Black Swan (film)

Nina Sayers, a young dancer with the New York City Ballet, lives with her overprotective mother, Erica, a former ballerina. The company is opening the season with Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. After forcing the current , Beth, into retirement, artistic director Thomas Leroy announces he is looking for a new dancer for the dual roles of the innocent and fragile White Swan, Odette, and the sensual and dark Black Swan, Odile. Nina auditions and gives a flawless performance as Odette, but fails to embody Odile, causing Thomas to dismiss her. The next day, Nina asks Thomas to reconsider. He forcibly kisses her and she bites him and runs out of his office. Later, Nina is surprised to find she has received the lead role. At a gala celebrating the new season, an intoxicated Beth publicly accuses Nina of providing sexual favors to Thomas in return for the role. The next day, Nina hears Beth has been hit by a car; Thomas believes she was attempting suicide. Nina visits Beth in the hospital and is distraught to see her injured legs; it is clear she will never dance again. During rehearsals, Thomas tells Nina to observe a newcomer, Lily, who has a physical resemblance to Nina but also an uninhibited quality Nina lacks. Nina has hallucinations and finds scratch marks on her back. One night, despite Erica's objections, Nina accepts Lily's invitation to go out for drinks. Lily offers Nina an ecstasy capsule, which Nina reluctantly accepts. While intoxicated, Nina flirts with men at the bar and Lily as well. After the two dance at a nightclub, they go back to Nina's apartment and have sex. The next morning, Nina wakes up disoriented and alone and realizes that she is late for rehearsal. At rehearsal, Nina sees Lily dancing as Odile and confronts her about their sexual encounter. Lily denies that it happened and mocks Nina for fantasizing about her. Nina becomes convinced Lily intends to replace her, especially after learning that Thomas has made Lily her alternate. Nina's mysterious injuries and hallucinations grow more severe, leading to an incident where she believes she is transforming into Odile. Erica grows concerned about her well-being and attempts to prevent Nina from performing on opening night. After a physical confrontation with her mother and a confrontation with Beth, Nina arrives at the theater, where she finds Lily preparing to take the stage as Odette because Nina has been absent. Nina convinces Thomas to allow her to take back her role. Towards the end of the ballet's second act, Nina is distracted by a hallucination and loses her balance during a lift, causing Prince Siegfried to drop her, infuriating Thomas. Nina returns to her dressing room and finds Lily preparing to play Odile. She confronts her and Lily appears to transform into a doppelgänger copy of Nina. The two fight, breaking a mirror. Nina stabs her doppelgänger with a shard of glass, killing her and breaking the illusion. Nina hides Lily's body and takes the stage. She dances flawlessly as Odile and seemingly begins to turn into a black swan, her arms covered in feathers. Amidst a standing ovation from the audience, Nina surprises Thomas with a passionate kiss. In her dressing room, Nina resumes the Odette tutu and white swan makeup, but is interrupted by Lily, who congratulates Nina for her performance. Nina sees the mirror is still broken, but all other evidence of the stabbing is gone, including the body. She looks down and pulls a piece of glass from her abdomen, realizing she stabbed herself and not Lily. Despite her injury, she dances the final act of the ballet with blood gradually seeping through her costume. The show ends with her jumping from the set onto a hidden mattress to simulate Odette throwing herself off a cliff. Everyone erupts in thunderous applause while Thomas, Lily, and the other dancers gather to congratulate Nina backstage. Thomas eventually realizes Nina is bleeding and shouts for help, asking Nina what happened. Nina calmly replies: "I felt it. Perfect. I was perfect", as the screen fades to white. ==Cast==

During the closing credits, the major cast members are credited both as their film characters as well as their corresponding characters from Swan Lake. • Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers / White Swan / Odette, a ballerina for the NYC ballet who strives for perfection while struggling with stress and various traumatic issues • Mila Kunis as Lily / Black Swan / Odile, an experienced ballerina transferred to the company and seen as a threat to Nina • Vincent Cassel as Thomas Leroy / The Gentleman, the sexual crazed Artistic Director • Barbara Hershey as Erica Sayers / The Queen, Nina's overprotective mother and a retired ballerina • Winona Ryder as Elizabeth "Beth" MacIntyre / The Dying Swan, a star prima ballerina who was forced into retirement • Benjamin Millepied as David Moreau / Prince Siegfried, Nina's dance partner • Ksenia Solo as Veronica / Little Swan, a ballerina who was originally Thomas's first pick for the lead in Swan Lake • Kristina Anapau as Galina / Little Swan • Janet Montgomery as Madeline / Little Swan • Sebastian Stan as Andrew / Suitor • Toby Hemingway as Tom / Suitor • Sergio Torrado as Sergio / Von Rothbart • Mark Margolis as Mr. Fithian / Patron • Tina Sloan as Mrs. Fithian / Patron ==Production==

