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b. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821 –1881) was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. Dostoyevsky explores human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. His literary works were influenced by realist and romanticist writers, most notably Dickens, Gogol and Balzac, and his best remembered work was Crime and Punishment. Dostoyevsky overall wrote 11 complete novels, 3 novellas, 17 short novels and 3 essays. He is often regarded as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature. c. Swan Lake was composed during 1875–1876 by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Initially in four acts, it was based on Russian folk tales, telling the story of Odette, a princess who turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger. The ballet was premièred on March 4, 1877 in Moscow, with the name The Lake of the Swans. d. The director also considered Black Swan a sequel to his 2008 film The Wrestler, which also reflects features of demanding art: an aging professional wrestler continues to participate in wrestling matches in order to resume his 1980s heyday performance regardless of his failing health. Themes:
The film Black Swan addresses most of the significant issues confronting girls and women in the modern day world, of which the complex relationships Nina is involved in, especially the mother-daughter relationship, the pursuit of perfection and the virgin-whore dichotomy are the most worthy of being mentioned.
a. Complex Human Relationships: For the complex human relationships, particularly the mother –daughter relationship, we see a mother who appears both supportive and destructive toward her daughter, who alternately cheers on her daughter yet also attempts to sabotage her; and who on the one hand lives vicariously through her daughter while resenting her achievements. And we cannot exaggerate the influence the mother (compounded with that of Thomas) on Nina’s deterioration. These influences are so subtle and clueless that no one could blame the mother for what was happening to Nina and her increasingly unhealthy behavior. For the other relationships such as with Lily and Thomas, we can see a lesbian relationship that is both liberating and destructive and a complicated mentor-sexual predator-manipulative boss relationship.
b. Perfection Seeking: The theme of perfection seeking is seen throughout the film in Nina, who struggles both physically and psychologically to get her artistic ideal. Nina longs for acceptance and being “chosen”; to be perfect, she experiences so much pressure from the environment that shapes one’s very identity. Apart from illustrating the intense pressure, external and internal, to be perfect, the film does drive home the reality that perfection is something that’s never actually attainable. Once you’ve achieved one kind of perfection–as Nina had as a “perfect” white swan–the game or the world always disappoints you by wanting more from you and extracting from you something you do not have. The symbolic ending of the film added a poignant statement on what it means to be an artist, visually portraying the physical manifestations of suffering one must endure through their bodies and minds in order to reach or approach artistic perfection. c. Virgin/Whore dichotomy: Meanwhile, the virgin/whore dichotomy is central to Nina’s story. She’s spent her whole life trying to be the pure, perfect ballet dancer, and has achieved that goal to some extent. Physical, emotional, and sexual purities can all be seen in her small, underdeveloped, and young body. But it’s when she tries to become the perfect seductive whore as demanded by the director that Nina is torn apart. She is asked to show not only technical perfection but sensuality and sexuality as well. She can’t handle the duality, the double identity: she can’t contain the perfect virgin and perfect whore at once.
Conflicts:
a. Nina vs Lily: To get the role, Nina has to compete with Lily, a new dancer, who impresses the Thomas as well. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly with her inherent innocence and grace, but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan of guile and sensuality. As the two young dancers transform and escalate their rivalry into a twisted friendship or even a lesbian affair, Nina begins to uncover her own dark side, an irrational passion that will lead to self destruction. b. Nina vs Thomas: No one wants the role of the white and black swan more than Nina, who lives to dance and who wants to be exactly like Beth Macintyre (the company's former principle dancer) in every aspect. Nina is a technically proficient and hard working dancer who can easily play the innocent white swan, but Thomas, who cannot see she has the dark passion required to portray the black swan, becomes increasingly critical of her \innocent white swan only and get herself into the passionate dark swan. c. Nina vs Her Mom: The mother-daughter conflict is very obvious in the movie. The mother has been trying to mold Nina into what she herself
has failed to be, yet her obsessive love and care is strangling Nina, who, no longer her mother’s baby girl, attempts to break out this confinement and to preserve her freedom and individuality. d. Nina vs Herself: Of all the thematic conflicts in the film Black Swan, conflicts of music and life, the confusions of reality and dream, and all the other complicated conflicts, the most fundamental one involves the protagonist Nina who struggles within herself on matters of light and dark, good and evil. Her conflict is reified in the form of the twin swan princesses, the innocent White Swan, Odette, and her seductive, aggressive twin Black Swan. Nina has to understand and learn that the desired role is both a pure, na?ve white swan and a raw, visceral temptress and that true perfection is a mixture of order and chaos. In this sense she is her own worst enemy, and this conflict between the ideal and the reality is consuming Nina. The black swan metaphor of finding personal freedom is best seen in the inner conflict of the main character, an innocent dedicated girl, who then submits herself to a transformation which will reveal an adverse side of her. The tragedy of Nina, and of many young performers and athletes, is that perfection in one area of life has led to sacrifices in many of the others.
Performances
According to The Independent, the film Black Swan was considered one of \most highly anticipated\films of late 2010. Natalie Portman has won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and the film was itself nominated for Best Picture within a total of 5 nominations including one for Darren Aronofsky for the Best Director.
Portman played a veteran ballerina in Darren Aronofsky's 2010 film Black Swan, a role of which critic Kurt Loder wrote: \of her most compelling performances in this film, which is saying something.\To prepare for the role, she went through five to eight hours of dance training each day for six months and lost 20 pounds. In 2011, she won both the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. He was always artistic: he favored classic movies and, as a teenager, and he even spent time doing graffiti art. Aronofsky got a reputation as a brash, intelligent filmmaker at the age of 29, with Pi, his 1998 feature directorial and screenwriting debut. In Black Swan, as in his other representative films, he uses a technique known as the hip-hop montage, which is a sequence of images or actions shown in fast-motion with accompanying sound effects, usually shown to simulate a certain action, such as taking drugs. Meanwhile, he employs sounds to objects that are not always seen on screen. And most characteristic of him and most obvious in the Black Swan, he portrays characters (like Nina and to some extent
her mother) with strong obsessions that drive them towards self-destruction.