Black Swan

 In a sea of atrocious Ashton Kutcher romantic comedies, a desert of fart joke-ridden Sandler flicks, and a never-ending galaxy of Nicholas Cage's receding hairline, is a gem of modern film making. That gem is Black Swan.

Black Swan centers around a ballet dancer named Nina (Natalie Portman), who's New York City ballet company is doing a rendition of the classic Swan Lake, only with a slight twist- the Black Swan and the White Swan are to played by the same dancer. Nina is thrilled when she finds out she has been chosen as the lead, but the overwhelming pressure from her producer, mother, and fellow dancers starts to take its toll.  Nina becomes increasingly paranoid that her understudy (Mila Kunis) is out to sabotage her, and she develops a dark side which becomes essential for her perfect performance of both the Black and White Swan.

To give the appropriate amount of praise to every aspect of this movie would require a blog post much longer than anyone would care to read; and at any rate, I've got things on the agenda myself (...dinner.) So instead, I'd like to focus on a couple particular elements of the film that really captivated me:

Soundtrack
Being a musician and music enthusiast, a movie's soundtrack is always one of the first things to grab my attention, and few have ever done so like this movie did.  The soundtrack is largely centered around Tchaikovskys music for Swan Lake, but with radical adaptations that are tailored perfectly to what is going on at that moment in the story. This aspect of the film almost makes it seem as though the movie itself is a just a radical re-telling of Swan Lake, an idea that director Dan Aronofsky was undeniably trying to suggest. Unfortunately, since the bulk of the soundtrack is based on previously-composed works, it's not eligible for an academy award (Best Original Score), but the adaptation of the music for the film will surely be praised as an art form unto itself.


Cinematography

Cinematography is widely considered to be the most unsung element of a movie; ironically so, because It is truely  the element of a movie that can make it spectacular. Black Swan clearly illustrates this. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, cinematography is basically the use of lighting and camera angles in a film.  The cinematography in Black Swan centered largely around a few key elements; darkness, grittiness, and mirrors. A vast portion of the film takes place in dark places- makeup rooms, subway trains, rehearsal spaces, etc. The use of darkness and light in these particular scenes literally transcended you to the point where you thought you were there yourself. Grittiness is a technique often used by Dan Aronofsky. If you've seen The Wrestler and other previous Aronofsky films, you'll notice how he uses it to accent certain places and enhance how they are perceived by the viewer.  In The Wrestler he used it in strip clubs and locker rooms. In Black Swan, he uses it in the subway and in the makeup room, among other places. Lastly, mirrors are a centerpiece is the film's cinematography. The use of mirrors as an effect to enhance tension and even fear is common with horror and suspense films, two genres that this film certainly mingles with. Black Swan took the element above and beyond, with mirrors in almost every major scene of the film, and almost always used as a vehicle to perpetuate the story.

An interesting sidenote- the bulk of the movie (most notably the dance scenes) were filmed at the center for the arts at SUNY Purchase. Whatupp 914!