REVIEW: Black Swan Takes Its Own Hifalutin' Hokum Way Too Seriously
Darren Aronofsky's ballerina-crackup drama Black Swan opens with a dream sequence in which a wispy-boned young woman twirls and flutters to the strains of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. She dabs at the stage with her dainty pink shoes, the stage lights shining through her all-too-translucent tutu. Suddenly, a figure appears from the darkness -- why, it's a handsome male dancer dressed all in black! He looks really nice, not scary at all, but wouldn't you know it? Suddenly, he turns into a swaggering black swan, flapping his arms all masculine-like and threatening to take our little cygnet -- who we now can see is Natalie Portman -- doggy-style. What ever could this dream mean? One thing's for sure: It ain't about dancing poultry.
In Black Swan all is not as it appears -- in fact, everything is hokier, more obvious, more hilarious than it's intended to be. There's hardly a dull moment here: Aronofsky and cinematographer Matthew Libatique give us something to look at, or at least giggle over, every minute, whether it's Portman's Nina-the-ballerina sprouting tiny, spiky feathers from her shoulder blades or Winona Ryder, as a spurned elder-ballerina, going all crazy-eights.
But I find it impossible to take Black Swan as seriously as Aronofsky does. He seems to think he's made a serious descent-into-madness drama about the bun-and-bunion set, but everything he does is calculated, and not in the good way. He may want to sweep us up in a whirl of madness, and occasionally he succeeds. But too often he's practically ticking items off a checklist -- Mother-daughter conflict: check! Bulimia incident: check! Crazy-hot lesbo scene: check! -- going through the motions of the dance rather than giving himself over to it. Black Swan is hifalutin' hokum, but Aronofsky isn't loose enough, or canny enough, to be in touch with its camp soul.
Portman's Nina, a sweet, New York dancer who's been in the corps a little too long, wants very badly to be cast as the lead in a new production of Swan Lake: If she doesn't make her mark now, she never will. But the director of the company, Vincent Cassel's ogre-satyr Thomas, doesn't think her heart is black enough to pull off the darker side of the part. Enter bad-gal ballerina Lily (Mila Kunis): She smokes! She gives Nina heavy-duty long-wearing feel-good drugs the night before a big rehearsal! She wears dark eye makeup! She also tempts Nina into a world of darkness by nuzzling at the forbidden girl parts between her legs, though there's some question about whether or not such billing and cooing actually happened. (See paragraph one: Sexy dreams appear to be a recurring thing with Nina.) What on Earth could Lily, with her wicked, wicked ways, possibly want?
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Can't believe you rated "Burlesque" 7 1/2 and "Black Swan" an 8. Really? I have a hard time believing that ANYTHING directed by Aronofsky is only 1/2 a point better than anything with Christina Aguilera starring.
Stephanie - I think you missed the point on a lot of what the film is actually exploring, particularly its exploration of the female psyche as dictated in a male dominated world.
"But I find it impossible to take Black Swan as seriously as Aronofsky does."
For something to be truly hokey or campy, it has to take itself seriously, doesn't it?
Did you really give it an 8? The review reads much harsher than that.
And not that this is entirely relevant, but I will never buy into that whole "Showgirls was an intentional satire" thing or whatever line the filmmakers tried to sell after the fact. It's just a bad, bad movie (that I love).
How was Ryder's performance in this film?
Black Swan was a "wow'. Natalie Portman's performance was nothing less than incredible. She actually drives herself crazy before your eyes, with her obsession for dance perfection. The mother I recognized from knowing other dancers. Barbara Hershy did a masterful, believable job in her role. And, Mila Kunis was the perfect foil. There are always the standbys, that will do anything to get the lead role. Mila was wonderful. I think Aronofsky recognized all the different forces that come to play ina professional dance life. He brought out the best in each actress and pulled the audience into the drama. To not take Black Swan seriously as Aronofsky did, means you are just not familiar with what transpires backstage!
"Natalie Portman gives the best female lead performance of 1955."
YES. This is spot-fucking-on. This movie once again shows the limitations of Aronofsky's chronic inability to, as you say, "let go". It's unfortunate, because 'The Wrestler' showed such promise.
That said, this grade confuses me. An 8 seems wildly high for the review that accompanies it. Stephanie, this is the first time I agree with one of your reviews. I still think you gave 'Inception' the shaft, and I enjoy teasing you a bit about it, but I really couldn't agree more with this review. Well done!
