Black Swan 2t6t3f

CHARACTERS : Mark Heyman Andres Heinz John McLaughlin

P L O T

Nina Sayers, a young dancer in a prestigious New York City ballet company, lives with her mother, Erica, a former dancer. The company is preparing to open the season with Swan Lake. The director, Thomas Leroy, has to cast a new principal dancer after forcing Beth Macintyre into retirement. Leroy wants the same ballerina to portray the innocent, fragile White Swan as well as her dark, sensual twin, the Black Swan. Nina auditions for the part, performing flawlessly as the White Swan, but not quite able to emulate the characteristics of the Black Swan. Although Nina does not do well during her audition, she approaches Thomas and asks him to reconsider her as the lead role. He tells her she is the ideal dancer to cast as the White Swan, but she lacks the ion needed to correctly portray the Black Swan. When Thomas forcibly kisses Nina, she displays a change of character and bites him, convincing him to cast her as the Swan Queen.An intoxicated Beth angrily confronts Thomas and Nina. She is later hit by a car and seriously injured in what Thomas suspects was a suicide attempt. Nina begins to witness strange happenings. Thomas, meanwhile, becomes increasingly critical of her "frigid" dancing and advises her to stop being a perfectionist and to lose herself in the role. Thomas points to Lily, another dancer in the company, whom he describes as lacking Nina's flawless technique but possessing an uninhibited quality that Nina has not shown. The relationship between the two dancers is tense because of Lily's indiscretions, but Lily invites Nina to a night out. Nina is hesitant at first but decides to go against her mother's wishes. At a restaurant that evening, Lily offers Nina a capsule of ecstasy to help her loosen up. Though reassured its effects will only last a few hours, Nina turns it down. Lily later slips it into her drink at a nightclub while she is absent. Nina returns home late, fights with her mother, barricades herself in her room, and has sex with Lily until Lily smothers her with

a pillow.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 that morning. After Lily tells her she spent the night with a man whom she met at the club, Nina realizes she imagined the encounter. Nina's hallucinations become stronger as she sees Thomas and Lily have sex in a backstage area and Beth stabbing herself in the face at the hospital with a nail file which Nina drops bloodied in the elevator. She has a violent argument with her mother after which Nina es out. Concerned about Nina's erratic behavior, her mother tries to prevent her from performing on opening night; enraged, Nina stands up to her mother and forces her way out of the apartment. Since her mother had called to say Nina was sick, Thomas assigned understudy Lily to take over, but reluctantly gives way when Nina insists on performing.The first act goes well, until Nina is distracted by a hallucination during a lift, causing her partner, playing the Prince, to drop her. Distraught, she returns to her dressing room and finds Lily there. Lily announces she is to play the Black Swan. Nina shoves her into a mirror, shattering it. Lily seems dead but then she wakes up and starts to strangle Nina. She grabs a shard of glass and stabs her rival in the stomach, killing her. Nina hides the body and returns to the stage to dance with ion and sensuality. Sprouting 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. Offstage, Thomas and the rest of the cast congratulate her on her stunning performance. Nina takes Thomas by surprise and kisses him. Back in her dressing room before the final act, Nina is congratulated by Lily, showing that their fight was imaginary.

The mirror, however, is still shattered. She removes a shard from her own body and realizes she had stabbed herself. Dancing the last scene, in which the White Swan throws herself off a cliff, Nina spots her mother weeping in the audience. As Nina falls backward onto a hidden mattress the theater erupts in thunderous applause. Thomas and the cast gather to congratulate her— only to find that she is severely bleeding. As the white ceiling lights envelop her, she whispers,

"I felt it. Perfect. It was perfect."

Controversies: Costume design 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 newspaper The Independent suggested those costumes had actually been created by Rodarte's Kate and Laura Mulleavy.

Box office: Black Swan had a limited release in December 3, 2010, in 18 theaters and success. The film took in a total of $23,101 per theater. By the end $1,443,809—$80,212 per the second highest for the behind The King's Speech. The highest per-theater average gross list. On its second weekend the theaters, and grossed $3.3 film at the box-office. In its third theaters and grossed $8,383,479. in the United States and over

select cities was a $415,822 on of its opening theater. film has ever, and

weekend, it The film went $329 million

in North America on surprise box office its opening day, averaging weekend it grossed The per location average was opening weekend of 2010 Fox Searchlight Pictures it ranks 21st on the all-time film expanded to 90 million, ranking it as the sixth expanded again to 959 on to gross over $106 million worldwide

REVIEW: This is a movie about fear of penetration, fear of your body, fear of being supplanted in the affection of a powerful man, love of perfection, love of dance, and perhaps most importantly of all, ionate and over whelming hatred of your mother.

By : AKANSHA (ECE 2B, 2K12MRCEECE65)