INITIAL VIEWING NOTES

SECOND VIEWING NOTES

Cinematography:

Darren Aronofsky uses a gray scale with costumes nearly all in black and white creating a monotonous atmosphere. This atmosphere is uncomfortable, cold and ever so slightly surreal. The use of costume was effective for Nina and Lily, Nina is seen wearing white, with a light pink coat and fluffy white scarf while Lily wears black and has black wings tattooed on her back. This adds to the image of white, innocent perfection that Nina strives to embody, in contrast to the mystery and allure of Lily’s dark appearance. The camera angles are used deliberately in a way that positions the audience to see through Nina’s confused eyes. The camera is moved chaotically, creating a sensory overload for the audience and reflecting the overwhelmed state of her brain, where something is pulling her from every direction. He includes strange altering perspectives, over the shoulder shots and mirror angles that enhance the affect of Nina’s deteriorating state of mind. These techniques also create the surreal nature of Nina’s relationship with Lily as they blend them together as one in the same, convinces us of the imagined moments between the two of them and furthers the impact Nina’s psychosis has on the audience’s own perspective.

He uses Mise En Scene effectively in a way that creates Nina’s character and adds to the discomfort of the film. Her room is filled with stuffed animals, frills and all the things you might expect to find in a five-year-old’s bedroom. Nina is a fully grown adult yet is portrayed to us and the people around her as youthful, light and innocent. When she ‘transitions into the black swan’ and begins to behave differently, the appearance of her room etc makes our discomfort immense, it is all just wrong to look at. This furthers the conflict between the black swan an the white swan and the drawing together of the two that she is forced into but is so unnatural because of their extremities.

Sound engineering too creates a discomfort in the audience. There is a lot of quietness while sounds like breath, scratching and cracking are clear, placing the audience directly in the moment and making them cringe at the overwhelming and convincing crispness. Again, the line is impossible to draw between real and surreal, with the realistic, loud sounds as we move back and forth from illusion to reality, what she sees and what is physically happening before her, we can hear it all either way because that is what she is hearing herself. She can imagine it so clearly that there is no way for her to differentiate between the two.

‘Black Swan’ – The Film’s Title

Swan Lake has both a black swan and a white swan, usually played by two different characters; however in the film, Nina Sayers “must plat both”. She has been trained her whole life to embody the idea of female perfection through whiteness; innocence, purity, gentleness and beauty. When she is made to play both, it becomes prevalent that to be perfect is no longer to be white, it is to be that and it’s opposite, to be everything. They are inseparable, but she has been lead to believe that she must be white, and so she suppresses the ‘black’ inside her. Then, she must be black, and so she tries to do the opposite and needs to

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Plot

“the most powerful elements of emotional interest in tragedy — Peripeteia or Reversal of Situation, and Recognition scenes — are parts of the plot.”

Aristotle’s plot is a strict series of things that happen to it’s tragic hero, in the reinvention of tragedy however, this series can be rearranged to suit the medium, character and intention of the work. Darren Aronofsky rearranges Aristotle’s plot so that all elements are included but in a creative and often unexpected way. His tragic heroine, Nina, experiences peripeteia and anagnorisis- as the most powerful elements of emotional interest- in a distorted way that branches out from the structure that was utilized in plays. This distortion is arguably more realistic and replicates a reality that the average person faces. Tragic heroes such as King Lear and Citizen Kane experience a distinct moment of anagnorisis and peripeteia, a moment in the script where we see their fate turn around or their mindset alter; whereas Nina flickers through these elements throughout her journey. She goes in and out of recognition and ignorance, which enhances the effect of the anagnorisis because Nina has moments where she realizes she is falling, making decisions that cause her own devastation BUT continues anyway- she choses to be ignorant because in ignoring the damage she is doing to herself, she can continue and get what she wants even when it is destroying her. (“You could have been brilliant, but you are a coward.”) She hides from the recognition that King Lear embraces because she will sacrifice any hope for her own future to be more for the idea of being perfect; even if it is just for a moment. The adjustment of the anagnorisis element made this more vital because it realistically communicated the gravity of the sacrifice Nina makes, she gives up herself to be everything, therefore becoming nothing.

Subplot

SWAN LAKE

• “she needs true love to break the curse” – THE IRONY
• BS & WS are inherently different and tied together as one. You cannot have one without the other.
• all for the prince- everything rides on his attention
• Thomas represents Rothbart and the Prince, and in that, represents society and its imposition on her identity.
• “not just the prince. The court, the audience, the whole world.” The struggle of perfection and the stretching in every direction- “the Kane who entertained millions, the Kane who died alone.” Womanhood- the CONSTANT EXPECTATIONS walking on a tight rope where there is no room for mistakes.
• transferability / fear of her own used by date – she is the ballerina, the Swan Queen, a story replicated everywhere.

