Another dancer watches “the Black Swan”
So I’ve seen the Black Swan, the movie I was so eagerly waiting for.. And I have to say, in advance, I think I misunderstood…
You see, after reading all the articles on this film, hearing famous people takes on the movie and so on (someone please tell me why it takes two months for a flick to reach central Europe?! It’s embarrassing), I was expecting a thriller that would blow my mind, and show me some world-class ballet while doing it. But as I said, I guess I misunderstood.
…her make-up was cool, though…
The Black Swan is a good thriller! Not the best I’ve seen, certainly didn’t blew my mind, but it’s a good movie! Portman is great as ever, and really manages to capture the “innocence” (however extremely over-exaggerated, but that’s not her fault) you definitely find in many ballerinas around the world.
My biggest objection to the movie is really in the ballet-backdrop. Now, don’t give me the “oh, but he’s a dancer, he can’t watch the movie objectively, he has to comment on the lack of filming Portmans legs or her bad port de bras or (insert fitting phrase)” or anything down that road. As a dancer, I know how hard my profession is. I know you can’t learn it in a couple of months. I don’t need to see if Portman is turned out or not, it doesn’t interest me. If she could dance ballet like the star her role is supposed to be in the movie, she’d be at the Covent Garden. And Matt Damon would be out doing tactical missions for some secret agency. Not to mention Bruce Willis…
No, my objection is in the way ballet-dancers are portrayed in the movie. Again (maybe it’s because of my bad vocabulary?! After all, us dancers, we rather dance than talk, right?!) I have to use the word over-exaggerated. Ballerina’s don’t wear a bun in the street. Sometimes, they actually do think of other things than ballet, and I have still to meet a colleague that does fouette-turns in her apartment at nighttime. Yes, some directors have a strict regime, and may expect their dancers not to wear warm-ups in class. But everyone stripping as he enters the room? I don’t think so. The sexual harassment part can be found in any workingplace, so also in the ballet world, but I doubt many directors jumps their ballerinas in the wings. It’s just too dramatical.
Sexual harassment in the theatre is actually something I have been wanting to write about for a long time. It’s just a very hard, complicated and difficult topic to write about…
My point is, if you were to portrayal a lawyer, you wouldn’t want to use ALL the impressions people have of the lawyer, wearing a suit, a briefcase, sleeps with his assistant and so on. Your viewers would be bored, and disappointed when you failed to show them something they didn’t already expect. Because people are familiar with lawyers. They’ve seen that movie. All credit to Aronofsky for choosing a backdrop somewhat different than what we usually see in the horror/thriller section of the videotech. But did you really had to use all of the prejudices? Portman puking, her mom going loco, the pointe-shoe-treatment, the Lily-character (although, Mila Kunis did a fantastic job, she plays really well!) – I could go on forever. I was just waiting for Nina’s super-gay co-worker to show up to make the book complete. When he didn’t, I’d normally say “yay, go Darren, putting in some for the male dancers”. But after watching this parade of prejudices – which, if you think about it, is really just bad research – I can’t help myself but think that it would have been there, hadn’t it been a touchy subject – and you don’t want touchy subjects if you’re going for the masses…
As a horror-movie, I think the Black Swan was absolutely worth the money. No movie I’d see twice in a theatre, but well enough, well shot and viewable. As a ballet-dancer, I’m disappointed. I would even say insulted. But I won’t, because then I would just add in the last of the clichés – that dancers are sensitive, easily-insulted-artist-people. That one you could have putten in there, Darren, that one is actually pretty true!
Black Swan plays in a theatre stageing the ballet The Swan Lake. Know the story?
