Black Swan (film)
Encyclopedia
Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological thriller
film directed by Darren Aronofsky
and starring Natalie Portman
, Vincent Cassel
and Mila Kunis
. Its plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky
's Swan Lake
ballet by a prestigious New York City company. The production requires a ballerina to play both the innocent White Swan and the sensual Black Swan. One dancer, Nina (Portman), is a perfect fit for the White Swan, while Lily (Kunis) has a personality that matches the Black Swan. When the two compete for the parts, Nina finds a dark side to herself.
Aronofsky conceived the premise by connecting his viewings of a production of Swan Lake
with an unrealized screenplay about understudies
and the notion of being haunted by a double, similar to the folklore surrounding doppelgänger
s. Aronofsky cites Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Double
" as another inspiration for the film. The director also considered Black Swan a companion piece to his 2008 film The Wrestler, with both films involving demanding performances for different kinds of art. He and Portman first discussed the project in 2000, and after a brief attachment to Universal Studios
, Black Swan was produced in New York City in 2009 by Fox Searchlight Pictures
. Portman and Kunis trained in ballet for several months prior to filming and notable figures from the ballet world helped with film production to shape the ballet presentation.
The film premiered as the opening film for the 67th Venice International Film Festival
on September 1, 2010. It had a limited release
in the United States starting December 3, 2010 and opened nationwide on December 17. Black Swan received critical praise upon its release, particularly for Portman's performance and Aronofsky's direction, and was a significant box office success, grossing $329 million worldwide. Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress
for the film, as well as many other Best Actress awards in several guilds and festivals, while Aronofsky was nominated for Best Director. In addition, the film itself received a nomination for Best Picture
.
), a young dancer with a prestigious New York City ballet company, lives with her mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey
), a former dancer who ended her career at 28 when she became pregnant with Nina.
The ballet company is preparing for a production of Swan Lake
. The director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel
), has to cast a new principal dancer after forcing his present principal dancer, Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder
), into retirement. The lead must be able to portray both the innocent, fragile White Swan and her dark, sensual twin, the Black Swan. Nina is selected to compete for the part alongside several other dancers. After her audition goes badly, she asks Thomas to reconsider and give her the role. He tells her that her rigid technique makes her ideal for the White Swan, but she lacks the passion to dance the Black Swan. When he forces a kiss on her, she bites him. Later, she is chosen for the Swan Queen. An intoxicated Beth angrily confronts Thomas and Nina, and she is later hit by a car and seriously injured in what Thomas believes was a suicide attempt.
Nina begins to witness strange happenings around her. Thomas, meanwhile, becomes increasingly critical of Nina's "frigid" dancing as the Black Swan and tells her she should stop being such a perfectionist and simply lose herself in the role. She makes the acquaintance of Lily (Mila Kunis
), another dancer in the company whom Thomas described as having the qualities Nina lacks. The relationship between the two dancers cools because of Lily's indiscretions, but to make up for it, Lily appears at Nina's door and invites her for a night out. Nina is hesitant at first, but decides to join Lily against her mother's wishes. While out, Lily offers Nina a capsule of Ecstasy. Upon returning to the apartment, Nina has another fight with her mother, barricades herself in her room and has sex with Lily. Next morning, Nina wakes up alone and late for rehearsal. When she arrives at the studio, she finds Lily dancing as the Swan Queen. Furious, she confronts Lily and asks her why she did not wake her up in the morning. After Lily tells her she spent the night with a man whom she met at the club, Nina realizes she imagined the whole encounter.
Nina's hallucinations become stronger during rehearsals and at home, which culminates in a violent fight with her mother after which she passes out. Concerned about Nina's erratic behavior, her mother tries to prevent her from attending the opening performance, but Nina forces her way through, insisting she can dance. Lily and Thomas are puzzled at her arrival since Nina's mother had called saying she was sick.
The first act goes well until Nina is distracted by a hallucination during a lift, and the Prince drops her. Distraught, she returns to her dressing room and finds Lily dressed as the Black Swan. As Lily announces her intention to play the Black Swan, she transforms into Nina's double. Nina struggles with her double, and shoves her into a mirror, shattering it. She grabs a shard of glass and stabs her double in the stomach, but the double has transformed back into Lily. She hides the body, returns to the stage, and dances the Black Swan passionately and sensually. Growing black feathers, her arms become black wings as she finally loses herself and is transformed into a black swan. At the end of the act, she receives a standing ovation from the audience. When she leaves the stage, she finds Thomas and the rest of the cast congratulating her on her stunning performance. Nina takes him by surprise and kisses him.
Back in her dressing room preparing for the final act, the dying of the White Swan, Nina is congratulated by Lily on her performance as the Black Swan. Nina suddenly realizes her fight with Lily, just as all the strange visions she had experienced, were hallucinations, but sees the mirror is still shattered. She notices a wound on her body and realizes that she stabbed herself, not Lily.
Back on stage, dancing in the last moments of the ballet when the White Swan throws herself off a cliff, she spots her mother weeping in the audience. As Nina falls, the theater erupts in thunderous applause, and Thomas and the rest of the cast congratulate her on her performance. Lily gasps in horror to see that Nina is bleeding. As Nina lies wounded, she stares up at the stage lights, whispering "I felt it – Perfect – It was perfect", as the screen fades to white, the audience chanting her name.
.
in New York City. The basic idea for the film started when he hired screenwriters to rework a screenplay called The Understudy, which was about off-Broadway actors and explored the notion of being haunted by a double. Aronofsky said the screenplay had elements of the film All About Eve
, Roman Polanski
's film The Tenant
, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella The Double
. The director had also seen numerous productions of Swan Lake, and he connected the duality of the White Swan and the Black Swan to his script. When researching for production of Black Swan, he found ballet to be "a very insular world" whose dancers were "not impressed by movies". Regardless, the director found active and inactive dancers to share their experiences with him. He also stood backstage to see the Bolshoi Ballet
perform at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
.
