The 21c Museum Hotel partners with the OKC Film Society and deadCenter Film to host a monthly film series “Filmography.” They will kick off the notorious month of spookiness Oct. 19 with one of my favorite films of all time and what may be the classiest horror film ever made—Black Swan.
Director Darren Aronofsky, also known for Requiem for a Dream and mother!, still has yet to top this masterpiece he birthed in 2010, and the Academy agrees. With five Oscar nominations, including “Best Picture” and “Best Actress,” Black Swan is Aronofsky’s only Oscar-nominated film. Alongside The Silence of the Lambs, The Exorcist and few others, it is also among the slim ranks of Best Picture nominees from the horror genre. The film has taken up a place deep in my black heart, getting deeper every time I watch it.
Black Swan centers around struggling ballet dancer “Nina Sayers,” played by Natalie Portman, winner of the aforementioned “Best Actress” nomination. Cast as the “Swan Queen” in the ballet Swan Lake, Nina pushes herself increasingly harder toward perfection, fighting to master a role that is double-cast as the innocent “White Swan” and the sensual “Black Swan.” Things are not helped by the arrival of “Lily” (Mila Kunis), a rebellious and risqué dancer who perfectly embodies the Black Swan, the half of the role that Nina struggles to portray. As opening night approaches, youthful and innocent Nina enters a living nightmare of psychological and physical deformation alternating with trips and hallucinations, all to master the role of the Black Swan and ensure Lily doesn’t steal it.
The first thing the viewer notices is the constant juxtaposition of black and white in the costuming, representing visually the difference between Nina and others, purity beside impurity. If that wasn’t interesting enough for the aesthetic, Aronofsky does what he always does and mixes stripped-back realism with unwarned flashes of surrealism that could happen at any moment.
These usually come in quick glimpses of cinematography—a picture moving by itself, a face suddenly morphing into a different one or Nina’s reflection acting differently than she is. This makes Black Swan a piñata of cinematography, filled with visual metaphors and subtle plays on the psyche that may not be noticed until the third or fourth viewing.
The second thing the viewer will notice is the score, cut straight from Swan Lake itself, forcing the viewer to see the events through the lens of a greater, metaphorical story. This classical score, however, is interspersed with scenes whose only sound backing is bizarre whispers and sound distortion, and, in some chilling moments, these two types of scoring mix together to create an eerie, dissonant sensation.
Thematically, Black Swan hits so many different conceptual notes that the number of possible interpretations is almost indefinable. Aronofksy strikes a perfect balance between ambiguity so loose and trippy as to be unenjoyable (as in Requiem for a Dream) and a theme so preoccupied with a single idea that it becomes restrictive (as in mother!). Gender roles and perceptions, the evolution of an artist’s psyche, society’s tendency to set women up for failure, and the point where embracing oneself becomes destroying oneself are all captured under Black Swan’s umbrella.
The experience of Black Swan is the full metamorphosis of a character in symbolic and literal terms, whether it’s simply through the story itself or grotesque physical transformation of birdlike features. The arc this creates for Nina’s character and the overall story is immaculate, resulting in one of the most memorable endings to any film that I have ever seen.
Okay. Love letter over. Now go see it.
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