scan every other previous post just so you won't end up repeating stuff for the umpteenth like a buffoon.  

 

Amen to that. Sometimes it sucks being on the other side of the world.

I'll bring up one thing I don't think was mentioned...  I cracked up pretty hard at Cassel's offscreen delivery of, "You bit my lip!  That fuckin' hurt!"

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Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

I'll bring up one thing I don't think was mentioned...  I cracked up pretty hard at Cassel's offscreen delivery of, "You bit my lip!  That fuckin' hurt!"

 

I think considering the brilliance of the performances around him it's easy to overlook the incredibly fine line Cassel walked between sleaze, asshole and inspiration. No easy feet.

First, I'd just like to say that this thread has been a great read. Kudos to all of you for not turning it into some "oh that lesbo scene was hawt OMG i wanna fuck em both" bullshit. You've all kept it civilized and even with members like Tyler Foster expressing why they didn't like the movie, they were able to back up why and you all (except cobane) kept it clean and had a proper discussion with him and the others who weren't fans of the movie. No name calling, or ganging up on them. Amazing discussion so far with great points and counter points. I won't go into too much detail because, well, all of you have pretty much summed up how I feel about this one.

During my viewing it wasn't doing much for me at first. I had gone into this one blind; not knowing anything about it. I didn't even know Cassell or Ryder were in it until only a few days ago. I still had no real idea as to what the plot was. I just assumed it was Bad Girl (Kunis) tries to take down Good Girl (Portman). Wow... I was so off. Ahaha! The film eventually grew on me once I realized I was essentially watching a ballet/opera. It all clicked and I really started enjoying the movie a lot more.

Portman was great. I believe this is her career performance and it'll be a shame if she doesn't take home the Oscar because I think it'd be another few years before she'll be a serious contender for another. I hope I'm wrong but congrats to her for delivering such a fantastic peformance.

Kunis was great too. I'm not sure who mentioned (maybe Renn in his review?) but they said she's always known for these types of roles. It suits her and here it works well and she does a great job. Hopefully this will give her a confidence boost to steer her career to better films and becoming a quality actress. I'd like to see that happen for her.

And Cassell. Perfect casting. He looks exactly like how his character acted. His character has been around and knows how to play the game. Knows what he needs to do. Everyone said it: he balanced sleaze and serious director perfectly.

This film makes me realize that I still haven't seen The Fountain. I really need to re-watch Requim, Wrestler and check out The Fountain. I give Aronofsky enough attention. I need to remedy that.

Also, I saw this with my mom. Kinda made the first masturbation scene and lesbian scene a little uncomfortable. Woooo, good times.

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Originally Posted by Brendan 

This film makes me realize that I still haven't seen The Fountain. 

If I could reach into the internet and shake you like a British nanny I would - rectify that shit yesterday.

Seriously. What was really cool for me regarding The Fountain was that I was taking a folklore/mythology class around the same time, so the entire movie I kept thinking "whoa I just read that!" It's fun and heady and gorgeous.

Black Swan is equally intoxicating. I've seen it three times--different groups of friends wanted to see it--and I've never grown bored.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelM 

"Too deliberate" is a fantastic summation of my least subjective criticisms. And I fully expected to go out via shivving for bad taste!

I guess my only question would be how you found this movie to be "too deliberate", but didn't have this problem with his other movies. I mean, I'd say this is almost subtle compared to The Fountain or Requiem For A Dream. It's a completely fair criticism but I'm not sure if I'd single this out, out of his entire filmography, for it.

Patrick, that's a great question. I'm not sure I can answer it in a satisfactory way, but I'll give it a shot.

For me, THE FOUNTAIN was a love story about two characters I cared deeply about wrapped in metaphoric and SF layers. Tommy and Izzy seemed real to me. BLACK SWAN featured characters I neither cared about nor felt particularly "real" to me. They seemed much more symbolic than central, if that makes sense. BLACK SWAN seemed almost like the photo negative of THE FOUNTAIN; the characters and thin plot seemed to serve the imagery and ideas, rather than the other way around.

