here ’ s the outline :
The importance of The Wrestler
I think we can all agree that when you beginning watch Black Swan the immediate questions you have are, “ How much was real ? What was real ? Why was Nina seeing what she saw ? ”
There ’ s some adept news program and bad news there. The full news is there ’ s an answer. The bad news is you ’ rhenium gon na have to deal with me for some paragraph. But, I promise you, you ’ re going to come away from this article with a wholly and profound understand of Black Swan.
Reading: The giant explanation of Black Swan
To start you on that path of Black Swan mastery, we ’ re actually going to begin with Darren Aronofsky ’ s previous movie—a little ditty called The Wrestler. And, honestly, if you just want the shortest answer, then behold .
I ’ ve constantly considered the two films company pieces. They are truly connected and people will see the connections. It ’ second funny story, because wrestling some consider the lowest art — if they would even call it art — and ballet some people consider the highest artwork. But what was amazing to me was how exchangeable the performers in both of these worlds are. They both make incredible use of their bodies to express themselves .
Black Swan is artsy and full of cinematic tricks and techniques that make artwork firm lovers drool. The Wrestler is a plunder down adaptation of that. In both, Aronofsky employed a hand-held television camera that not entirely lends a incompleteness and reality to the scenes but besides serves to visually link two disparate performers and two disparate performances. Combine that with Darren ’ s own entree about them being “ company pieces ” and what ’ s happening in Black Swan becomes less cryptic .
The Wrestler is reasonably upfront about how Robin Ramzinski ’ s career in the resound as Randy “ The Ram ” Robinson has left him in less than leading circumstances. Despite having been a huge star topology, his dusky years are a contend. There ’ second a brutality in the contrast of the man beloved in the feather circle vs. the man who wakes up alone in his run-down trailer in such pain he can scantily move. We see how the pressures and demands implicit in to the industry have left the performer in physical, mental, fiscal, and emotional ruin .
Fox Searchlight By the goal of The Wrestler, our performer has been told that if he wrestles in the ring again his affection could give out, killing him. At this charge, he ’ s faced with a choice between building what biography he can as Robin or going out as the Ram. In his final couple, feeling his heart on the brink, he makes the choice to climb to the top rope for his complete movie. It ’ s what the fans want—the match wouldn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate be right without the coating act. And Ram has decided he needs to and wants to give the fans what they demand and deserve .
sound conversant ?
Why it’s called Black Swan
real number fast, let ’ s talk about titles. What did they call the movie about Muhammed Ali ? Ali. What did they call the movie about Ray Charles ? Ray. What did they call the movie about the Oakland Athletics changing the economics and talent evaluation in baseball through the “ moneyball ” system ? Moneyball .
All very specific titles to ensure people understood the subject that was being discussed. Why then wasn ’ t the movie about Facebook called Facebook preferably than The Social Network ? One likely reason is you ’ ra crowning Facebook as more than fair a social network, it ’ s the social network—which, at the time, in 2011, yes it was. But another reason is that possibly the focus on the movie goes beyond Facebook. possibly the establish of Facebook is just an view in an examination of the effect of social dynamics on people. How our social networks and interactions bring out the best and worst in us. And how the smallest network possible, that between two people, can often be the most knock-down thing in the world .
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If The Social Network were just called Facebook then you potentially lose that added layer of meaning a deed can give. sol when you look at Aronofsky ’ s choice to use the generic, The Wrestler, quite than the particular, Ram, it begs the question : why make that option ?
You might already know what I ’ meter going to say .
The Ram ’ s woebegone narrative is, unfortunately, a common destine for wrestlers. Which means the Ram is representative of the wholly. His narrative is the floor of many. The final examination message, when stripped to its kernel point, is a bare one—wrestlers literally kill themselves for our entertainment .
While Black Swan wasn ’ thymine called The Ballerina, it ’ s about the same thing, equitable more specific. Ballerinas dance in ballets, a celebrated ballet is Swan Lake, one of the starring roles of Swan Lake is the Black Swan. This specificity might seem the diametric of The Wrestler, but hear me out. The Black Swan metaphorically represents the negative “ other ”. The evil twin. The dark nature. The more dangerous emotions. Aronofsky could have gone with the title, The Ugly, Troubling, Destructive Reality of Being a Ballerina. But that ’ south retentive as hell and very un-poetic. rather, you can capture that same connotation and energy and mean with the more mysterious, Black Swan .