The subplot of the Swan Lake story is effective in paralleling what will happen to Nina in Black Swan and also in the communication of the directors intention. The battle between the black swan and the white swan in Swan Lake is reflected in Nina’s own battle between the two sides of her identity. The irony of her curse is the need to be loved- yet both the white swan and Nina have a warped perception of what this means. They “need true love to break the curse”, true connection, yet she is made to believe that this love must come from the affection of a man and the applause of an audience.

Dialogue

“Every word is either current, or strange, or metaphorical, or ornamental, or newly-coined, or lengthened, or contracted, or altered.”

“in death, she found freedom.”

• the nemesis- she is being “stretched on the rack of the world” and death would be a relief. But “things aren’t the worst unless you cannot say ‘this is the worst’.”

“…not so controlled, seduce us. Not just the prince, the court, the audience, the whole world.”

• the expectation that she must be everything to everyone. It is IMPOSSIBLE, she must be perfect in her image to not only the man but the audience, the entire world. It plays on the aspect of tragedy that has the tragic hero wanting too much- constantly striving for more. Simultaneously, this highlights the contrast between the tragic hero and this adaptation for a modern tragic heroine because the expectations and impact of those expectations are based on the gender of the hero/heroine.

“would you fuck that girl?”

“You could be brilliant. But you are a coward.”

• in their search for everything, for more, they lose the potential they have to be more, to be brilliant, to “let herself go” and have a life. In order to be everything she has to also be nothing because to give your entire self up for one thing, is to cower away from the possibility of being human and being healthy because in order to do so, she would have to sacrifice the possibility of perfection.

“I felt it. It was perfect. I was perfect.”

• only in going so far that she kills herself does she reach a point of ‘perfection’. BUT to reach it, she HAD to feel it. “A man may see without eyes.’ ‘I see it feelingly'”. Draws on the element explored by Shakespeare of seeing and feeling. Ultimately, in order to ‘have it all’, to ‘be everything’, to —- she has to feel it rather than fake it. She has to let it all in.

Thought

“For the essence of a riddle is to express true facts under impossible combinations.”
“…poetry utters universal truths…”

• “Probably impossible”
• Looking further, it is the knowledge through suffering idea
• The fictional/impossible/magical vehicle on which the realistic idea/warning is delivered
• 20th century post-war American authors- realism rather than kitchen-sink naturalism. Psychologically real and recognizable characters with a plot line that is not exactly real- but through the expressionism, we understand the realism.

The universal truth, warning and significance:

• Wanting MORE- the catalyst for tragic heroes, because she is female, this manifests in…>
• The tragedy of perfection and best-ness, tragedy of women
• a reminder of the purposeless nature of life, because nothing in her life has meaning in the end. and because of this, to live as fully as possible, with connection over perfection, because in the end, the most significant thing you can have or experience is love and connection between people

Melody

Reality verses Delusion/Overwhelming Soundscape:

• warping of sound when in her delusion, sound of fluttering/flapping wings, scratching magnified
• breath clear, crisp and close us. Intense inhales, sounds high and youthful
• crispness of sound makes us uncomfortable and draws us into Nina as it sounds as if we are hearing from her perspective, so makes the delusion more real and have a more poignant impact on our own experience of her psychosis.

Swan Lake Soundtrack:

• provides contrast between the darkness we see unfolding on the screen and the intense, high music, or slow delicate and beautiful piano. Effective in making the audience more confused and draws them into Nina’s own confusion about what she is experiencing, positive or negative, excited or scared.
• Irony of this in moments^ when she is breaking, bleeding, crying, the soundtrack is magnificent and climactic, the best part, in order to be at that ‘best part’ of the soundtrack and storyline, she is dying.
• Highlights the way in order to be what everybody wants her to be, to get that applause, she must contort herself. Only when she is in the most pain, does she reach that state of perfection and glory for those watching her.

Spectacle

“A sign of this is what happens in our actions, for we delight in contemplating the most accurately made images of the very things that are painful for us to see, such as the forms of the most contemptible insects and of dead bodies.”

“the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies n eye for resemblances.”

Swan Metaphor:

Costuming:

Nina’s Face Reappearing:

Mirrors (sight):

Close up Shots:

David Cronenberg:

Simple Sentence ONY Introduction

“A skillful director or creator carefully creates discomfort in the audience.”

The discomfort in Black Swan elicits a connection within its audience. Darren Aronofsky used this connection to deliver his warning. He communicates a tragedy of perfection. This is a grotesque form of Aristotle’s Greek tragedy. Discomfort forces an emotional reaction. This reaction endorses a cathartic experience for the audience. It is skillful direction