Black Swan Analysis

Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological thriller focusing on the stress of the competitive world of ballet, taking the audience deep into the decent of a ballerina named Nina's madness.

The main character, Nina, strives for perfection, after getting the role of the black swan in the production Swan Lake. Nina is told she needs to "lose herself" to play, and so she does. This causes visual hallucinations, as she sees herself transforming into the real thing, conjuring up an array of fantasies and delusions.

Class is  shown in the character representation as she her background is more upper class which is evident as she is well spoken, and educated. 

 

The film portrays the hard work and emotional/physical demands of becoming a highly qualified ballerina and how we see perfection in things that are beautifully in control. Losing contact with reality she becomes the black swan during her performance. 

As a group we decided to look at the Black Swan and look at some of the techniques they used throughout the film and see if we could incorporate that into our own film opening.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Movies/black-swan-psychiatrists-diagnose-natalie-portmans-portrayal-psychosis/story?id=12436873

 Our opening is clearly inspired by the Black Swan for our film opening. I watched the Black Swan for the first time recently, I loved the darkness of the cinematography. Our costume ideas have also been inspired by the film. The use of spotlighting on stage during the performance, which is a easy technique to use to focus on the main protagonist and to make sure they are not lost between the other dancers.

Sound and editing:
Throughout there is dramatic classical music used, fitting with the ballet theme.
The fast pace editing is used to makes you feel disorientated and dizzy, possibly representing how Nina feels and showing her confused emotion.
Non diegetic music is used and is very loud making the audience feel tense.

Mis en scene:
Everything in the film comes across very dark filled with mystery.  They do this with darker scenes , dark costume, props, scenery, lighting etc.
The black can be a connotation for death, bleak horror and mystery which are key themes for the Black Swan.