Aronofsky called Black Swan a companion piece to his previous film The Wrestler, recalling one of his early projects about a love affair between a wrestler and a ballerina. He eventually separated the wrestling and the ballet worlds as "too much for one movie". He compared the two films: "Wrestling some consider the lowest art—if they would even call it art—and ballet some people consider the highest art. But what was amazing to me was how similar the performers in both of these worlds are. They both make incredible use of their bodies to express themselves." About the psychological thriller nature of Black Swan, actress Natalie Portman compared the film's tone to Polanski's 1968 film Rosemary's Baby
, while Aronofsky said Polanski's Repulsion
(1965) and The Tenant (1976) were "big influences" on the final film. Actor Vincent Cassel also compared Black Swan to Polanski's early works and additionally compared it to David Cronenberg
's early works.
In 2010, Aronofsky acknowledged there being similarities between the 1997 anime
film Perfect Blue
and his film Black Swan, but said it was not an influence.
Aronofsky first discussed with Portman the possibility of a ballet film in 2000, and he found she was interested in playing a ballet dancer. Portman explained being part of Black Swan, "I'm trying to find roles that demand more adulthood from me because you can get stuck in a very awful cute cycle as a woman in film, especially being such a small person." Portman suggested to Aronofsky that her good friend Mila Kunis would be perfect for the role. Kunis contrasted Lily with Nina, "My character is very loose... She's not as technically good as Natalie's character, but she has more passion, naturally. That's what [Nina] lacks." The female characters are directed in the Swan Lake production by Thomas Leroy, played by Cassel. He compared his character to George Balanchine
, who co-founded New York City Ballet
and was "a control freak, a true artist using sexuality to direct his dancers".
Portman and Kunis started training six months before the start of filming in order to attain a body type and muscle tone more similar to those of professional dancers. Portman worked out for five hours a day, doing ballet, cross-training, and swimming. A few months closer to filming, she began choreography training. Kunis engaged in cardio
and Pilates
, "train[ing] seven days a week, five hours, for five, six months total, and ... was put on a very strict diet of 1,200 calories a day." She lost 20 pounds from her normal weight of about 117 pounds, and reported that Portman "became smaller than I did." Kunis said, "I did ballet as a kid like every other kid does ballet. You wear a tutu and you stand on stage and you look cute and twirl. But this is very different because you can't fake it. You can't just stay in there and like pretend you know what you're doing. Your whole body has to be structured differently." Georgina Parkinson, a ballet mistress
from the American Ballet Theatre
, coached the actors in ballet. American Ballet Theatre
soloist
s Sarah Lane
and Maria Riccetto
served as "dance doubles" for Portman and Kunis respectively. Dancer Kimberly Prosa also served as a double for Portman. She stated: "Natalie took class, she studied for several months, from the waist up is her. Sarah Lane a soloist at ABT, did the heavy tricks, she did the fouéttes, but they only had her for a limited time, a couple of weeks, so I did the rest of whatever dance shots they needed.".
In addition to the soloist performances, members of the Pennsylvania Ballet
were cast as the corps de ballet
, backdrop for the main actors' performances. Also appearing in the film are Kristina Anapau, Toby Hemingway, Sebastian Stan, and Janet Montgomery.
, the studio decided to fast-track development of the project in January 2007. The project did not come together at the studio, and Aronofsky would go on to shoot The Wrestler instead. After finishing The Wrestler in 2008, he asked Mark Heyman, who had worked for him on the film, to write Black Swan. By June 2009, Universal had placed the project in turnaround, generating attention from other studios and specialty divisions, particularly with actress Portman attached to star. Black Swan began development under Protozoa Pictures and Overnight Productions, the latter financing the film. In July 2009, Kunis was cast.
Fox Searchlight Pictures distributed Black Swan and gave the film a production budget of $10–12 million. Principal photography was achieved using Super 16 mm cameras and began in New York City toward the end of 2009. Part of filming took place at the Performing Arts Center at State University of New York at Purchase
. Aronofsky filmed Black Swan with a muted palette and a grainy style, which he intended to be similar to The Wrestler.
suggested those costumes had actually been created by Rodarte
's Kate and Laura Mulleavy. Westcott challenged that view and stated that in all only 7 costumes, among them the black and white swan, had been created in a collaboration between Rodarte, Westcott, and Aronofsky. Furthermore, the corps ballet's costumes were designed by Zack Brown (for the American Ballet Theater), and slightly adapted by Westcott and her costume design department. Westcott said: "Controversy is too complimentary a word for two people using their considerable self-publicising resources to loudly complain about their credit once they realized how good the film is."
served as a "dance double" for Portman in the film. In a March 3 blog entry for Dance Magazine
, editor-in-chief Wendy Perron
asked: "Do people really believe that it takes only one year to make a ballerina? We know that Natalie Portman studied ballet as a kid and had a year of intensive training for the film, but that doesn't add up to being a ballerina. However, it seems that many people believe that Portman did her own dancing in Black Swan." This led to responses from Benjamin Millepied
and Aronofsky, who both defended Portman as well as a response from Lane on the subject.
and electronica
dance music by English production duo The Chemical Brothers
. It marks the fifth consecutive collaboration between Aronofsky and English composer Clint Mansell
. Mansell attempted to score the film based on Tchaikovsky's ballet but with radical changes to the music. Because of the use of Tchaikovsky's music, the score was deemed ineligible to be entered into the 2010 Academy Awards
for Best Original Score
.