This was a long way to set up the point that Black Swan international relations and security network ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate just a cool movie where a girl goes crazy and just happens to be a ballerina. It ’ second Aronofsky explore and presenting the pressures ballerinas face in an diligence that demands very much of them. In a sense, the point Aronofsky makes with the title is that in the world of professional ballet, these artists aren ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate allowed to be bare ballerinas…they ’ rhenium forced to be perfect bootleg swans .
Nina ’ s deplorable narrative is an exaggerated but park destine for ballerina. Which means Nina is representative of the whole. Her report is the fib of many. The final message, when stripped to its kernel sharpen, is a bleak one—ballerinas literally destroy themselves in an attack to be perfective .
“ My worst wound occurred when I attempted a barrel turn and moved my foot wrong, ” he said. “ I heard four pops, pulling my fibula and tibia apart. I besides tore a few tendons in my metrical foot. In the dancing world you are expected to go on, so I danced the perch of my set up like that before going off phase and collapsing in annoyance. I didn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate walk again for two months and was out for over four months… ”Ballet is Hell: 5 Nightmares Realities You’d Never Guess
Under pressure
The Wrestler was concerned with showing the issues that follow a wrestle career. Ram had barely any money, but didn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate have the appearance and skills for a part-time job much less a compensable 9-5. He was physically limited. He didn ’ t have a marriage because the road and work was besides debatable for a romanticist relationship. similarly, his kinship with his daughter is in the gutter. Jesus. This is the consequence of all the fame and pain Ram undergo to be a great performer for so many years. not to mention then all the humiliate things he still has to put up with good to scrape by ( steroid hormone practice, local wrestle shows that don ’ metric ton pay well, being yelled at while working at a delicatessen counter, etc ) .
Black Swan inverts the time skeleton. rather of being at the end of her career, we ’ re at the moment Nina could breakthrough to the following level. Despite the deviation in age, her situation is, like Ram ’ randomness, pretty black. She doesn ’ t make a fortune of money so has to live with her ma. Living with her ma and the little fourth dimension she has outside of dance has left Nina infantilized ( look at her bedroom ! ). The infantilization stunts her. Nina being stunted means she scantily has a social life a lot less a romantic one. The lack of social and romantic opportunities means she just focuses on ballet. The stress on ballet means she ’ s a big ballerina, but her whole identity is wrapped up in ballet. It ’ s all she has. Combine the singularity of her being with her stunt emotional development…and we have a recipe for psychological calamity that ’ second identical common in ballerina .
Some context :
Ballet is much a beautiful tragedy. The artwork of ballet is one of stunning beauty and grace– it is universe renowned and it ’ s alluring nature touches many lives. however, the health problems that many ballerinas face is devastating…. many women, including a majority of young dancers, go to drastic measures to obtain this consistency type. Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge Eating Disorder are all life threatening eating disorders that a boastfully sum of people and a statistically high gear amount of dancers have. One in five dancers has an eat disorder. Why is this the case ?The “Ballet Body”
Some insight :
….dance train may produce or exacerbate some less-than-healthy psychological pressures. New research from Portugal finds evidence of equitable such a dynamic among new ballet students. It reports that, compared to both music students and peers who studied neither art form, dancers had higher levels of “ psychological inflexibility ” — a express of mind that has been linked to anxiety and depressive symptoms in adolescents. Researchers Telmo Serrano and Helena Amaral Espirito-Santo define psychological inflexibility as “ excessive participation with the subject of inner events, ” such as emotions, thoughts, and memories. They note that this inward-pointing focus can “ bias the room the present moment is experienced, ” increasing fear of failure, and leading students to avoid nerve-racking situations quite than accepting the challenge. … That find is reproducible with previous research linking ballet training with perfectionism .Can Ballet Hurt Your Psyche
When you have all of this in mind, it ’ sulfur pretty wild to go back and watch Black Swan and see how deliberate Aronofsky is in detailing the aroused and physical atmospheric pressure in the ballet world. The competition between dancers that breeds isolation. The parents who are desperate to live vicariously through the achiever of their children. The injuries. The doubts. The rest at which you can be and will be replaced. The doubt of what opportunity you ’ ll have and when you ’ ll have it. Oy vey .
