Film Friday: Black Swan (2010)

Academy Awards are not a measure of greatness. To the contrary, they’re often better at marking films you should avoid. Black Swan received five nominations and won for Best Actress. Bad sign. Add in that this was billed as a snotty, behind-the-scenes, “insider” look at the world of ballet, plus my displeasure with Darren Aronofsky over The Wrestler, The Fountain and Below, and this looked like a loser. Imagine my surprise when I watched this and found it to be one of the best films in years. Seriously.

On its surface, Black Swan is the story of ballet dancer Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) who has won the role of the black/white swan in the play “Swan Lake.” She is plagued with doubts, a sexually harassing director (Vincent Cassel), a jealous stage-mom, and a young competitor Lily (Mila Kunis) with effortless natural talent. The story begins right before she wins the role and ends after her first performance. Sounds thrilling, doesn’t it?

Actually, this is a classic example of the marketing not quite telling you what the story is really about. In truth, this isn’t about ballet at all. It’s a psychological thriller. And you should give this film a chance without thinking it’s a film about sniping at a ballet. You won’t be disappointed. Before I continue down this path, however, let me put up the spoiler warning because pretty much anything I talk about after this point will be a genuine spoiler:

** Spoiler Alert – I recommend seeing this film before continuing. **

One of the first things to strike you when you watch this film is how nasty everyone seems. Cassel is a sexual harasser who thinks he has the right to openly demand that his leading ladies sleep with him. He’s smarmy, rotten, and indifferent to the harm he’s doing to these women. His last conquest, who he has apparently forced into retirement, lives in a perpetual jealous rage. Sayers’ mother is like a living version of Norman Bates’ mother. She watches Sayers like a hawk, even creeping into her room at night, and keeps her trapped in the apartment. She also pounds Sayers with constant barbs about how she gave up her career as a dancer to raise Sayers. Lily is even worse. She’s a flirt and everyone loves her, and she seems to try very hard to befriend Sayers, but this just hides her betrayal.

All of this gets woven together so wonderfully that my first thought watching the film was that Sayers was truly alone, surrounded by hateful people all with their own agendas, who are trying to destroy her to satisfy their own perverse desires. And as their actions become more extreme, this film seemed headed toward a spectacular explosion.

But you soon start to realize something is wrong with Sayers. In fact, the plot moves so expertly that you don’t see the signs until you are deeply within her psychosis. For example, we see excessive shyness and social awkwardness, but it doesn’t seem outrageous. We see a rash, which she scratches, and her mother obsessing over her scratching it. We see her sneak into the star’s dressing room and steal her lipstick because she’s dreaming about being a star. It seems harmless. None of this raises our suspicions, especially because her conduct seems to be a response to the nasty, aggressive people around her.

Soon we start to see the truth. She is intensely frigid to the point of being obsessive. And her view of the others as sexual predators may not be true at all. For example, Sayers sees Cassel as a sexual predator, yet he never actually forces himself on her. She sees Lily the same way, but maybe Lily’s just flirty and is genuinely trying to be nice? That rash? It’s no rash. She cuts herself and doesn’t remember doing it. The stolen lipstick? It’s part of an eerie stalker-like collection. And then you have the visions. When they begin, you think she’s simply mistaking one person for someone else she knows. But as they progress, it becomes clear they are paranoid visions of herself, and soon we don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.

Usually when actors try to play crazy, they shift around nervously to make themselves appear different or do something maniacal while saying things that make no sense. The idea is to standout and seem abnormal. Here, Portman and Director Aronofsky do the reverse. Rather than make Portman act crazy, she acts sane and troubled by the crazy actions of the others around her, each of whom seems slightly over-the-top and exaggerated. Thus, while Portman seems sane, it’s only because we don’t understand at first that we are seeing the world from her perspective.

The visions are the perfect example of this. Rather than treating the visions as real and overacting to them, as is typically done, Portman very cleverly, through her acting not her words, tells the audience that she knows these are visions and knows they aren’t real. This adds an incredible amount of depth to her portrayal of insanity. For one thing, this feels more real because this is how most people probably fear insanity would creep upon them, i.e. that they would slowly lose touch with reality rather than it all happening at once. For another, it allows the audience to feel her insanity because they are just as confused about reality as she is. Indeed, rather than being an observer watching her rant and rave, we are a participant trying to figure out what is going on. Finally, it makes the audience feel her despair because she clearly needs help, but there’s nothing the audience can do to help her. Any film that can pull an audience into a character and make them feel the emotions of the character is brilliant and Aronofsky and Portman achieve that here through their brilliant choice to understand her insanity.

I think there are some excellent lessons here. If you want to portray insanity, focus on how the insane person sees the world. Remember that for many insane people, it’s everybody else who’s crazy. And crazy need not be stark raving mad. Portman and Aronofsky should be commended for this film. It’s one of the best I’ve seen in years.