The Chemical Brothers' music, which is featured prominently during the club scene in Black Swan, is omitted from the soundtrack album.
on September 1, 2010. It received a standing ovation whose length Variety
said made it "one of the strongest Venice openers in recent memory". The festival's artistic director Marco Mueller had chosen Black Swan over The American
(starring George Clooney
) for opening film, saying, "[It] was just a better fit... Clooney is a wonderful actor, and he will always be welcome in Venice. But it was as simple as that." Black Swan screened in competition and is the third consecutive film directed by Aronofsky to premiere at the festival, following The Fountain
and The Wrestler. Black Swan was presented in a sneak screening at the Telluride Film Festival
on September 5, 2010. It also had a Gala screening at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival
later in the month. In October 2010, Black Swan was screened at the New Orleans Film Festival
, the Austin Film Festival
, and the BFI London Film Festival. In November 2010, the film was screened at American Film Institute
's AFI Fest in Los Angeles, the Denver Film Festival
and Camerimage Festival
in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
The release of Black Swan in the United Kingdom was brought forward from February 11 to January 21, 2011. According to The Independent
, the film was considered one of "the most highly anticipated" films of late 2010. The newspaper then compared it to the 1948 ballet film The Red Shoes in having "a nightmarish quality ... of a dancer consumed by her desire to dance".
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc
in Region 1/Region A on March 29, 2011. The Region 2/Region B version was released on May 16, 2011.
in select cities in North America on December 3, 2010 in 18 theaters. The film took in a total of $415,822 on its opening day, averaging $23,101 per theater. By the end of its opening weekend it grossed $1,443,809—$80,212 per theater. The per location average was the second highest for the opening weekend of 2010 behind The King's Speech
. The film has Fox Searchlight Pictures highest per-theater average gross ever, and it ranks 21st on the all-time list. On its second weekend the film expanded to 90 theaters, and grossed $3.3 million, ranking it as the sixth film at the box-office. In its third weekend, it expanded again to 959 theaters and grossed $8,383,479. As of September 2011, the film has grossed over $106 million in the United States and over $329 million worldwide.
reports that 88% of 255 critics have given the film a positive review, holding an average score of 8.2/10 with particular praise for Portman's performance. According to the website, the film's critical consensus is, "Bracingly intense, passionate, and wildly melodramatic, Black Swan glides on Darren Aronofsky's bold direction – and a bravura performance from Natalie Portman." Review aggregate Metacritic
has given the film a weighted score of 79, based on 41 reviews, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".
In September 2010, Entertainment Weekly
reported that based on reviews from the film's screening at the Venice Film Festival, "[Black Swan] is already set to be one of the year's most love-it-or-hate-it movies." Leonard Maltin
, in his blog Movie Crazy, admitted that he "couldn't stand" the film, despite praising Natalie Portman's performance. Reuters
described the early response to the film as "largely positive" with Portman's performance being highly praised. The Sydney Morning Herald
reported that "the film divided critics. Some found its theatricality maddening, but most declared themselves 'swept away'."
Kurt Loder
of Reason Magazine called the film "wonderfully creepy," and wrote that "it's not entirely satisfying; but it's infused with the director's usual creative brio, and it has a great dark gleaming look." Mike Goodridge from Screen Daily
called Black Swan "alternately disturbing and exhilarating" and described the film as a hybrid of The Turning Point
and Polanski's films Repulsion
and Rosemary's Baby
. Goodridge described Portman's performance, "[She] is captivating as Nina ... she captures the confusion of a repressed young woman thrown into a world of danger and temptation with frightening veracity." The critic also commended Cassel, Kunis, and Hershey in their supporting roles, particularly comparing Hershey to Ruth Gordon
in the role of "the desperate, jealous mother". Goodridge praised Libatique's cinematography with the dance scenes and the psychologically "unnerving" scenes: "It's a mesmerising psychological ride that builds to a gloriously theatrical tragic finale as Nina attempts to deliver the perfect performance."
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter
gave the film a mixed review. He wrote, "[Black Swan] is an instant guilty pleasure, a gorgeously shot, visually complex film whose badness is what's so good about it. You might howl at the sheer audacity of mixing mental illness with the body-fatiguing, mind-numbing rigors of ballet, but its lurid imagery and a hellcat competition between two rival dancers is pretty irresistible." Honeycutt commended Millepied's "sumptuous" choreography and Libatique's "darting, weaving" camera work. The critic said of the thematic mashup, "Aronofsky ... never succeeds in wedding genre elements to the world of ballet ... White Swan/Black Swan dynamics almost work, but the horror-movie nonsense drags everything down the rabbit hole of preposterousness." Similarly, in a piece for The Huffington Post
, Rob Kirkpatrick
praised Portman's performance but compared the film's story to that of Showgirls
(1995) and Burlesque
(2010) while concluding Black Swan is "simply higher-priced cheese, Aronofsky's camembert to [Burlesque director Steve] Antin's cheddar. The Canadian Press also reported that some Canadian ballet dancers felt that the film depicted dancers negatively and exaggerated elements of their lives but gave Portman high marks for her dance technique. The Guardian
interviewed five ballet dancers, Tamara Rojo
, Lauren Cuthbertson
, Edward Watson
, Elena Glurjidze
, and Cassa Pancho, and they commented that some movements in the film are not professional, and the representation of the profession is stereotypical and inaccurate.
Black Swan has appeared on many critics top ten lists of 2010 and is frequently considered to be one of the greatest films of the year. It was also featured on the American Film Institute
's 10 Movies of the Year. On January 25, 2011 the film was nominated for five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing) and won one for Portman's performance.
Psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the broad ranged thriller with heavy focus on characters. However, it often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre, along with the typical traits of the thriller genre...
film directed by Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. He attended Harvard University to study film theory and the American Film Institute to study both live-action and animation filmmaking...
and starring Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
, Vincent Cassel
Vincent Cassel
Vincent Cassel is a Cesar award winning French actor probably best known to English-speaking audiences through his performances in the Ocean's Trilogy of films and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.-Personal life:...
and Mila Kunis
Mila Kunis
Milena "Mila" Kunis is an American actress. Her work includes the role of Jackie Burkhart on the TV series That '70s Show and the voice of Meg Griffin on the animated series Family Guy...
. Its plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
ballet by a prestigious New York City company. The production requires a ballerina to play both the innocent White Swan and the sensual Black Swan. One dancer, Nina (Portman), is a perfect fit for the White Swan, while Lily (Kunis) has a personality that matches the Black Swan. When the two compete for the parts, Nina finds a dark side to herself.
