Black Swan (2010)

Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological horror film directed by Darren Aronofsky and based on a narrative by Heinz. Natalie Portman plays the lead, with Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Winona Ryder providing support. The plot centres around the New York City Ballet's production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. The performance demands a ballerina to play both the innocent and fragile White Swan, which is best embodied by Nina Sayers (Portman), and the dark and sensuous Black Swan, which is better embodied by Lily (Kunis). When Nina finds herself competing for the part, she is overwhelmed by a sense of great pressure, forcing her to lose her precarious grip on reality and plunge into lunacy.

The connection between ballet and horror may be traced back to The Red Shoes and its use of dancing to infiltrate Victoria Page's tormented mind. In contrast to the typical proscenium view, Jack Cardiff's cinematography used spinning point-of-view views to align the camera with the perspective of the dancer. The similar method can be seen in both versions of Suspiria (1977 and 2018), and Darren Aronofsky employed it to great success in Black Swan.

Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman as ballerina Nina, who is cast as Odette/Odile in a New York City Ballet production of Swan Lake, explodes ballet's physical and mental quest for perfection into a violent exhibition of self-destruction. The closing sequences mix Matthew Libatique's photography with dramatic lighting and CGI to create an even more nightmarish theatrical vision than Powell and Pressburger were able to explore six decades previously, with Clint Mansell's twisted version of Tchaikovsky's music.

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Casts: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel
IMDb: 8