Conception Darren Aronofsky first became interested in ballet when his sister studied dance at the High School of Performing Arts in New York City. The basic idea for the film started when he hired screenwriters to rework a screenplay called The Understudy, which portrayed off-Broadway actors and explored the notion of being haunted by a double. Aronofsky said the screenplay had elements of All About Eve (1950), Roman Polanski's The Tenant (1976), and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella The Double. The director had also seen numerous productions of Swan Lake, and he connected the duality of the White Swan and the Black Swan to the script. When researching for the production of Black Swan, Aronofsky found ballet to be "a very insular world" whose dancers were "not impressed by movies". Regardless, the director found active and inactive dancers to share their experiences with him. He also stood backstage to see the Bolshoi Ballet perform at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Aronofsky called Black Swan a companion piece to his previous film The Wrestler, recalling one of his early projects about a love affair between a wrestler and a ballerina. He eventually separated the wrestling and the ballet worlds as "too much for one movie". He compared the two films: "Wrestling some consider the lowest art—if they would even call it art—and ballet some people consider the highest art. But what was amazing to me was how similar the performers in both of these worlds are. They both make incredible use of their bodies to express themselves." while Aronofsky said Polanski's Repulsion (1965) and The Tenant (1976) were "big influences" on the final film. Casting Aronofsky first discussed with Natalie Portman the possibility of a ballet film in 2000, and he found she was interested in playing a ballet dancer. Portman suggested to Aronofsky that her good friend Mila Kunis would be perfect for the role. Kunis contrasted Lily with Nina, "My character is very loose ... She's not as technically good as Natalie's character, but she has more passion, naturally. That's what [Nina] lacks." The female characters are directed in the Swan Lake production by Thomas Leroy, played by Cassel. He compared his character to George Balanchine, who co-founded New York City Ballet and was "a control freak, a true artist using sexuality to direct his dancers". Portman and Kunis started training six months before the start of filming in order to attain a body type and muscle tone more similar to those of professional dancers. Kunis engaged in cardio and Pilates, "train[ing] seven days a week, five hours, for five, six months total, and... was put on a very strict diet of 1,200 calories a day". She lost from her normal weight of about , and reported that Portman "became smaller than I did". Kunis said, "I did ballet as a kid, like every other kid does ballet. You wear a tutu and you stand on stage and you look cute and twirl. But this is very different because you can't fake it. You can't just stay in there and like pretend you know what you're doing. Your whole body has to be structured differently." Georgina Parkinson, a ballet mistress from the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), coached the actors in ballet. ABT soloists Sarah Lane and María Riccetto served as "dance doubles" for Portman and Kunis, respectively. Dancer Kimberly Prosa also served as a double for Portman. She stated: "Natalie took class, she studied for several months, from the waist up is her. Sarah Lane, a soloist at ABT, did the heavy tricks, she did the fouettés, but they only had her for a limited time, a couple of weeks, so I did the rest of whatever dance shots they needed." In addition to the soloist performances, members of the Pennsylvania Ballet were cast as the , backdrop for the main actors' performances. Toby Hemingway, Sebastian Stan, and Janet Montgomery. Development and filming Aronofsky and Portman first discussed a ballet film in 2000, after the release of his second film Requiem for a Dream (2000), though the script had not yet been written. On the decade's wait before production, she said, "The fact that I had spent so much time with the idea... allowed it to marinate a little before we shot." Performing Arts Center The screenplay The Understudy was written by Andres Heinz; Aronofsky first heard about it while editing Requiem for a Dream and described it as "All About Eve with a double, set in the off-Broadway world". After making The Fountain (2006), Aronofsky and producer Mike Medavoy had screenwriter John McLaughlin rewrite The Understudy; Aronofsky said McLaughlin "took my idea of Swan Lake and the ballet and put [the story] into the ballet world and changed the title to Black Swan. When Aronofsky proposed a detailed outline of Black Swan to Universal Pictures, the studio decided to fast-track development of the project in January 2007. The project "sort of died, again" according to Aronofsky, until after the making of The Wrestler (2008), when he had Mark Heyman, director of development of Aronofsky's production company Protozoa Pictures, write for Black Swan "and made it something that was workable". Black Swan began development under Protozoa Pictures and Overnight Productions, the latter financing the film. In July 2009, Kunis was cast. Fox Searchlight Pictures distributed Black Swan and gave the film a production budget of $10–12 million. Principal photography was achieved using Super 16mm cameras and began in New York City toward the end of 2009. Part of filming took place at the Performing Arts Center at State University of New York at Purchase. Aronofsky said: Cinematographer Matthew Libatique shot the film on 16mm film. Soundtrack The non-original music featured in Black Swan consists of music by Tchaikovsky featuring performances on-screen and in the soundtrack by violinist Tim Fain and a track of electronica dance music by English production duo the Chemical Brothers. It marks the fifth consecutive collaboration between Aronofsky and English composer Clint Mansell, who composed the original score for the film. Mansell attempted to score the film based on Tchaikovsky's ballet but with radical changes to the music. Because of the use of Tchaikovsky's music, the score was deemed ineligible to be entered into the 2010 Academy Awards for Best Original Score. The Chemical Brothers' music, which is featured prominently during the club scene in the film, is omitted from the soundtrack album. ==Release==

