Film Analysis : The Transformation Of The Black Swan

The vision Christopher Nolan had for The Prestige (2006) was to add to the outbreak of street magician film, whilst playing a large dramatic subplot equal in grandeur to the magical performances within the film. In the final sequence of the film, I will analyse how the cinematography and sound resolves the plot so that it summarises the themes present in the film, whilst also invoking a response from the audience. Nolan predominantly uses close up shots, non-diegetic sound (music) and dialogue collaboratively to convey the dramatic, personal subplot of the characters and their relationships, whilst appealing to the audience bringing forth an emotional response from the audience. The heavy, slow, dramatic atmosphere of the ending sequence uses various techniques to summarise and uncover the underlying mysteries of the events throughout the film and consolidate themes introduced during the exposition.

A League of Their Own (Marshall, 1992) explicitly characterizes an American era when a woman’s place was in the home. Even our modern perspective implicitly follows suit. Although women have gained rights and freedoms since the 1930’s, sexism remains prevalent in America. This film offers an illustration when men went to war and big business men utilized women as temporary replacements in factories, sports, and so on. Here, course concepts, such as gender socialization, gender expressions, role stereotypes, emotion expressions, and language, correspond to the film’s characters and themes.

Director Darren Aronofsky names his film “Black Swan” a role the main character Nina struggles with. The Black Swan is a hard character for the fragile, innocent Nina to grasp, especially, under all the pressure Nina places upon herself to become perfect. The movie “Black Swan” is about a lead ballerina struggle to complete her role in a Broadway play “Swan Lake”. Aronofsky uses many different aspects to open the minds of the audience to the world of ballet.

Rarely has a film impacted an audience and held the test of time as the film Gone with the Wind. I have always been curious if director, Victor Fleming and producer, David O. Selznick and screenplay writer, Sidney Howard knew what they were creating a masterpiece and how this film would have such an enormous impact on audiences for years to come. Interestingly enough there were some who thought the film should not be made, as Irving Thalberg said to Louis B. Meyer in 1936, “Forget it Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel” (Ten Films that Shook the World).

“We all live with pain and have trials to overcome, but being 650 pounds felt like my obstacles were never ending. My only outcome was death and I wanted to live. I wanted to rebuild everything my weight had taken away from me. That gave me the fire I needed to start losing weight and getting healthy” -Nikki Webster (“My 600-lb Life”).

In ESPN’S film, A Fighting Chance, wrestler Kyle Maynard uses regulation of his arousal levels to conquer the tasks of everyday life but also to fulfill his passion of wrestling with no arms or legs. Kyle Maynard became one of the most inspirational people to others who are affected with a disability. Kyle was able to overcome situations such as name-calling, starring, and limitations on activities of daily living to fulfill all of his desires such as driving a car or fighting in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) matches in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu categories. Kyle was able to overcome these by using social coping with people such as his best friend and trainer who had absolute faith in him while encouraging and supporting him in whatever he desired. Kyle’s parents also distilled this trait of overcoming barriers from a young age by not introducing prosthetics into his life and showing him that he could do anything he set his mind to.

This is a film analysis of Shutter Island. Shutter Island is a 2010 film directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, this film is 138 minutes of psychological thrills and horror. Shutter Island covers the field of psychopathology. More specifically, it covers psychotic disorders, dissociative disorders, and treatment. Shutter Island is set in 1954 on Shutter Island, Massachusetts at the Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, Americans have idealized the journey towards economic success. One thing people do not realize, however, is that that journey is not the same for every individual. For Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), the main character of Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles, the path towards riches and a fulfilled life is being well liked. He serves to please others. He strives for that attention. This view cost him his happiness in the end. In this man’s rise and fall through prosperity, Welles shows the futility of striving solely for likeability.

In this scene, Nina is the main focus. With her mother Erica in the background throughout, no matter if you can see her or not. Her voice and non- diegetic music is added to show how her mother embodies Nina. With the use of sound as Erica pushes on the locked door, there is light music that would put you to sleep. This calms the audience to portray that Erica is a caring, loving mother. When Nina’s mother becomes more invasive towards Nina the musical background intensifies. This also intensifies when Nina traps herself. The director uses non- diegetic music to identify when Nina is trapped physically and more importantly mentally. She confines herself away from her mother and mental illness. Nina’s reaction to her mother is the usual response to help and personal mental health “go away.” This demonstrates Darren Aronofsky 's way he wanted to depict women to mental health and relationships. The audience is able to grasp on mental health that is not being supported. Which consequently portray how relationships need to fight for help with individuals that have mental health issues. Darren Aronofsky represent women in a way that women in society react to their mental health and chose not to get help. He shows how people outside react to the characters mental health from an inside perspective. From the non-diegetic music, we are able to communicate the levels of mental health and how two