But at the end of the day, I am very sure my dislike of BLACK SWAN is really subjective. And 1) I'm OK with that and 2) I know I won't convince anyone of my position.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, Michael, but could your emotional distance be caused by the setting itself? Ballet, in spite of its grandly emotional storylines, is considered as a quite haughty and detached artform by many. To pull an example out of my ass, say this movie was about a young singer going crazy trying to match Janis Joplin's rendition of Piece Of My Heart. Or about a painter obsessed with Van Gogh trying to create a painting equal to Starry Night. Otherwise, though an exact copy.

Do you think you'd feel warmer towards it?

Stelios, that's a neat way to reframe it. While my ultimate answer is a weaselly "It would depend," my gut response is, "No."

I was reading a piece of Drew's on HitFix this AM, and he wrote something along the lines of "a character doesn't need to be likeable, but should be interesting to watch." I didn't like Nina (or anyone in the film, really) and I didn't find them "interesting" in the sense enjoying, in the most inclusive sense of the term, watching her story.

While others have remarked about the theme of obssession running through Aronofsky's films, Tommy Creo and Randy the Ram are far more interesting (and even likeable) as characters than Nina, to me. They all are self-involved and they all run roughshod over the people around them in pursuit of what they want....but Creo and Randy felt more real and accessible. Creo loved his wife, and feared death - two things which are pretty understandable and easy to hop on for the ride. Randy wanted a better relationship with his daughter, and fumbled around for a life beyond wrestling (despite failing to do so). Again, both pretty easy to empathize with and gain some interest and sympathy. With Nina, not only are we dealing with the haughtiness of the art form (a great wa to put it), but with characters I simply don't care about.

I know that having a central character (or characters) whom the viewer can "like" gets a lot of grief in these parts, but as a moviegoer, I still find it pretty critical to my enjoyment of a film. I'm not talking about a perfect or traditionally "good" character - but at least someone you can root for in some way.

Perhaps we are the main characters. There are a lot of moments meant to shock or toy with the audience and it's true Nina is not as fully-fleshed as his previous protagonists. In that sense Black Swan is more of a sensory experience than a traditional narrative, which lends itself nicely to previous discussions of the film's ideas of art, the artist, and the viewer. I don't necessarily subscribe to this view; I'm just thinking out loud thanks to MichaelM.

Just came back from this. I liked it. Especially the last 15mins where Nina finally "transforms" in the Black Swan. She looks so radically different that its shocking in its changes. Portman really gave a fantastic performance in that final scene.

A little quibble though. Call me someone who knows very little about Ballet. But I wasn't impressed by most of Nina's Ballet in the early parts of the film. She just looks so nervous, constipated and stiff when compared to Lily and some of the other dancers. Cassel calls her "Beautiful" and "Technically Perfect" but even he admits that shes all wrong for the Black Swan role. And in the course of most of her rehersals, Nina doesn't seem to improve.

Wonder why Cassel didn't replace her with someone else? Maybe there just wasn't anyone better.

Also I wonder if the parts of Wionna stabbing herself and Nina's toes being fused together real? Or were they just more hallucinations?

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Originally Posted by felix 

Just came back from this. I liked it. Especially the last 15mins where Nina finally "transforms" in the Black Swan. She looks so radically different that its shocking in its changes. Portman really gave a fantastic performance in that final scene.

 

A little quibble though. Call me someone who knows very little about Ballet. But I wasn't impressed by most of Nina's Ballet in the early parts of the film. She just looks so nervous, constipated and stiff when compared to Lily and some of the other dancers. Cassel calls her "Beautiful" and "Technically Perfect" but even he admits that shes all wrong for the Black Swan role. And in the course of most of her rehersals, Nina doesn't seem to improve.

 

Wonder why Cassel didn't replace her with someone else? Maybe there just wasn't anyone better.

 

Also I wonder if the parts of Wionna stabbing herself and Nina's toes being fused together real? Or were they just more hallucinations?