Aronofsky conceived the premise by connecting his viewings of a production of Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
with an unrealized screenplay about understudies
Understudy
In theater, an understudy is a performer who learns the lines and blocking/choreography of a regular actor or actress in a play. Should the regular actor or actress be unable to appear on stage because of illness or emergencies, the understudy takes over the part...
and the notion of being haunted by a double, similar to the folklore surrounding doppelgänger
Doppelgänger
In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
s. Aronofsky cites Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Double
The Double: A Petersburg Poem
The Double: A Petersburg Poem is a novella written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The novella was first published on January 30, 1846 in Fatherland Notes....
" as another inspiration for the film. The director also considered Black Swan a companion piece to his 2008 film The Wrestler, with both films involving demanding performances for different kinds of art. He and Portman first discussed the project in 2000, and after a brief attachment to Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, Black Swan was produced in New York City in 2009 by Fox Searchlight Pictures
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Fox Searchlight Pictures, established in 1998, is a film division of Fox Filmed Entertainment alongside the larger Fox studio 20th Century Fox...
. Portman and Kunis trained in ballet for several months prior to filming and notable figures from the ballet world helped with film production to shape the ballet presentation.
The film premiered as the opening film for the 67th Venice International Film Festival
67th Venice International Film Festival
The 67th annual Venice Film Festival held in Venice, Italy, took place from September 1 to September 11, 2010. American film director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino was head of the Jury. John Woo was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement prior to the start of the Festival...
on September 1, 2010. It had a limited release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
in the United States starting December 3, 2010 and opened nationwide on December 17. Black Swan received critical praise upon its release, particularly for Portman's performance and Aronofsky's direction, and was a significant box office success, grossing $329 million worldwide. Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
for the film, as well as many other Best Actress awards in several guilds and festivals, while Aronofsky was nominated for Best Director. In addition, the film itself received a nomination for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
.
Plot
Nina Sayers (Natalie PortmanNatalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
), a young dancer with a prestigious New York City ballet company, lives with her mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey
Barbara Hershey
Barbara Hershey , also known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies...
), a former dancer who ended her career at 28 when she became pregnant with Nina.
The ballet company is preparing for a production of Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
. The director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel
Vincent Cassel
Vincent Cassel is a Cesar award winning French actor probably best known to English-speaking audiences through his performances in the Ocean's Trilogy of films and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.-Personal life:...
), has to cast a new principal dancer after forcing his present principal dancer, Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...
), into retirement. The lead must be able to portray both the innocent, fragile White Swan and her dark, sensual twin, the Black Swan. Nina is selected to compete for the part alongside several other dancers. After her audition goes badly, she asks Thomas to reconsider and give her the role. He tells her that her rigid technique makes her ideal for the White Swan, but she lacks the passion to dance the Black Swan. When he forces a kiss on her, she bites him. Later, she is chosen for the Swan Queen. An intoxicated Beth angrily confronts Thomas and Nina, and she is later hit by a car and seriously injured in what Thomas believes was a suicide attempt.
Nina begins to witness strange happenings around her. Thomas, meanwhile, becomes increasingly critical of Nina's "frigid" dancing as the Black Swan and tells her she should stop being such a perfectionist and simply lose herself in the role. She makes the acquaintance of Lily (Mila Kunis
Mila Kunis
Milena "Mila" Kunis is an American actress. Her work includes the role of Jackie Burkhart on the TV series That '70s Show and the voice of Meg Griffin on the animated series Family Guy...
), another dancer in the company whom Thomas described as having the qualities Nina lacks. The relationship between the two dancers cools because of Lily's indiscretions, but to make up for it, Lily appears at Nina's door and invites her for a night out. Nina is hesitant at first, but decides to join Lily against her mother's wishes. While out, Lily offers Nina a capsule of Ecstasy. Upon returning to the apartment, Nina has another fight with her mother, barricades herself in her room and has sex with Lily. Next morning, Nina wakes up alone and late for rehearsal. When she arrives at the studio, she finds Lily dancing as the Swan Queen. Furious, she confronts Lily and asks her why she did not wake her up in the morning. After Lily tells her she spent the night with a man whom she met at the club, Nina realizes she imagined the whole encounter.
Nina's hallucinations become stronger during rehearsals and at home, which culminates in a violent fight with her mother after which she passes out. Concerned about Nina's erratic behavior, her mother tries to prevent her from attending the opening performance, but Nina forces her way through, insisting she can dance. Lily and Thomas are puzzled at her arrival since Nina's mother had called saying she was sick.
The first act goes well until Nina is distracted by a hallucination during a lift, and the Prince drops her. Distraught, she returns to her dressing room and finds Lily dressed as the Black Swan. As Lily announces her intention to play the Black Swan, she transforms into Nina's double. Nina struggles with her double, and shoves her into a mirror, shattering it. She grabs a shard of glass and stabs her double in the stomach, but the double has transformed back into Lily. She hides the body, returns to the stage, and dances the Black Swan passionately and sensually. Growing black feathers, her arms become black wings as she finally loses herself and is transformed into a black swan. At the end of the act, she receives a standing ovation from the audience. When she leaves the stage, she finds Thomas and the rest of the cast congratulating her on her stunning performance. Nina takes him by surprise and kisses him.
Back in her dressing room preparing for the final act, the dying of the White Swan, Nina is congratulated by Lily on her performance as the Black Swan. Nina suddenly realizes her fight with Lily, just as all the strange visions she had experienced, were hallucinations, but sees the mirror is still shattered. She notices a wound on her body and realizes that she stabbed herself, not Lily.
Back on stage, dancing in the last moments of the ballet when the White Swan throws herself off a cliff, she spots her mother weeping in the audience. As Nina falls, the theater erupts in thunderous applause, and Thomas and the rest of the cast congratulate her on her performance. Lily gasps in horror to see that Nina is bleeding. As Nina lies wounded, she stares up at the stage lights, whispering "I felt it – Perfect – It was perfect", as the screen fades to white, the audience chanting her name.