In the beginning of the film, Nina was depicted as an average, normal person living in New York that yet lacked the freedom to express herself as a sexually free, young woman due to her mother’s controlling behavior. When she wins the coveted Swan Queen role, the feeling of immense pressure that comes with the role causes Nina to lose her tenuous grip on reality and descend into a living nightmare. For example, she experiences symptoms such as interpreting normal behavior from Lily as an attack because of Nina’s jealousy toward Lily’s effortless embodiment of the Black Swan (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner, & Nock, 2014). Nina’s attention to negative behavior to Lily is a result of her own imagination – she starts conceiving events that did not happen such as a lesbian fling with Lily and her constant attempts to sabotage Nina’s ability to perform as the Swan Queen. In addition, she suffers through hallucinatory episodes that involve bodily horror, such as her skin tearing off her body and the appearance of an evil twin, every time she reaches a step closer to her full transformation of the Swan Queen.

Black Swan and Whiplash both feature intense practice sequences that build upon the narrative of obsessing over a craft. This intense and obsessive practice leads up to the conclusion of the films; where each character gives their absolute best performance. Nina’s final transformation into an impure and sinful character is completed when she grows black wings and slams her mother’s hand in her door. During the performance, Nina gets into an altercation with herself and stabs herself in the pure White Swan costume. Andrew transforms into “one of the greats” as he is embarrassed by Fletcher on stage. They both have their careers riding on their performances. They both fail to begin with; Andrew not knowing the chart the rest of the band is playing and Nina falling during act I of Swan Lake. Yet their greatness is proven when they give the final goodbye to their parental figures and former youth. Andrew runs off stage, hugs his dad and his former reality, as he knows his life will never be what it once was. Nina exchanges eye contact with her crying mother as she looks proudly onto her daughter dancing like she never could.

Many live attempting to decipher the riddle of life. What is life? What is the purpose? What makes? Even though we only seek happiness why can’t we ever seem to achieve it? When we do reach happiness why can’t we seem to grasp it and hold it for more than the few short hours that pass like seconds? The question we must answer first is “What makes happiness, true?”

Nina practices every day trying to reach the perfect performance but can never lose herself as the Black Swan. I anticipate that when a person is obsessed with one thing, other things in life become neglected, and for Nina’s case, her growth and maturity is neglected because of her commitment to ballet since a very young age. She became so focused on dancing that she had no room for personal development, which affects her Black Swan performance and makes her feel useless as she feels incomplete without achieving perfection. Her self-idealisation and desire for perfection cause her emotional and mental instability, resulting in her developing terrifying hallucinations and paranoia due to the amount of her pressure from the dual role, fueled by her obsession. This made me understand Aronofsky’s purpose and the logical portrayal of how striving for perfection can lead to destructive consequences and result in unrealistic and obsessive behaviours. As the idea of “perfect” can be difficult to obtain, and when we expect so much from ourselves and fail to reach those standards, we immediately feel worthless. This also relates to me personally, as I tend to form these high expectations of myself and become such a perfectionist when it comes to creating something that would genuinely prove what I’m capable of, this sometimes even leads me to avoid the subject because of the pressure of perfection and the fear of being defined as

There are many different types of film and film genres. A film can fit into more than one genre, but there are some genres that are more general than others. Some examples of film genre are animated, science fiction, documentary, comedy, and historical fiction. Within each genre, there are also specific characteristics that help support themes and story lines within that genre.

Black Swan is a psycho thriller film that narrates the life of a ballerina called Nina Sayers (played by Natalie Portman). She is a young, ambitious dancer working for a prestigious NYC ballet company. According to the movie, she was around twenty-some year old when the story begins. Even though the main point of the movie is how bad Nina wanted the lead role for a theater production called Swan Lake, the dark drama around the movie is built by the psychological illness of its protagonist. Nina’s disordered relationship with her roommate/mother Erica, played by Barbara Hershey, sets the stage for Nina’s psychological breakdown. In the movie, the role that Nina always wanted requires her to play both the black and white swans. Her innocent, almost child-like personality makes her a perfect hite swan; however, she was having trouble getting into the character of the white swan’s dark and seductive counterpart. This film brilliantly captures the brutal physical and emotional demands that ballerinas face in their short-lived career span.