About her dancing. I think that the film intentionally tried to make you feel like her when she danced. Nervous, scared, always on the brink of fucking up. You saw her the way she sees herself. Therefore for the actual quality of her dancing you have to take the other characters on their word. If everyone says "Perfect" you must assume it actually was.

The toes fusing together was just her losing her mind. But the stabbing? I kind of got the impression it actually happened. Or it could have been a precursory hallucination to Nina stabbing herself in the end.

I assumed the stabbing was also hallucinatory, but its reality was beside the point. We're deep in Nina's crisis/psychosis at that point, and almost all of what we see is questionable.

I'm procrastinating again... by watching the videos of David Poland's interviews with the filmmakers and the cast that CaptainZahn linked earlier in the thread.  Natalie Portman offers up something I don't think I've yet heard mentioned in this thread specifically.

Portman is one of the few people who don't think Nina dies at the end.  Her take on the end is that she simply matures both into a true artist and her own woman.  Death is not an issue in the ending for her.

Portman is articulate and engaging in the interview.

There's a portion where she discusses her thoughts on exposing her body in a world where such actions are taken out of context and objectified on the internet.  I'm actually surprised that she's given an opportunity to discuss it at length.  It's a good interview.

I love that when Aronofsky is told what Portman said regarding the "period blood" thing he's like, "She said that? Hmm... I'll have to have a talk with her about that." He clearly didn't want that "out there."

Yeah, Aronofsky is usually an artist who wants to keep discussion going by not always giving away his intentions.  In a Q&A for The Fountain I went to years ago, someone asked him "what did so-and-so mean?"  He just replied, "Well, what do you think it means?" 

So I dragged a few friends to go see this tonight.  It was my birthday: MY CHOICE! Bwahahah!  I loved the film just as much the 2nd time around.  My friends were a little off on it.  One guy is a little inscrutable, but he mentioned that it was definitely not the film he was expecting.  One girl was mostly freaked out by how weird it was.  But another friend reacted to the film the way Tyler did.  He just couldn't care enough about Nina to really get into the movie.  NOT subtle, is how he described it.  Heheheh.

And really, I can find neither rhyme nor reason for why someone would 'connect' with Nina's character or not.  The film is so subjectively from her point of view that I would normally find it impossible not to empathize with her in some way.  But what I can understand is how the film would leave anyone cold who doesn't connect with Nina.  The film puts itself out there so far that without that connection, the whole affair can come across pretty silly.

The film seems to have connected with most audiences though, considering the fact that it's Aronofsky's most successful film by far. 

I liked the movie but didn't totally love it as I did with Requiem or Fountain. I'm kind of indifferent to The Wrestler. I found the hand held camera work a bit annoying at times. It's still an amazing piece of work but not mind melting. Most impressive was the fact that this got made for 13 mill and has grossed 105 million domestic and 147 foreign for a total of 253 worldwide. So, in closing, we got a movie that was challenging, innovative and daring without it costing 120 million, the cost of that James L. brooks piece of fucking shit How Do You Know, proving that you can match art with commerce.

I know the studio's aren't suddenly going to stop making garbage like Transformers because it makes a fortune for them but what we need are more movies like Black Swan, done at a resonable price that allows the filmmakers creative freedom.

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Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

 

And really, I can find neither rhyme nor reason for why someone would 'connect' with Nina's character or not.  The film is so subjectively from her point of view that I would normally find it impossible not to empathize with her in some way.  But what I can understand is how the film would leave anyone cold who doesn't connect with Nina.  The film puts itself out there so far that without that connection, the whole affair can come across pretty silly.

 

This really summarizes my reaction to it - no connection or empathy with Nina, and I did find it pretty "silly" (meaning insubstantial). Having said that....

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Originally Posted by BurnInHell 

I know the studio's aren't suddenly going to stop making garbage like Transformers because it makes a fortune for them but what we need are more movies like Black Swan, done at a resonable price that allows the filmmakers creative freedom.