Cast
During the closing credits, the major cast were credited as their film characters and as characters from Swan LakeSwan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
.
- Natalie PortmanNatalie PortmanNatalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
as Nina Sayers/The Swan Queen - Mila KunisMila KunisMilena "Mila" Kunis is an American actress. Her work includes the role of Jackie Burkhart on the TV series That '70s Show and the voice of Meg Griffin on the animated series Family Guy...
as Lily/The Black Swan - Vincent CasselVincent CasselVincent Cassel is a Cesar award winning French actor probably best known to English-speaking audiences through his performances in the Ocean's Trilogy of films and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.-Personal life:...
as Thomas Leroy/The Gentleman - Barbara HersheyBarbara HersheyBarbara Hershey , also known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies...
as Erica Sayers/The Queen - Winona RyderWinona RyderWinona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...
as Beth MacIntyre/The Dying Swan - Benjamin MillepiedBenjamin MillepiedBenjamin Millepied is a French danseur, best known for his work as choreographer in the movie Black Swan .-Early life:...
as David/The Prince - Ksenia SoloKsenia SoloKsenia Solo is a Latvian-born Canadian actress, best known for her roles as Tasha on Life Unexpected and as Kenzi on Lost Girl.- Career :...
as Veronica/Little Swan - Kristina AnapauKristina AnapauKristina Anapau is an American actress-Private life:Kristina Elizabeth Anapau Roper, was born and raised on the island of Hawaii, is the daughter of Richard Stephen Roper, a scientist and Gloria Lea Kaiser Roper, an artist...
as Galina/Little Swan - Janet Montgomery as Madeline/Little Swan
- Sebastian StanSebastian StanSebastian Stan is a Romanian-born American actor. He is best known for playing Prince Jack Benjamin on the television drama Kings and Carter Baizen on Gossip Girl.-Early life:...
as Andrew/Suitor - Toby HemingwayToby HemingwayToby Michael C. A. Hemingway is a British actor. He is best known for playing Reid Garwin in the 2006 supernatural thriller The Covenant. Hemingway also made appearances in CSI: Miami, Bones and Summerland...
as Tom/Suitor
Conception
Darren Aronofsky first became interested in ballet when his sister studied dance at the High School of Performing ArtsHigh School of Performing Arts
The High School of Performing Arts, more formally known as The School of Performing Arts: A Division of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, informally known as "PA", was a public alternative high school in New York, New York, USA that existed from 1948 through...
in New York City. The basic idea for the film started when he hired screenwriters to rework a screenplay called The Understudy, which was about off-Broadway actors and explored the notion of being haunted by a double. Aronofsky said the screenplay had elements of the film All About Eve
All About Eve
All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve", by Mary Orr.The film stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star...
, Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...
's film The Tenant
The Tenant
The Tenant is a 1976 psychological thriller/horror film directed by and starring Roman Polanski based upon the 1964 novel Le locataire chimérique by Roland Topor. It is also known under the French title Le Locataire. It co-stars actress Isabelle Adjani. It is the last film in Polanski's "Apartment...
, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella The Double
The Double: A Petersburg Poem
The Double: A Petersburg Poem is a novella written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The novella was first published on January 30, 1846 in Fatherland Notes....
. The director had also seen numerous productions of Swan Lake, and he connected the duality of the White Swan and the Black Swan to his script. When researching for production of Black Swan, he found ballet to be "a very insular world" whose dancers were "not impressed by movies". Regardless, the director found active and inactive dancers to share their experiences with him. He also stood backstage to see the Bolshoi Ballet
Moscow State Academy of Choreography
The Moscow State Academy of Choreography , commonly known as The Bolshoi Ballet Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious schools of ballet in the world, located in Moscow, Russia. It is the affiliate school of the Bolshoi Ballet....
perform at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
.
Aronofsky called Black Swan a companion piece to his previous film The Wrestler, recalling one of his early projects about a love affair between a wrestler and a ballerina. He eventually separated the wrestling and the ballet worlds as "too much for one movie". He compared the two films: "Wrestling some consider the lowest art—if they would even call it art—and ballet some people consider the highest art. But what was amazing to me was how similar the performers in both of these worlds are. They both make incredible use of their bodies to express themselves." About the psychological thriller nature of Black Swan, actress Natalie Portman compared the film's tone to Polanski's 1968 film Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby (film)
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin...
, while Aronofsky said Polanski's Repulsion
Repulsion
Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. It was Polanski's first English language film, and was shot in Britain, as such being his second film made outside his native Poland. The cast includes...
(1965) and The Tenant (1976) were "big influences" on the final film. Actor Vincent Cassel also compared Black Swan to Polanski's early works and additionally compared it to David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg, OC, FRSC is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the...
's early works.
In 2010, Aronofsky acknowledged there being similarities between the 1997 anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
film Perfect Blue
Perfect Blue
is a 1997 Japanese animated psychological thriller film directed by Satoshi Kon and written by Kon and Sadayuki Murai based on the novel of the same name by Yoshikazu Takeuchi. Junko Iwao plays Mima Kirigoe, a member of a Japanese pop-idol group called "CHAM!", who decides to pursue her career as...
and his film Black Swan, but said it was not an influence.
Casting
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
, who co-founded New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...
and was "a control freak, a true artist using sexuality to direct his dancers".
Portman and Kunis started training six months before the start of filming in order to attain a body type and muscle tone more similar to those of professional dancers. Portman worked out for five hours a day, doing ballet, cross-training, and swimming. A few months closer to filming, she began choreography training. Kunis engaged in cardio
Aerobic exercise
Aerobic exercise is physical exercise of relatively low intensity that depends primarily on the aerobic energy-generating process. Aerobic literally means "living in air", and refers to the use of oxygen to adequately meet energy demands during exercise via aerobic metabolism...
and Pilates
Pilates
Pilates is a physical fitness system developed in the early 20th century by Joseph Pilates in Germany, the UK and the USA. As of 2005, there were 11 million people practicing the discipline regularly and 14,000 instructors in the United States....