I can't believe I'm actually defending Zacharek here - as she's easily one of my most loathed critics of all time - but [b]Showgirls[/b] almost certainly IS intentional satire. Verhoeven has always been a sly, campy, parodistic filmmaker and his movie [b]Starship Troopers[/b], made right around the same time as [b]Showgirls[/b], very obviously spoofs its own material, so there's no reason [b]Showgirls[/b] couldn't be the same type of movie. No serious doubt is possible that [b]Starship Troopers[/b] was intentional satire/spoof/parody; so why such widespread resistance to the notion that [b]Showgirls[/b] might be too?
For a clear parallel with what Verhoeven did with [b]Showgirls[/b], read Nathanael West's [b]A Cool Million[/b], which ruthlessly parodies the Horatio Alger rags-t0-riches novel. Verhoeven does the exact same thing, only with sexy girls instead of plucky boys. I've read comparisons with Douglas Sirk, but Nathanael West is the truest analogue.
It will be irony indeed if [b]Black Swan[/b] dominates the Oscar nominations, given that it appears to borrow quite heavily from [b]Showgirls[/b], and [b]Showgirls[/b] was greeted with Razzies and catcalls, not Oscars and hosannahs.
Um, I love rigorous debate about "Showgirls" as much as the next gay, but "Paul Verhoeven knew exactly what he was doing" is one of the most hilariously untrue comments I've ever read in a proper review. If you read Verhoeven's lengthy, impassioned, scholarly essays in the original "Showgirls" companion coffee table book - because it was meant to be a prestige film deserving of such a thing - you'll learn just how seriously Verhoeven approached this material.
In addition to thinking of "Showgirls" as his modern update on a glitzy MGM musical, he also read Greek mythology and even Christian metaphor into the story. While I appreciate the "Starship Troopers" analogy to help explain his subversive directorial leanings, it simply doesn't apply here. There was only one person in that entire production who knew "exactly" what film they were making, and that person was Gina Gershon, which you can read loud and clear in her performance.
Sorry, but I simply couldn't sit by and allow this revisionist history of "Showgirls" to be presented unquestioned, especially when used to shame an obviously superior film like "Black Swan."
It may be "obviously superior" in your mind, but it won't necessarily continue to resonate with audiences 15 or 20 years down the road, while the enduring popularity of Verhoeven's ostensible disaster has no end in sight. Even if Portman wins the Oscar next year - Oscars have never been any guarantee of cultural longevity.
It doesn't seem to occur to you that a director's claims for their work is meaningless. Read Hitchcock's own analysis of PSYCHO - it's infantile, jejune gibberish. His wasn't a verbal intelligence, so it should come as no surprise that he was never able to articulate what any of his movies, the good ones or the bad ones, were about. Welles, Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg: there's remarkably little to be gleaned from their awkward, inarticulate elucidations of their own films. Their after-the-fact interpretations mean nothing: only the work has meaning. Why should Verhoeven be any different?
This is, BTW, precisely why we have and need critics: if artists were always their own best interpreters, critics would be redundant and irrelevant.
"Um, I love rigorous debate about "Showgirls" as much as the next gay"
This is the thing.... you just gave the game away with this sentence.... you (like John Waters) appreciate it as great trash, as a delicious failure..... so for you to admit now that Verhoeven knew exactly what he was doing doesn't square with how you've been enjoying it up till now. But he did know.... what is the likelihood of the same filmmaker mocking his own screenplay in one movie but not the other, given the close proximity of their release dates? Even BASIC INSTINCT was partly tongue-in-cheek.
Verhoven was no more oblivious to the effect he was creating than John Waters has ever been oblivious. The movie is no more "accidentally" funny than PINK FLAMINGOS or SERIAL MOM are.
"There was only one person in that entire production who knew "exactly" what film they were making, and that person was Gina Gershon, which you can read loud and clear in her performance."
She may be the only CAST MEMBER who knew exactly what the score was - just as Neil Patrick Harris was the only cast member of STARSHIP TROOPERS who did - but that doesn't mean Verhoeven was oblivious. That may also partly explain his hesitancy to defend his movie more vigorously as a satire: for if he admits it was always intended to be funny, he would also have to admit he LIED to his own cast, that he DELIBERATELY ALLOWED Berkley, Robert Davi, McLachlan, Glenn Plummer, et al. to look ridiculous and make fools of themselves onscreen. He might come off looking far cleverer, but also far more of an asshole. That would mean admitting publicly that he violated the sacred trust actors are supposed to be able to place in their directors.
I didn't write this but I agree with this fellow Douglas Reese. There are simply too many giveaway signs that the humor was intentional:
[url]http://mubi.com/topics/9399[/url]
Next time just use quotes dude.