As Aronofsky develops and escalates this ecosystem of very real, very common stressors in the world of ballet, he dramatizes the effects of the anxiety through Nina ’ south hallucinations and self-harm. So the reason why Nina ’ s history plays out how it does is because Black Swan is an extreme depicting of the well-documented psychological issues ballerina confront .
With this reason of the external context, we can now dive into explaining what happened in the movie .
Black Swan explained
Nina and mirrors
We open the movie with Nina ’ randomness ambition. She soon awakens and explains to her ma ( and to us ) that it ’ sulfur from the prologue of Swan Lake, when the sorcerer Rothbart casts his spell on Princess Odette. The pipe dream has a few purposes. First, it introduces and promises a dreamlike shade to the film. Second, it aligns the story of the movie with the story of Swan Lake, meaning we should look at the movie as a repeat of the ballet. Third, it ’ s a sign Nina herself has fallen under some kind of trance .
In the identical following view Nina ’ mho on the underpass. A few shaping things happen here. First, it ’ s the introduction of the ocular duality. We see nina reflected in a windowpane on the underpass, her mirrored expression ( purposefully ) obscure as this early character hasn ’ thyroxine amply emerged yet. The reflection is a huge motif that escalates all the way to the climax when Nina “ fights ” in her dress room, breaking the mirror, then fatally stabbing herself with the shard of glass .
The mortal wound being from a break slice of glass from a mirror makes sense, justly ? Black Swan is all about duality. The mirror is representative of duality. Aronofsky highlights that throughout by having moments where the Nina in the Mirror acts individually from the even Nina. At first base it ’ second harmless, but the Nina in the Mirror grows more aggressive and chilling until we get the dressing room fight that occurs right before her transformation into the black swan. She straight up says, after the knife, “ It ’ s my turn. ”
“ Dancers are constantly looking at themselves, so their kinship with their observation is a huge part of who they are. Filmmakers are besides fascinated by mirrors, and it ’ s been played with ahead, but I wanted to take it to a fresh level. visually, we actually pushed that idea of what it means to look in a mirror. Mirrors become a big partially of looking into Nina ’ s character, which is all about doubles and reflection. ”–Darren Aronofsky
Nina and puberty
The Black Swan Nina who emerges from the mirror is built up to through the movie not precisely by the escalation of the Nina in the Mirror, but besides by the subplot of Nina going through the stages of growing up .
She starts the movie in a very childlike way—waking up from a badly ambition and going to tell her ma about it. You look at her bedroom and it looks like a little girl ’ mho board, not that of a 28-year previous women. We know this stunt development is partially due to Aronofsky ’ s criticism of ballet as a hale. But it ’ s besides there because the floor is about Nina ’ second personnel casualty of purity and her struggle to tap into that dark side of herself. By defining her as childlike, it highlights her purity and why she struggles with the function.
Read more : Polis Solutions | Our Training Team
We see her progress, though. For much of the movie, there ’ s a sense of build rebellion when it comes to Nina and her mother. Which is very typical of teenagers and young adults. then the whole sexual awakening sub-sub plot. God, that first scene where Nina touches herself and starts to get into it until she looks over and sees her ma asleep in the chair beside the bed. It ’ sulfur one of the most awkward and realistically terrify things I ’ ve ever seen in a movie. That ’ s precisely the bespeak excessively : this is why Nina ’ s stunted as she is, because her ma ’ south presence is so consuming it limits Nina ’ s privacy and choices and thus her experiences .
The night out with Lily begins how ? It could have merely been : lily shows up and asks Nina to go out, Nina hesitates, but Lily convinces her. rather, it ’ second : Nina hesitates, and Nina ’ s ma keeps showing up and demanding Nina come back inside. To the point where Lily is like, “ Jesus Christ. ” The argue Nina ends up leaving is because she wants to rebel from her mother, like a adolescent. Of course, then, it ’ randomness that night she comes home, locks her ma out, and masturbates amply after being denied and frustrated for so long. This is a breakthrough .