, "train[ing] seven days a week, five hours, for five, six months total, and ... was put on a very strict diet of 1,200 calories a day." She lost 20 pounds from her normal weight of about 117 pounds, and reported that Portman "became smaller than I did." Kunis said, "I did ballet as a kid like every other kid does ballet. You wear a tutu and you stand on stage and you look cute and twirl. But this is very different because you can't fake it. You can't just stay in there and like pretend you know what you're doing. Your whole body has to be structured differently." Georgina Parkinson, a ballet mistress
Ballet Master
Ballet Master is the term used for an employee of a ballet company who is responsible for the level of competence of the dancers in their company...
from the American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
, coached the actors in ballet. American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
soloist
Soloist (ballet)
In ballet, a soloist is a dancer in a ballet company above the corps de ballet but below principal dancer....
s Sarah Lane
Sarah Lane (dancer)
Sarah Lane is an American ballet dancer and a soloist with American Ballet Theatre .-Life and career:Lane was born in San Francisco, California. She started training for dance at the Memphis Classical Ballet in Memphis, Tennessee. Her family later moved to Rochester, New York where she continued...
and Maria Riccetto
Maria Riccetto
Maria Riccetto is an Uruguayan ballet dancer and a soloist with American Ballet Theatre .-Biography:Ms. Riccetto was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and began studying ballet at the Uruguay National Ballet School in 1990. She was hired as a professional dancer in 1995 by the national ballet company,...
served as "dance doubles" for Portman and Kunis respectively. Dancer Kimberly Prosa also served as a double for Portman. She stated: "Natalie took class, she studied for several months, from the waist up is her. Sarah Lane a soloist at ABT, did the heavy tricks, she did the fouéttes, but they only had her for a limited time, a couple of weeks, so I did the rest of whatever dance shots they needed.".
In addition to the soloist performances, members of the Pennsylvania Ballet
Pennsylvania Ballet
Founded in 1963 by Balanchine student and protégée Barbara Weisberger, Pennsylvania Ballet is one of the leading ballet companies in the United States. Headquartered in Philadelphia, the company’s annual local season features six programs of classic favorites and new works, including the...
were cast as the corps de ballet
Corps de ballet
In ballet, the corps de ballet is the group of dancers who are not soloists. They are a permanent part of the ballet company and often work as a backdrop for the principal dancers. A corps de ballet works as one, with synchronized movements and corresponding positioning on the stage...
, backdrop for the main actors' performances. Also appearing in the film are Kristina Anapau, Toby Hemingway, Sebastian Stan, and Janet Montgomery.
Development and filming
Aronofsky and Portman first discussed the ballet film in 2000, though the script was yet to be written. He told her about the love scene between competing ballet dancers, and Portman recalled, "I thought that was very interesting because this movie is in so many ways an exploration of an artist's ego and that narcissistic sort of attraction to yourself and also repulsion with yourself." On the decade's wait before production, she said, "The fact that I had spent so much time with the idea ... allowed it to marinate a little before we shot." When Aronofsky proposed a detailed outline of Black Swan to Universal PicturesUniversal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, the studio decided to fast-track development of the project in January 2007. The project did not come together at the studio, and Aronofsky would go on to shoot The Wrestler instead. After finishing The Wrestler in 2008, he asked Mark Heyman, who had worked for him on the film, to write Black Swan. By June 2009, Universal had placed the project in turnaround, generating attention from other studios and specialty divisions, particularly with actress Portman attached to star. Black Swan began development under Protozoa Pictures and Overnight Productions, the latter financing the film. In July 2009, Kunis was cast.
Fox Searchlight Pictures distributed Black Swan and gave the film a production budget of $10–12 million. Principal photography was achieved using Super 16 mm cameras and began in New York City toward the end of 2009. Part of filming took place at the Performing Arts Center at State University of New York at Purchase
State University of New York at Purchase
Purchase College, State University of New York, is a public four-year college located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is one of 13 comprehensive colleges in the State University of New York system...
. Aronofsky filmed Black Swan with a muted palette and a grainy style, which he intended to be similar to The Wrestler.
Costume design controversy
Amy Westcott is credited as the costume designer and received several award nominations. A publicized controversy arose regarding the question of who had designed 40 ballet costumes for Portman and the dancers. An article in the British The IndependentThe Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
suggested those costumes had actually been created by Rodarte
Rodarte
Rodarte is a brand of clothing and accessories founded by Kate and Laura Mulleavy. The Mulleavy sisters are U.C. Berkeley graduates from Aptos, California, and have received a number of industry awards since the line's inception in 2005...
's Kate and Laura Mulleavy. Westcott challenged that view and stated that in all only 7 costumes, among them the black and white swan, had been created in a collaboration between Rodarte, Westcott, and Aronofsky. Furthermore, the corps ballet's costumes were designed by Zack Brown (for the American Ballet Theater), and slightly adapted by Westcott and her costume design department. Westcott said: "Controversy is too complimentary a word for two people using their considerable self-publicising resources to loudly complain about their credit once they realized how good the film is."
Dance double controversy
ABT dancer Sarah LaneSarah Lane (dancer)
Sarah Lane is an American ballet dancer and a soloist with American Ballet Theatre .-Life and career:Lane was born in San Francisco, California. She started training for dance at the Memphis Classical Ballet in Memphis, Tennessee. Her family later moved to Rochester, New York where she continued...
served as a "dance double" for Portman in the film. In a March 3 blog entry for Dance Magazine
Dance Magazine
Dance Magazine is an "influential" American trade publication for dance, currently published by the Macfadden Communications Group. It was first published in June 1927 as The American Dancer. William Como was its editor-in-chief from 1970 to his death in 1989. Wendy Perron became its editor-in...