You don't seem to be making a cohesive point on directorial intent. First you argue that the director's view means nothing ("It doesn't seem to occur to you that a director's claims for their work is meaningless"), and then you have it both ways and argue once again that Verhoeven knew exactly what he was doing, which is the only point in Zacharek's review I'm taking issue with.
All I'm saying is that unless you've read Verhoeven's "Showgirls" companion book and are willing to argue that he wrote that entire straight-faced collection of essays as part of some big-picture satirical scam, then I just don't think this argument holds water. I do agree, however, that "Black Swan" is unlikely to share the long-term audience resonance that "Showgirls" enjoys.
"You don't seem to be making a cohesive point on directorial intent."
No - you're just not getting my point. What I'm saying is that directorial intent can only be inferred from evidence on the screen. What they say in a coffee table book, in an essay, in production notes, in an interview with a journalist, signifies little or nothing. Read interviews with Hitchcock about the "meaning" of PSYCHO: it's gibberish. If we took Hitchcock at his word, PSYCHO would have to be considered one of the stupidest and emptiest statements on the human condition ever committed to celluloid. This is because directors are mostly people who do their thinking in and through images, not through writing essays. They aren't professional essayists or magazine columnists, they're filmmakers. And filmmaking doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with the ability to write effective thinkpieces of any sort.
What makes more sense: basing your opinion on a coffee-table book, or basing your opinion on the movie itself? The only evidence that should factor into any interpretation is the evidence up on the screen.
Just type "Douglas Reese" and "Showgirls" into Google. Reese is right: the evidence is all up there on the screen. There are lots (and lots and lots...) of things that were supposed to be funny and can't possibly be accidental, unintentional comedy.
Honestly don't know why there is so much buzz about this mediocre movie at best. I was actually bored and it was very very predictable. Maybe it stands out because of the vast sea of mediocre flicks that surrounds it. It was very very meh and the emotions were very contrived.
God this Stephanie woman is obnoxious. This entire review is a pan - or really a personal attack on Aronofsky - and yet she gives the movie an 8.
...an utter pile of wank. Like a bad Kubrick imitation.
hear, hear, NP. the ghost of america's dark lady of letters smiles upon thee.
I often agree with Stephanie Z, but not this time. I absolutely LOVED "Black Swan" and think it IS a camp masterpiece that had me grinning from ear to ear from beginning to end. What a trip! Aronofsky really pushed it further than I ever thought he would, and the result is a grand ghoulish over-the-top operatic delight. I was left gasping for air, adrenaline pumping, almost giddy, by the end, and the feeling stuck with me for hours. I haven't had this much fun in a theater since "Kill Bill." Personally, I think it's an instant classic. Not as intentionally campy as "Showgirls" but certainly a landmark for fans of artsy operatic horror movies, a la "Repulsion", "Bride of Frankenstein", "Suspiria" and "Jacob's Ladder."
As for Paul Vorhoven and "Showgirls"...OF COURSE he knew what he was doing! Look at his entire filmography. They're all tongue-in-cheek parodies of genre cliches, from "The Fourth Man" (a hilarious spoof of art film thrillers), through the ludicrous sci-fi excesses of "Robo Cop," "Total Recall" and "Starship Troopers" to the campy hilarity of "Black Book." The man is an instant camp classic movie machine... and always has been.
once again, you prove that you are a critic after my own soul. i am sooo happy you were not only spot on in your critique of aronofsky being hoisted up on his own petard, telling Natlie Portman's Nina to loosen up but also to use it as a analog to Showgirls. I have been waiting for years to someone to say what's right in front of their eyes, that there is no way Verhoven could ever had not made Showgirls as a satire and that his film will resonate long after Black Swan is the "toast" of the 2010 oscars.
WHAH, that is just the sign of her integrity as a critic. can't something be a very flawed but superior work? and when you are hoping for brilliance, aren't you all the more bitter when it doesn't quite reach the mark?
Has Stephanie Zacharek been prescribed new anti-depressants or something?
Since leaving Salon and joining Movieline, her critical acumen, style of writing and taste in films has changed considerably, and not for the better.
Black swan, for me was one of those movies you just had to watch more than once. I think more than anything to kind of understand what everything meant. Overall it was a good movie and I would recommend it. The first time I saw it, I picked it up from blockbuster. It’s been years since I’ve been to blockbuster, and almost forgot how much I enjoy renting movies there. Blockbuster includes videogames whereas other companies such as Netflix do not & the movies at Blockbuster come out 28 days before Netflix. Being a customer and employee of DISH Network, I can say that from a consumer stand point that DISH was the way to go for me even before working here. Since the acquisition of Blockbuster, the company has only gotten better! http://bit.ly/l77URa
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