One cable that ’ s always cracked me up is how not long after Nina “ becomes a woman ”, she has a moment where she yells at her ma, “ I ’ meter moving out. ” It ’ s not something that gets anymore time than being shouted as Nina storms out of their home. But it ’ s the cherry on top of the “ Nina goes from a child to a woman ” subplot. Aronofsky in truth wanted to make certain that was clear and the negotiation communicated it .
Nina and the hallucinations: part 1
As Black Swan is then heavily reliant on duality, it makes common sense there ’ s a dichotomy to the hallucinations. On the one hand, there are signs aplenty that Nina is mentally ill. On the early hand, there ’ second her desire for perfection and what that means when it comes to being the white affirm and black swan. Let ’ s first look at the mental illness, then we ’ ll front at her obsession with perfection .
The signs of extreme mental illness, like with everything else in this movie, build up over time. We know Nina ’ s beget is overbearing and congressman of an over-involved, over-protective type of never-had-success dancers who obsess over their daughter ’ s careers. But that ’ s not the lone reason the mother babies Nina. It ’ mho hinted at, then told to us, that Nina has had psychological issues in the past. These by and large had to do with scrape and early means of self-mutilation .
There ’ s a deplorable tension. The ma ’ s trying to do her best to help her brainsick daughter not go over a psychological waterfall for a second time. But the ma is besides sol jealous and biting that she ’ south one of several elementary reasons why Nina is about to breakdown again. I mean, there ’ randomness a wholly room in their apartment dedicated to grotesque paintings of Nina. This international relations and security network ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate a healthy environment, and it ’ s hard to determine what came first gear : the mental illness or the mother ’ s compulsion .
Fox Searchlight
If Black Swan was only about a mentally ill girl ultimately tipping into insanity…that ’ s interesting for a fib, but it wouldn ’ t be as strongly tied to Aronofsky ’ s larger point about the profession and trappings of the profession. This is why we have the secondary view of Nina ’ s hallucinations. And a far more sinister rendition of the hallucinations .
When Nina confronts the director, Thomas ( Vincent Cassel ), about whether she ’ ll get the part, this is the conversation :
Thomas : When I look at you, all I see is the White Swan. Yes you ’ re beautiful, fearful, fragile—ideal shed. But the Black Swan ? It ’ s a hard degree fahrenheit * * * ing speculate to dance both. nina : I can dance the Black Swan, besides. Thomas : truly ? ! In four years, every time you dance, I see you obsess getting each and every move right, but I never see you lose yourself. ever. All that discipline, for what ? nina : …just wan sodium be perfect… Thomas : You what ? nina : I wan sodium be perfective. Thomas : perfection is not barely about control. It ’ s besides about letting go. Surprise yourself then you can surprise the hearing. transcendence. And very few have it in them. nina : I think I do have it in— Thomas kisses her. During the kiss there ’ s a strange feminine soundscape that ends with what sounds wish playful laugh. Nina then bites Thomas ’ s sass. Ending the kiss. Thomas : You bit me ? ! I can not believe you bit me ? !
nina : I ’ meter regretful. Thomas : That f * * * ing detriment .
This fit occurs 20 minutes into Black Swan. A general rule for movie structure is that there are a few places for important information : the open scenery, the concluding view, the climax, and 20 minutes in. Look at many of the movies you love and about the 20-minute mark is when the main fib conflict announces itself. The 20-minute score of The Lion King is when the hyena attack Simba for the first time, a blunt contrast to the carefreeness that had defined Simba ’ s narrative up to that point. 22 minutes into Fight Club is when Brad Pitt speaks for the first gear time .
Editor’s note: If you like Black Swan you ’ ll love Fight Club. Check out our deep-dive analysis of Fight Club if you very want to get weird .
It ’ sulfur right after this conversation with Thomas that Nina ’ south announced as the Swan Queen .
What ’ s the last thing we hear Nina say ? She ’ mho finished her masterpiece performance, the push ’ randomness giving her a standing ovation, everyone in the caller has surrounded and congratulated her, Thomas has praised her, but then there ’ s repugnance as they see Nina ’ s about eviscerated herself. “ What did you ? What did you do ? ” Thomas beg .