...I second this. While I didn't really care for BLACK SWAN - and it's not something that's improved with distance/time - I can understand the good qualities of the film, and would hope the studios indeed pay attention to the success of this film (and MONSTERS, et al) and maybe see that good story, effects and acting can be had without spending $200 million on a film.
 

This movie was excellent. Went to see it three weeks after it came out and the crowd was still packed. I already ordered one of the art posters to put in my dorm room next year.

And on the success, I honestly think we'll see a mini-revival of the Golden Age of Hollywood. With the success of this, True Grit, and Inception, more filmmakers will be given creative control if they keep their budgets down. It won't overtake the current blockbuster system, but it might run parallel.

I have to concur with Tyler and Michael, this film left me cold. While I could understand Nina's plight, I didn't empathize with it. I just couldn't care less what happened to her, which was pretty obviously telegraphed from the get-go. The film was quite effective in showing how scared and driven Nina was, but there was nothing else. It was literally two hours of non-stop tension. At least in a horror movie we get jump scares to release some of that nervous energy. But ultimately, I wanted to be taken on a journey. And while I suppose some could say that Nina's psychosis escalated throughout the movie, I just found it one note until the climax. And then the film was over. If the film wanted me to feel claustrophobic and annoyed at having to watch this miserable person do miserable things to herself, it worked. I couldn't even enjoy the ballet scenes because Nina couldn't enjoy herself. Again, I suppose that's the point. But boy was it a miserable experience. When the film ended, the theater just sat in stone cold silence. Which was in stark contrast to the four other movies I saw (this was shown during the AMC Best Picture Oscar marathon) in which people were actively engaged in the film and cheered or cried out or felt something in response to what they saw. Not with Black Swan. Just silence. That said, the performances were superb, and the dance sequences were quite beautiful. I just wish that I could connect to this on any level. Also, who the fuck masterbates the way Portman did in this film? And I never want to see a nail file again in my whole entire life.

On the flip side, my friend who absolutely adored this sat in disbelief that anyone could take Inception seriously. She was not on board from the onset so it was just 2 1/2 hours of comedy to her. In contrast, as soon as the opening credits began I was hooked. Some movies just click, and some don't.

I take this as a straight up genre flick which is why I can forgive the lack of any real depth to the characters. It's a Horror movie made by the Director of one of the greatest Horror movies of the last decade or so. Yeah, I'm saying that Requiem for a Dream isn't just a masterpiece but a GREAT Horror movie that left me emotionally devastated more then any Horror movie I've seen since Se7en back in 1995. Black Swan isn't the masterpiece that some are claiming but it easily beats most of the fucking trash that passes for Horror these days. I just got the Blu-ray and I think Aronofsky was a fucking fool for shooting this on 16mm. It looks so washed out and the grain makes some parts look ugly as shit. In comparison, some of the behind-the-scene's footage (shot on HD) looks stunning and made the movie look worse when shown side by side. If Aronofsky wanted to go with a smaller camera he should have done what the Crank guys did and shoot BS on pro-sumer cameras because Crank 2 not only delivered vivid cinematography but the finished movie has a grainy look to it that is superior to the photography in Black Swan.

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Originally Posted by Diva 

Also, who the fuck masterbates the way Portman did in this film?

I've known more than one.

Anyone notice how shit this movie looks on Blu-ray? I think Aronofsky really fucked up by shooting this on 16mm as the shot-on-video behind the scene's footage looked infinitely better with stronger colors, deeper blacks not to mention a lack of headache inducing grain!

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Originally Posted by Spams Alot 

Anyone notice how shit this movie looks on Blu-ray? I think Aronofsky really fucked up by shooting this on 16mm as the shot-on-video behind the scene's footage looked infinitely better with stronger colors, deeper blacks not to mention a lack of headache inducing grain!

Considering he directed the movie, it wasn't a fuck up, but a choice.  And I thought the grain complemented the eerie nature of the story.  Most every horror movie is shot on 35mm or HD...what's one shot on 16?  I'm glad he did it.