Black Swan had its world premiere as the opening film at the 67th Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2010. It received a standing ovation whose length Variety said made it "one of the strongest Venice openers in recent memory". The festival's artistic director Marco Mueller had chosen Black Swan over The American (starring George Clooney) for opening film, saying, "[It] was just a better fit ... Clooney is a wonderful actor, and he will always be welcome in Venice. But it was as simple as that." Black Swan screened in competition and is the third consecutive film directed by Aronofsky to premiere at the festival, following The Fountain (2006) and The Wrestler. Black Swan was presented in a sneak screening at the Telluride Film Festival on September 5, 2010. It also had a Gala screening at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival later in the month. In October 2010, Black Swan was screened at the New Orleans Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival. In November 2010, the film was screened at American Film Institute's AFI Fest in Los Angeles, the Denver Film Festival and Camerimage Festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The release of Black Swan in the United Kingdom was preponed from February 11 to January 21, 2011. According to The Independent, the film was considered one of "the most highly anticipated" films of 2010. The newspaper then compared it to the 1948 ballet film The Red Shoes in having "a nightmarish quality... of a dancer consumed by her desire to dance". The film was re-released, remastered exclusively for IMAX to celebrate its 15th anniversary on August 21, 2025 and August 24, 2025. Home media Black Swan was released on DVD and Blu-ray in Region 1/Region A on March 29, 2011. The Region 2/Region B version was released on May 16, 2011. ==Reception==

Box office Black Swan had a limited release in select cities in North America on December 3, 2010, in 18 theaters and was a surprise box office success. The film took in a total of $415,822 on its opening day, averaging $23,101 per theater. By the end of its opening weekend it grossed $1,443,809—$80,212 per theater. The per location average was the second highest for the opening weekend of 2010 behind ''The King's Speech''. The film is Fox Searchlight Pictures' highest per-theater average gross ever, and it ranks 21st on the all-time list. On its second weekend the film expanded to 90 theaters, and grossed $3.3 million, ranking it as the sixth film at the box-office. In its third weekend, it expanded again to 959 theaters and grossed $8,383,479. The film went on to gross over $106 million in the United States and over $329 million worldwide. Critical response , actress Mila Kunis, actor Vincent Cassel, director Darren Aronofsky) discuss the film with Sandra Hebron at the BFI London Film Festival, where it was nominated for Best Film. Black Swan received positive reviews from critics upon release, with praise toward Aronofsky's direction and the performances of Portman, Kunis and Hershey. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 85% based on 318 reviews, and an average rating of 8.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bracingly intense, passionate, and wildly melodramatic, Black Swan glides on Darren Aronofsky's bold direction—and a , performance from Natalie Portman." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out to reviews, the film received an average score of 79 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "generally positive reviews". In September 2010, Entertainment Weekly reported that based on reviews from the film's screening at the Venice Film Festival, "[] is already set to be one of the year's most love-it-or-hate-it films." Leonard Maltin, on his blog Movie Crazy, admitted that he "couldn't stand" the film, despite highly praising Portman's performance. Reuters described the early response to the film as "largely positive", with Portman's performance being highly praised. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that "the film divided critics. Some found its theatricality maddening, but most declared themselves 'swept away'." Kurt Loder of Reason called the film "wonderfully creepy", and wrote that "it's not entirely satisfying; but it's infused with the director's usual creative brio, and it has a great dark gleaming look". Mike Goodridge from Screen Daily called Black Swan "alternately disturbing and exhilarating" and described the film as a hybrid of The Turning Point (1977) and Polanski's films Repulsion (1965) and ''Rosemary's Baby'' (1968). Goodridge described Portman's performance, "[She] is captivating as Nina... She captures the confusion of a repressed young woman thrown into a world of danger and temptation with frightening veracity." The critic also commended Cassel, Kunis, and Hershey in their supporting roles, particularly comparing Hershey to Ruth Gordon in the role of "the desperate, jealous mother". Goodridge praised Libatique's cinematography with the dance scenes and the psychologically "unnerving" scenes: "It's a mesmerising psychological ride that builds to a gloriously theatrical tragic finale as Nina attempts to deliver the perfect performance." and Mila Kunis won the Marcello Mastroianni Award. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a mixed review. He wrote, "[] is an instant guilty pleasure, a gorgeously shot, visually complex film whose badness is what's so good about it. You might howl at the sheer audacity of mixing mental illness with the body-fatiguing, mind-numbing rigors of ballet, but its lurid imagery and a hellcat competition between two rival dancers is pretty irresistible." Honeycutt commended Millepied's "sumptuous" choreography and Libatique's "darting, weaving" camera work. The critic said of the thematic mashup, "Aronofsky... never succeeds in wedding genre elements to the world of ballet... White Swan/Black Swan dynamics almost work, but the horror-movie nonsense drags everything down the rabbit hole of preposterousness." Similarly, in a piece for The Huffington Post, Rob Kirkpatrick praised Portman's performance but compared the film's story to that of Showgirls (1995) and Burlesque (2010) while concluding Black Swan is "simply higher-priced cheese, Aronofsky's camembert to [Burlesque director Steve Antin|Steve] Antin's cheddar". Vulture Kyle Buchanan also noted the similarities of the film's plot to the widely derided Showgirls, and said that the director Darren Aronofsky "owes a feather-tip to Paul Verhoeven's exploitation classic more than [he] might be willing to admit". The film has been criticized for its portrayal of ballet and ballet dancers. Upon the film's release in the United Kingdom, The Guardian interviewed four professional ballet dancers in the UK: Tamara Rojo, Lauren Cuthbertson, Edward Watson, and Elena Glurjidze. Rojo called the film "lazy ... featuring every ballet cliche going". Watson felt that the film "makes [ballet] look so naff and laughable. It doesn't show why ballet is so important to us—why we would want to try so hard." The Canadian Press also reported that many Canadian ballet dancers felt that the film depicted dancers negatively and exaggerated elements of their lives but gave Portman high marks for her dance technique. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Gillian Murphy, a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre praised the visual elements of the film but noted that the film presentation of the ballet world was "extreme". Perfect Blue comparison Several critics noted striking similarities between Satoshi Kon's 1997 anime film Perfect Blue and Aronofsky's Black Swan. In response to comparisons between Perfect Blue and Black Swan, Aronofsky acknowledged the similarities in 2010, but denied that Black Swan was inspired by Perfect Blue. Westcott challenged that view and stated that in all only 7 costumes, among them the Black and White Swan, had been created in a collaboration between Rodarte, Westcott, and Aronofsky. Furthermore, the corps ballet's costumes were designed by Zack Brown (for the American Ballet Theatre), and slightly adapted by Westcott and her costume design department. Westcott said: "Controversy is too complimentary a word for two people using their considerable self-publicising resources to loudly complain about their credit once they realized how good the film is." Controversy ABT dancer Sarah Lane served as a "dance double" for Portman in the film. This led to responses from Benjamin Millepied and Aronofsky, who both defended Portman, as well as a response from Lane claiming that she has not been given due credit. Top ten lists Black Swan was on many critics' top ten lists for 2010. • 1st – Caryn James, IndieWire • 1st – Drew McWeeny, HitFix • 1st – Noel Murray, A.V. Club • 1st – James Rocchi, MSN • 2nd – Keith Phipps and Nathan Rabin, A.V. Club • 2nd – Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com • 2nd – Claudia Puig, USA Today • 2nd – Lou Lumenick, New York Post • 3rd – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times • 3rd – Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald • 3rd – Harry Knowles, Ain't It Cool News • 4th – Tasha Robinson, A.V. Club • 4th – Gregory Ellwood, HitFix • 5th – James Berardinelli, Reelviews • 5th – FX Feeney, Village Voice • 5th – Christy Lemire, Associated Press • 5th – Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News • 5th – Richard Brody, The New Yorker • 6th – Mary Pols & Glenn Kenny, MSN • 7th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone • 8th – Peter Knegt, Indiewire • 8th – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle • 8th – Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times • 8th – Simon Abrams, Village Voice • Top 10 (listed alphabetically) – Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer • Top 10 (listed alphabetically) – Pete Hammond, Boxoffice Magazine • Top 10 (listed alphabetically) – Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Accolades and awards Black Swan appeared on many critics' top ten lists of 2010 and is frequently considered to be one of the best films of the year. It was featured on the American Film Institute's 10 Movies of the Year. On January 25, 2011, the film was nominated for five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing), with Portman winning Best Actress. In 2025, it ranked number 81 on The New York Times list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century" and number 74 on the "Readers' Choice" edition of the list. ==References==