, editor-in-chief Wendy Perron
Wendy Perron
Wendy Perron is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and currently the editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine.Perron graduated from Bennington College in 1969. She began her career in New York as a choreographer and dancer with the Trisha Brown Dance Company and studied with Twyla Tharp...
asked: "Do people really believe that it takes only one year to make a ballerina? We know that Natalie Portman studied ballet as a kid and had a year of intensive training for the film, but that doesn't add up to being a ballerina. However, it seems that many people believe that Portman did her own dancing in Black Swan." This led to responses from Benjamin Millepied
Benjamin Millepied
Benjamin Millepied is a French danseur, best known for his work as choreographer in the movie Black Swan .-Early life:...
and Aronofsky, who both defended Portman as well as a response from Lane on the subject.
Intern controversy
Recent graduates Alex Footman and Eric Glatt attempted to sue Fox Searchlight Pictures for exploiting their labor without pay. The open-class action lawsuit is still underway. Footman and Glatt are seeking restitution and an injunction to stop Fox Searchlight Pictures from hiring unpaid interns in the future.Soundtrack
The soundtrack for Black Swan consists of music by TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
and electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
dance music by English production duo The Chemical Brothers
The Chemical Brothers
The Chemical Brothers are a British electronic music duo comprising Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons. Originating in Manchester in 1991, along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method, and fellow acts, they were pioneers at bringing the big beat genre to the forefront of pop culture.- Background...
. It marks the fifth consecutive collaboration between Aronofsky and English composer Clint Mansell
Clint Mansell
Clinton Darryl "Clint" Mansell, is an English musician, composer, and former lead singer and guitarist of the band Pop Will Eat Itself....
. Mansell attempted to score the film based on Tchaikovsky's ballet but with radical changes to the music. Because of the use of Tchaikovsky's music, the score was deemed ineligible to be entered into the 2010 Academy Awards
83rd Academy Awards
The 83rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2010 and took place February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, Academy Awards ...
for Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
.
The Chemical Brothers' music, which is featured prominently during the club scene in Black Swan, is omitted from the soundtrack album.
Release
Black Swan had its world premiere as the opening film at the 67th Venice Film Festival67th Venice International Film Festival
The 67th annual Venice Film Festival held in Venice, Italy, took place from September 1 to September 11, 2010. American film director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino was head of the Jury. John Woo was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement prior to the start of the Festival...
on September 1, 2010. It received a standing ovation whose length Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
said made it "one of the strongest Venice openers in recent memory". The festival's artistic director Marco Mueller had chosen Black Swan over The American
The American (2010 film)
The American is a 2010 American thriller film directed by Anton Corbijn and starring George Clooney, Thekla Reuten, Violante Placido, Irina Björklund, and Paolo Bonacelli. It is an adaptation of the 1990 novel A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth...
(starring George Clooney
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
) for opening film, saying, "[It] was just a better fit... Clooney is a wonderful actor, and he will always be welcome in Venice. But it was as simple as that." Black Swan screened in competition and is the third consecutive film directed by Aronofsky to premiere at the festival, following The Fountain
The Fountain
The Fountain is a 2006 American romantic drama film, which blends elements of fantasy, history, religion, and science fiction. It was directed by Darren Aronofsky, and starred Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz...
and The Wrestler. Black Swan was presented in a sneak screening at the Telluride Film Festival
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....
on September 5, 2010. It also had a Gala screening at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
later in the month. In October 2010, Black Swan was screened at the New Orleans Film Festival
New Orleans Film Festival
The New Orleans Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the nonprofit organization New Orleans Film Society, a film society founded in 1989. The festival has been held since the society's inception. The festival takes place in mid-October. The festival, nicknamed "Cannes on the...
, the Austin Film Festival
Austin Film Festival
The Austin Film Festival was started in 1994 in Austin, Texas and is claimed to be "the first organization of its kind to focus on the writer’s unique creative contribution to the film and television industries"...
, and the BFI London Film Festival. In November 2010, the film was screened at American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's AFI Fest in Los Angeles, the Denver Film Festival
Denver Film Festival
The Denver Film Festival is held in November, primarily in the Tivoli Union on the Auraria Campus and the new Denver Film Center/Colfax, in Denver Colorado...
and Camerimage Festival
Camerimage
The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography CAMERIMAGE is a festival dedicated to cinematography and its creators cinematographers.The first seven events were held in Toruń, Poland. The next ten events were held in Łódź...
in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
The release of Black Swan in the United Kingdom was brought forward from February 11 to January 21, 2011. According to The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, the film was considered one of "the most highly anticipated" films of late 2010. The newspaper then compared it to the 1948 ballet film The Red Shoes in having "a nightmarish quality ... of a dancer consumed by her desire to dance".
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
in Region 1/Region A on March 29, 2011. The Region 2/Region B version was released on May 16, 2011.
Box office
The film had a limited releaseLimited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
in select cities in North America on December 3, 2010 in 18 theaters. The film took in a total of $415,822 on its opening day, averaging $23,101 per theater. By the end of its opening weekend it grossed $1,443,809—$80,212 per theater. The per location average was the second highest for the opening weekend of 2010 behind The King's Speech
The King's Speech (film)
The King's Speech is a 2010 British historical drama film directed by Tom Hooper and written by David Seidler. Colin Firth plays King George VI who, to cope with a stammer, sees Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush...
. The film has Fox Searchlight Pictures highest per-theater average gross ever, and it ranks 21st on the all-time list. On its second weekend the film expanded to 90 theaters, and grossed $3.3 million, ranking it as the sixth film at the box-office. In its third weekend, it expanded again to 959 theaters and grossed $8,383,479. As of September 2011, the film has grossed over $106 million in the United States and over $329 million worldwide.
Critical reaction
Black Swan has received widespread acclaim from film critics. Review aggregate Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 88% of 255 critics have given the film a positive review, holding an average score of 8.2/10 with particular praise for Portman's performance. According to the website, the film's critical consensus is, "Bracingly intense, passionate, and wildly melodramatic, Black Swan glides on Darren Aronofsky's bold direction – and a bravura performance from Natalie Portman." Review aggregate Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
has given the film a weighted score of 79, based on 41 reviews, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".