Nina responds with, “ I felt it. ”
“ What ? ”
“ Perfect, ” she says. And Thomas gives a look of electric shock and what could be read as understand. Nina continues, intelligibly pleased ( despite dying ), “ It was perfective. ”
That conversation shows Nina was very mindful of what happened to her. She ’ s not some confused daughter having a moment of stun clearness. She ’ s a professional dancer who wanted to give a perfect performance, and she did what she had to do to give that performance. She straight up tell us at the beginning, “ I wan sodium be perfect. ” It precisely so happens that her agreement of arrant was extreme. But this plays back into what happens in the real universe : ballerinas are held to insane standards, and the stress they face to maintain those standards is physically and psychologically destructive, at best. But it can be outright annihilating .
I started doing some googling about the rates of suicides in ballet dancers, and even though there was not a fortune of unvoiced hitting solid statistical data, the number of articles was identical swage. The most notice dancer who committed suicide was a 29-year-old lead dancer with the New York City Ballet, Joseph Duell in 1986 after performing in Symphony in C, and rehearsing Who Cares ? But, he wasn ’ t the alone one, Juan Carlos Amy-Cordero a star with Eugene Ballet took his life in 2013, Tallulah Wilson was 15 when she took her life in 2014, in 2012 it was Rosie Whitaker, and the articles went on and on .Beware of the Ballet Monsters…they wear pink
so while we can pretty safely wear Nina ’ s dealing with some genial illness caused by her career and mother, she ’ randomness besides, in a way, aware of what ’ s happening because she wants it to happen. If she wants to be perfect, to be both the White Swan and Black Swan, then this is what has to happen. Swan Lake is, after all, a calamity .
The differentiation between the White Swan and the Black Swan is, I think, the final piece to the puzzle .
Nina and the hallucinations: part 2
In the climax, when Nina last gets to dance, we see her oscillate between two emotional states. The first is person wholly frayed and overwhelmed and either on the verge of tears or crying. The second is angry, violent, territorial, confident, aphrodisiac, dangerous. At one point, these two sides of Nina actually fight one another .
Some read this back and away as indicative of Nina ’ s genial health woes. And yeah, decidedly. But we know that Nina wanted the performance to be perfect. And we ’ re straight up told by Thomas what defines each of the swans .
The White Swan is “ beautiful, fearful, flimsy. ”
The Black Swan is about seduction, impreciseness, effortlessness, miss of control, letting go, an evil duplicate, person with bite .
As we see Nina in those wing moments, it ’ randomness slowly to read her temper swings as a complete psychological break. But it could besides be representative of an artist inhabiting their fictional character in order to perform to the best of their ability and even approach paragon. To dance the part of the Black Swan, Nina allowed herself to fall under a go. She drove herself to that darkness. By letting go, she surprised herself, surprised everyone else, and found transcendence. To reach that state, she stopped rejecting the pressure and duress of her career and mother. alternatively, she let it devour her. She gave into her urges and ramp. She allowed the repress part of her to emerge. At first in the mirror, but then in world.
That dichotomy explains the hallucinations we see. On the hale, the hallucinations serve to coax out of Nina either the concern and fragility of the White Swan or the iniquity and negative energy of the Black Swan. A bunch of the clock time it ’ s a mix of the two. The hallucinations ramp up for a reason : Nina ’ s getting into character, and the closer we are to the operation the more in character she has to be. The night of read, of run, she ’ mho at her most psychologically broken. superficially, it ’ mho because she ’ south overwhelmed by everything that ’ sulfur happened : the pressure of the function, the atmospheric pressure from her ma, the years of psychological deterioration, the mix of paranoia and sexual confusion regarding lily. It ’ s a distribute. But what ’ south chilling is that this is besides what she wants, it ’ s a choice. Nina ’ s such a perfectionist that in order to perform as the Swan Queen, as the best adaptation of the Swan Queen, she needs to embody the character wholly. So it ’ s kind of like she lets herself be consumed by all of these emotions in order to bolster the performance .
