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I get the feeling that Darren Aronofsky’s movies are all about seeing how much pain he can put his audience through. Ok, that’s sort of a joke, but what’s so painful about watching Black Swan? At least that’s what I asked myself before stepping into the theater. We stomached pain of the purely physical kind in his most recent work, The Wrestler. Will we endure more of the same this time around, or should we expect emotional pain wrought by ballet dancers’ unbridled determination to rise to the top of the ballet world? The answers are probably yes to both, but, if that’s too easy a premise, Aronofsky does his best to complicate matters for us.
In the beginning of Black Swan we get an inside look into the sordid affairs of world class ballet. Unsurprisingly, we see what we might have assumed: gossip, connivance, back-stabbing, etc. It’s hard to fault one for including all this in their film; it all makes for titillating entertainment. Yet, it seems like such a turnaround for a director who previously presented us with an authentic and more profound view of a different entertainment industry in The Wrestler. I expected something more thought-provoking than what I get from TV on a daily basis.
Things start heating up the night before the show’s premiere. Sayers is so blinded by her own determination that she can’t see the truth from fiction. Hallucination after halluncination result in bedroom confinement at her mother’s behest. Regardless of the gossip and white lies we’re privy to earlier in the film, this dancer appears to be certifiably nuts. The hallucinations provide ample evidence to support this statement; if what we’re seeing is fake, what other events were made up? Who actually said what? Who slept with who? Who stabbed who? What animal is who now? Ok, it seems pretty obvious in the final scenes what is and isn’t a hallucination (hint: all of it), but what about everything before? It seems easy to say that her insanity was brought upon by the extraordinary demands of her immediate circle. And while I’m inclined to say that, yes, the supporting characters are all assholes, I can’t blame them for Sayers’ destruction anymore than I can blame her for bringing it on herself.
Attributing the cause of Sayers’ downfall to mental instability brings me back to my earlier point on pain in the Aronofsky-film-going experience. Just like the main character in The Wrestler was motivated to please his fans at whatever cost, Sayers suffered from the same disease to the tenth degree. However, the pain I felt during the screening came from something entirely different. The battle in The Wrestler was easier to define (self-preservation versus glory), and watching it was a matter of seeing which side would triumph. Here, it’s that much harder for me to comprehend the battle taking place in Sayers’ mind. When someone’s this messed up, what the hell do you root for? How does one even get to that state? For me, this failure to understand her world makes the film nearly unbearable to view.
In the beginning of Black Swan we get an inside look into the sordid affairs of world class ballet. Unsurprisingly, we see what we might have assumed: gossip, connivance, back-stabbing, etc. It’s hard to fault one for including all this in their film; it all makes for titillating entertainment. Yet, it seems like such a turnaround for a director who previously presented us with an authentic and more profound view of a different entertainment industry in The Wrestler. I expected something more thought-provoking than what I get from TV on a daily basis.
As for the story, it starts with auditions for Swan Lake, and everyone is eagerly anticipating the casting decision surrounding the show’s star. Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is thrust into the spotlight, and some real drama now unfolds (this is when we prepare ourselves for an excruciating viewing experience). During rehearsals, we see the actions she takes when her body does not meet the expectations she sets for it. We saw this in The Wrestler, but the way she rationalizes her behavior seems new. If her coda contains flaws it’s not because she doesn’t know the routine, but because her body can’t keep up. She punishes herself for it; she punishes her body to the point where she wants out of it altogether. If Aronofsky’s previous main character saw himself as too old, this one sees herself as imperfect and unworthy. Such unattainable aspirations are enough to drive just about anyone mad, but unfortunately it’s only the half of it.
The paradoxical demands made by her peers, teacher and mother inflict mental damage on Sayers that’s all their own. Her pursuit of technical perfection won the admiration of her teacher, yet he requests she abandon her control to master her role. Her success receives much-wanted attention from her peers, but to keep their advances requires failure. Her mother prizes her beauty, but to maintain it requires physical destruction. Their demands are filled with such contradictions that even the simplest of goals are impossible to achieve. Coupled with her unceasing determination to impress all around her, the necessary pieces are in place; we now have the perfect combination for some extremely unsettling mental breakdowns.Things start heating up the night before the show’s premiere. Sayers is so blinded by her own determination that she can’t see the truth from fiction. Hallucination after halluncination result in bedroom confinement at her mother’s behest. Regardless of the gossip and white lies we’re privy to earlier in the film, this dancer appears to be certifiably nuts. The hallucinations provide ample evidence to support this statement; if what we’re seeing is fake, what other events were made up? Who actually said what? Who slept with who? Who stabbed who? What animal is who now? Ok, it seems pretty obvious in the final scenes what is and isn’t a hallucination (hint: all of it), but what about everything before? It seems easy to say that her insanity was brought upon by the extraordinary demands of her immediate circle. And while I’m inclined to say that, yes, the supporting characters are all assholes, I can’t blame them for Sayers’ destruction anymore than I can blame her for bringing it on herself.
Attributing the cause of Sayers’ downfall to mental instability brings me back to my earlier point on pain in the Aronofsky-film-going experience. Just like the main character in The Wrestler was motivated to please his fans at whatever cost, Sayers suffered from the same disease to the tenth degree. However, the pain I felt during the screening came from something entirely different. The battle in The Wrestler was easier to define (self-preservation versus glory), and watching it was a matter of seeing which side would triumph. Here, it’s that much harder for me to comprehend the battle taking place in Sayers’ mind. When someone’s this messed up, what the hell do you root for? How does one even get to that state? For me, this failure to understand her world makes the film nearly unbearable to view.
Only incomprehension doesn’t seem to suffice when I dig a little deeper. I come back to the small pleasures I felt when viewing the earlier moments of gossip and betrayal. The film’s finale could be some sort of punishment for that joy. Or maybe for my laments about Aronofsky’s bland depiction of the ballet world; I demanded more, and now he throws it back in my face. As a consequence, he punishes her as a way to punish me. That culpability differentiates Black Swan’s pain from past Aronofsky films. Sayers seemed doomed from the onset, yet I demanded this ending as much as the ballet did. In this light, the pain I’m feeling starts to look less like confusion than guilt.
It’s been a few days since I’ve seen this film, and the pain seems to have lasting effects apart from the context of the movie. Maybe in an attempt to cash in on all this Black Swan inspired ballet-talk, some cable network is showing different versions of the Nutcracker daily until Christmas. Five minutes of viewing couldn’t pass without me getting sick to my stomach. Before I even got a chance to decide whether I cared about ballet, this movie seems to have ruined the experience forever. Never again will I look at tutu-sporting dancers perched on the tips of their toes in the same way. Maybe that’s the real pain I feel.
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