In September 2010, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
reported that based on reviews from the film's screening at the Venice Film Festival, "[Black Swan] is already set to be one of the year's most love-it-or-hate-it movies." Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
, in his blog Movie Crazy, admitted that he "couldn't stand" the film, despite praising Natalie Portman's performance. Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
described the early response to the film as "largely positive" with Portman's performance being highly praised. The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
reported that "the film divided critics. Some found its theatricality maddening, but most declared themselves 'swept away'."
Kurt Loder
Kurt Loder
Kurt Loder is an American film critic, author, columnist, and television personality. He served in the 1980s as editor at Rolling Stone, during a tenure that Reason later called "legendary". He has contributed to articles in Reason, Esquire, Details, New York, and Time. He has also made cameos on...
of Reason Magazine called the film "wonderfully creepy," and wrote that "it's not entirely satisfying; but it's infused with the director's usual creative brio, and it has a great dark gleaming look." Mike Goodridge from Screen Daily
Screen International
Screen International is a multimedia film magazine covering the international film business. It is published by EMAP, a British b2b media company.The magazine is primarily aimed at those involved in the global movie business...
called Black Swan "alternately disturbing and exhilarating" and described the film as a hybrid of The Turning Point
The Turning Point (1977 film)
The Turning Point is a 1977 film written by Arthur Laurents and directed by Herbert Ross. In starring roles were Shirley MacLaine, Anne Bancroft, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Leslie Browne, Tom Skerritt, Martha Scott, Anthony Zerbe, Marshall Thompson and James Mitchell.-Plot:This film tells the story of...
and Polanski's films Repulsion
Repulsion
Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. It was Polanski's first English language film, and was shot in Britain, as such being his second film made outside his native Poland. The cast includes...
and Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby (film)
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin...
. Goodridge described Portman's performance, "[She] is captivating as Nina ... she captures the confusion of a repressed young woman thrown into a world of danger and temptation with frightening veracity." The critic also commended Cassel, Kunis, and Hershey in their supporting roles, particularly comparing Hershey to Ruth Gordon
Ruth Gordon
Ruth Gordon Jones , better known as Ruth Gordon, was an American actress and writer. She was perhaps best known for her film roles such as Minnie Castevet, Rosemary's overly solicitous neighbor in Rosemary's Baby, as the eccentric Maude in Harold and Maude and as the mother of Orville Boggs in the...
in the role of "the desperate, jealous mother". Goodridge praised Libatique's cinematography with the dance scenes and the psychologically "unnerving" scenes: "It's a mesmerising psychological ride that builds to a gloriously theatrical tragic finale as Nina attempts to deliver the perfect performance."
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
gave the film a mixed review. He wrote, "[Black Swan] is an instant guilty pleasure, a gorgeously shot, visually complex film whose badness is what's so good about it. You might howl at the sheer audacity of mixing mental illness with the body-fatiguing, mind-numbing rigors of ballet, but its lurid imagery and a hellcat competition between two rival dancers is pretty irresistible." Honeycutt commended Millepied's "sumptuous" choreography and Libatique's "darting, weaving" camera work. The critic said of the thematic mashup, "Aronofsky ... never succeeds in wedding genre elements to the world of ballet ... White Swan/Black Swan dynamics almost work, but the horror-movie nonsense drags everything down the rabbit hole of preposterousness." Similarly, in a piece for The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
, Rob Kirkpatrick
Rob Kirkpatrick
-Biography:Rob Kirkpatrick was born and raised in upstate New York. He received his Bachelor’s from Rutgers University, his Master’s degree from the State University of New York at New Paltz, and his Doctorate from Binghamton University. After graduate school, he began a career as an acquisitions...
praised Portman's performance but compared the film's story to that of Showgirls
Showgirls
Showgirls is a 1995 American drama film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring former teen actress Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, and Gina Gershon...
(1995) and Burlesque
Burlesque (film)
Burlesque is a 2010 musical film directed and written by Steven Antin and starring Christina Aguilera and Cher. The film was released on November 24, 2010 in North America....
(2010) while concluding Black Swan is "simply higher-priced cheese, Aronofsky's camembert to [Burlesque director Steve] Antin's cheddar. The Canadian Press also reported that some Canadian ballet dancers felt that the film depicted dancers negatively and exaggerated elements of their lives but gave Portman high marks for her dance technique. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
interviewed five ballet dancers, Tamara Rojo
Tamara Rojo
Tamara Rojo is a Spanish prima ballerina, and is currently a Principal Dancer with the Royal Ballet in London.Rojo was born in Montreal, Canada, to Spanish parents who moved back to Spain when she was four months old...
, Lauren Cuthbertson
Lauren Cuthbertson
Lauren Cuthbertson is an English ballerina and a Principal of the Royal Ballet in London, England.-Biography:Lauren Cuthbertson was born in Devon, England...
, Edward Watson
Edward Watson (dancer)
Edward Watson, born in Bromley, in 1976, trained at The Royal Ballet School, he joined the Royal Ballet company in 1994 he is a principal dancer and at the National Dance Awards in 2008 won 'Best Male Dancer'.-Early years:...
, Elena Glurjidze
Elena Glurjidze
Elena Glurjidze is a senior principal ballerina at the English National Ballet.-Biography:Elena was born into the family of Georgian scientist L. Glurjidze. From an early age she showed a passion for the arts and ballet. She started training at the School of Choreography in Tbilisi, Georgia, and...
, and Cassa Pancho, and they commented that some movements in the film are not professional, and the representation of the profession is stereotypical and inaccurate.
Black Swan has appeared on many critics top ten lists of 2010 and is frequently considered to be one of the greatest films of the year. It was also featured on the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's 10 Movies of the Year. On January 25, 2011 the film was nominated for five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing) and won one for Portman's performance.