( real fast, I do love that Nina ’ randomness dropped during her White Swan performance. It increases the fragility and fear because it ’ s a huge flaw in the overall show. But at the lapp time, that kind of imperfection is region of what Thomas tells her makes for a arrant performance. So she applies that moral to increase the vulnerability and fragility of her White Swan fictional character in the moments before the Black Swan emerges ) .
Nina and the hallucinations: part 3
With most of the hallucinations, the movie tells us what happened. Like we ’ ra told lily never stayed the night with Nina. We know Nina ’ s leg didn ’ thymine break backward because she can walk perfectly fine the next dawn. We know she didn ’ thyroxine mature feathers because there aren ’ triiodothyronine feathers anywhere and no one is screaming, “ OH MY GOD SHE GREW WINGS. ”
There are two hallucinations we actually don ’ t get an answer to. Did Nina see Lily and Thomas hooking up after hours ? And did Nina stab Beth ?
With Lily and Thomas, the answer probably doesn ’ triiodothyronine matter much. Nina wants to be lily, as Lily is her role model for the Black Swan. So it ’ s probable that Nina imagined Lily and Thomas together because it helps her imagine herself and Thomas together. It ’ s part of her growing sex, while besides being part of the fear and fragility she needs as the White Swan. So for Nina, it ’ s a win-win .
With Nina and Beth. I honestly don ’ thymine know. I imagine if she had stabbed Beth, we would have heard person mention it the next day, the lapp way we heard about Beth getting hit by the car .
With Beth, we see Beth use the brake shoe knife on her own face ( which then becomes Nina ’ s face ), causing Nina to run to the elevator. In the elevator, Nina ’ s holding the horseshoe knife. The implication is Nina attack Beth. Which is why we think, late, Nina attacked Lily. But since it turns out Nina just stabbed herself and Lily was never in the room…we ’ re left to wonder…whose rake was on the shoe tongue ? Given Nina ’ s insanity levels, it could just be she imagined the whole thing—the horseshoe knife was still on the board, no one had always touched it. She could have cut herself somewhere ( though we never see it ). Or she truly could have stabbed Beth.
It ’ s a “ is the glass half full or one-half empty ” kind of situation. We don ’ t have enough information to say conclusively one way or another what the truth is, meaning that it ’ s up to each of our own interpretations. personally, I could see Nina attacking Beth as a precursor to her harming herself, besides as a means of sealing her own fate—if she doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate go through with the “ perfect ” performance then what awaits her is prison. But I think more probable is that she just imagined it as part of her ramp astir to the performance .
overall, the main takeaway from the Beth fit would be, I ’ five hundred argue, how it plays into the concept of paragon. As Nina tells Beth, “ I was just trying to be perfect like you. ” Beth ’ second reception is to say, “ Perfect ? I ’ megabyte not arrant. I ’ m nothing. ” If it ’ s self-mutilation, it would make sense Nina decides to do everything she can to be perfect because the alternate is to be Beth. If it ’ sulfur Nina attacking Beth, that ’ vitamin d be because Nina ’ s so violently against the ideal of imperfection and ending up fallible that she tries to destroy the representation of that destiny ( which is why she sees herself imposed on Beth ) .
The end
There you have it. I hope this was helpful. I think if you re-watch Black Swan after reading this, then the movie is going to feel way more obvious in what it ’ mho doing and why. If there are any other questions you have, then please leave a comment and I ’ ll get back to you ! Thanks for reading .
I am broadly interested in how human activities influence the ability of wildlife to persist in the modified environments that we create.
Specifically, my research investigates how the configuration and composition of landscapes influence the movement and population dynamics of forest birds. Both natural and human-derived fragmenting of habitat can influence where birds settle, how they access the resources they need to survive and reproduce, and these factors in turn affect population demographics. Most recently, I have been studying the ability of individuals to move through and utilize forested areas which have been modified through timber harvest as they seek out resources for the breeding and postfledging phases. As well I am working in collaboration with Parks Canada scientists to examine in the influence of high density moose populations on forest bird communities in Gros Morne National Park. Many of my projects are conducted in collaboration or consultation with representatives of industry and government agencies, seeking to improve the management and sustainability of natural resource extraction.