Black Swan - Character

In the film Black Swan, the convention of character is used effectively. This includes the engagement/positioning of the audience, revelation, challenge and development, stereotypes and representations.

I chose to focus on the character of Nina Sayers, an obsessed, overly ambitious ballerina. She is a perfectionist and this is shown through her dancing where she always does the dances perfectly, but the audience can't feel the true emotion of the performance. Thomas tells her that "In four years, every time you dance, I see you obsess, getting each and every move perfectly right, but I never see you lose yourself." Nina is alienated by her coworkers and director Thomas, a demanding and merciless man. Thomas and the other dancers see Nina as a 'shy, frigid little girl'. Throughout the film, Nina keeps to herself and rarely socializes with any of the dancers. Thomas tells Nina that "If I was only casting the white swan, she'd be yours." telling the audience that Nina is perfect for the part of the white swan, but lacks the passion to be the seductive black swan. The pressure Nina gets from Thomas, her mother and Lily - as well as herself - drives her to insanity to become the black swan.

Nina is suffocated by her overbearing and manipulative mother, Erica, who controls Nina's life. A former ballerina, her mother was forced to give up ballet when she became pregnant with Nina. Her mother controls every aspect of her life and treats her like a child. She tucks Nina into bed every night and calls her "my sweet girl" and she tells her "everything will be better in the morning". This shows that Nina's mother kind, caring, yet controlling. On the other hand, she pushes Nina to fulfil the dreams she was never able to achieve. Because of this, Nina is obsessive with her dancing, wanting every move to be perfect. Erica becomes jealous and resentful of Nina's dancing success and this is shown when she makes a cake for Nina and Nina refuses to eat the cake, showing signs of bulimia or anorexia. The mother threatens to throw out the entire cake, making Nina feel guilty and forces her to eat some. She also tells Nina that she'll get the role as she's "been there long enough" showing that Nina will earn it through being committed to the company rather than performing well. This makes Nina insecure and pushes her to dance better and have a great career to show her mother that she's an amazing dancer, leading to her obsessive trait. Nina is shown to be incapable of caring for herself, even as an adult. This is shown when Erica cuts Nina's toenails for her, even though Nina is capable of doing it herself. This shows Nina's incompetence and her inability to care for herself, meaning she relies on her mother to care for her. Erica is also very overprotective and has kept Nina in a shell all of her life - making Nina fearful and apprehensive of the world around her. This anxiety is shown through the camera shots where Aronofsky uses a hand held camera, giving a shaky effect to the film making the audience feel as if someone is watching Nina making the audience feel uneasy and gives the feeling something bad is going to happen. This is her evil twin following her, her black swan. Aronofsky also uses mirrors to show Nina's crescendo into madness where Nina is alone in the studio and Nina looks at her multiplying mirror images of her and loses control. The mirrors are used in mostly every shot in the film, reflecting Nina's evil twin and how its following her through the shaky camera shots and the mirror reflections. The black swan evil twin slowly consumes Nina throughout the film till the point where she dies.

Nina's costume is used to show Nina's transition in to the black swan. At the start of the film, Nina is commonly seen in pink, white and light greys which symbolises her purity and innocence. This costume is shown when Nina is riding the subway and she is wearing a pale pink coat and white fluffy scarf while everyone around her is wearing dark greys and black, showing the darkness and intensity Nina experiences in the world of professional ballet as they all strive for perfection. In the scene, it also shows Nina looking at someone in the other area of the subway through the glass and its somebody who looks like Nina but they are wearing dark grey and black clothing. This foreshadows Nina's descent into madness for the role of the black swan. Lily, however, is always dressed in dark greys and black. This juxtapostions Nina and Lily and how Nina is the white swan and Lily is the black swan. Lily has a tattoo of black wings on her back, which is continuously shown through the film next to Nina, contrasting the two characters. The audience is able to tell when Nina starts to become the black swan when her clothes become darker; she starts to wear dark grey and black clothing until the black swan dance where she is wearing a full black costume, showing how the darkness has become Nina.

Nina’s passion for ballet goes beyond a natural desire for excellence. She is obsessed with reaching “perfection” as a dancer. For Nina, achieving perfection is something she believes is possible, telling Thomas, “I just want to be perfect.” However, perfection is unattainable. A dancer can become excellent, but not perfect because there is always room for improvement. She continuously says the word perfect throughout the film, showing the audience her obsession for perfection. At the end of the film, she says "I was perfect", showing she's finally reached her goal of perfection but it came at a price - her life. She is also very vain and this is shown when she continuously looks in the mirror throughout the film.

Nina is required to become the black swan and to do that, she must "lose herself" in the role. The film follows Nina's descent into becoming the black swan. Nina's actions show her change when she fights with her mother, she takes drugs at a club and becomes sexually active. Thomas employs a new dancer - Lily - who isn't skilled in the technical aspects of dancing but her personality makes her the perfect black swan. Thomas keeps telling Nina to be like Lily, causing Nina to become jealous and paranoid that Lily is trying to sabotage her and steal her role. Aronofsky uses the tattoo of black wings on Lily's back to contrast against Nina's innocence at the start of the film, to show the contrast of the two characters and the black swan and white swan. Nina also idolizes Beth, the previous white swan. Thomas says that "everything Beth does comes from within. From some dark impulse. I guess that's what makes her so thrilling to watch, so dangerous. Even perfect at times. But also so damn destructive." Nina's dark impulse is her evil twin, shown in mirrors and the shaky camera shots which leads her into becoming the black swan. Her evil twin isn't real, but a figment of Nina's imagination. She is afraid of her, but throughout the film she slowly transitions into her evil twin, the black swan. She turns crazy and the "shy, frigid little girl" is gone. The film is shown through Nina's point of view, showing the audience Nina's hallucinations through the use of special effects. A particular effective special effect was when Nina's eyes were red, like a swan, her toes were becoming stuck together like webbed feet of a swan and her skin had huge areas of goose bumps where feathers were growing from, which eventually turned her arms into black swan wings during her performance. Nina's craziness makes her hallucinate that she killed Lily by smashing her into a mirror, then stabbing her with a shard from the mirror. During this struggle scene between Nina and Lily, Lily changes into the black swan version of Nina, showing the audience Nina's evil twin. The white swan version of Nina takes over and stabs the evil twin, yelling "It's my turn!". The evil twin then changes back to Lily, leaving Nina thinking that she killed Lily. Nina emerges on the stage as the black swan and delivers a powerful performance. She realises after the performance that she stabbed herself when she sees Lily, and sees the wound in her dress. During her final performance of the white swan, the wound takes over her and she dies as the black swan and the pure, innocent white swan that Nina once was is now gone and the destructive, seducing and powerful black swan has now consumed Nina, taking over her and ultimately resulting in her death after a standing ovation from the audience. Her last words are "It was perfect", showing her dedication and devotion to her role and how it ultimately consumed her.