Count Dooku

Your reaction is very interesting to me. I would never tell you that you ought to have enjoyed something that you did not...

However, since you are so eager to articulate your opinion, I have to wonder how you account for the fact that your critique of the film is so very diametrically opposed to every opinion expressed by the legitimate critical community?

Even critics that gave Black Swan the were impressed with Portman's performance (which you thought was terrible) and the visually exciting direction (which you thought was anything but).

Critics who panned the film thought it was crazily overwrought and insanely melodramatic, and that it presented more ideas than DA could handle making sense of them. You thought it was dull and simplistic.

Basically, your assessment of Black Swan is contrary even to those who agree with you that it is not a good movie. It's as if 100 people all tasted a dessert --90 thought it tasted good or great, nine thought it was too sweet, and you thought it was sour. What do you make of that?

Sessa17

For a self-proclaimed educated individual you still seem to not understand what the word "pretentious" means and you only prove my point of not understanding the film. You state "I think the film is pretentious because of its subject matter"? That makes no sense and sounds juvenile.

I may not agree, but I have no problem if someone doesn't like the story. But to say the acting is poor in this film as you do, is just nonsensical and comes off as "I don't like this movie, so everything in it sucks".

Your only example of why you call the movie "pretentious" is because you claim it fails at being a genre defying film? Again, shows a lack of understanding. DA is not attempting to to defy genres, if anything it is the exact opposite. He never veers from the motifs and theatrics of the ballet and every element of the film adheres to these motifs. Its a dark, lucid, and purposely melodramatic film and never once leaves those elements in an attempt to go outside the genre. The entire film stays within the confines of dark paranoia and makes no attempt whatsover at being anything else. This is hardly a movie that attempts to "defy genres". It is an entire story and film that sticks very clearly to one specific theme and builds everything around it executed perfectly.

Your entire reasons for not liking the movie come off as "its dark, and there is lesbians sex, and I don't get it, so its pretentious boo hoo".

Solid Snake

I don't disagree any of that. That's all easily and powerfully seen. I'm just saying...that whole "infantilises" aspect just bothers me. And that's just a persona issue. It works very well to the film. I'm just not keen on those kind of things popping up in a movie, I can't say why but it just does. Saying that it doesn't at all impact my critique of the film. Of which....I don't think I have any negative things to say about it besides my own personal bias on character preferences. That character needed to be like that to go the route she went. And it was fucking great.

Dr. DVD

^ Basically, you just don't like characters written that way, but it won't make you pan the movie. Same way someone might say "I don't like drunks in movies." I don't care for them myself, but I'm not going to dislike the movie due to their presence.

meritocracy

I gotcha and agree. I didn't see your post as particularly negative and my response wasn't so much a direct critique to yours, but more a generalized one to those articulating the view that there's no complex dynamic going on within the film, that Portman's character is one note and not realistic, that there's no rationale for her behavior and that the performance is somehow not deserving of praise. I just took an aspect of your post to use as a jumping off point for the larger theme at work.

marty888

Just saw this today, and I agree completely about the close-ups (the handheld didn't bother me). I can go along with the closeups of hands, feet, etc needed to create the illusion that our heroine is actually dancing, or for some of the plot moments - but dozens of time throughout the film, whenever someone was walking (either towards us, or away from us) all we saw was their heads and shoulders. Whether someone was walking down a hall, out of a subway, across the Lincoln Center plaza - head and shoulders only.

But other than that, one terrific movie!

Count Dooku

Aronofsky on the use of close-ups:

New Yorker column The Moving Camera by Richard Brody

The mail just brought this month’s American Cinematographer, the cover story of which is, naturally, “Black Swan.” There’s a good, long interview (by Stephen Pizzello) with the movie’s director of photography, Matthew Libatique, who describes the use of a small 16mm camera for most of the film, which was shot in existing locations with a minimum of movie lighting (“the apartment Nina shares with her mother was right next to Prospect Park, and we moved the camera in as though we were documenting real people’s lives”). There’s a remarkable photo of him using a tiny Canon camera, the size of a traditional S.L.R., to videotape Natalie Portman in the subway. And, as a sidebar, there’s a text by Darren Aronofsky, “Directing ‘Black Swan,’ ” in which he describes his plan to blend “a vérité approach with the horror aspects of the film,” and says,

We used a lot of close-ups. For me, the close-up is one of the great inventions of the 20th century; it allows an audience to sit in a dark room and stare into the eyes of a person who’s emoting without being self-conscious.

He’s right about the close-up, and it’s a good week to talk about its inventor, D. W. Griffith, whose inventions are on view right now (literally) at MOMA, in a series of films featuring Lillian Gish, whose face is the reason for many of Griffith’s greatest close-ups. “Way Down East,” from 1920 (which I discuss a clip of here), plays there today at 4 P.M. (and, again, on December 11th at 4 P.M.). There, Griffith lets loose with perhaps both the greatest number and the greatest variety of close-ups he ever devised.

I wrote earlier this week about the importance of eyes and mirrors in the film, and Aronofsky talks about mirrors, too, which, he rightly says, “are omnipresent in the film, as they are in the landscape of the dancer”:

When dancers are training, they’re constantly observing themselves in mirrors, so I knew that would be a big visual motif. People have used mirror gags in all kinds of movies, so we tried to figure out creepy and weird ways to use them in new ways. Sometimes these shots involved visual effects; there are almost 300 effects shots in the movie.

Aronofsky’s blend of the concrete and the phantasmagorical, the study of the face and the inner vision of the disturbed imagination, make for a film that is as modern as it is classical. It opens tomorrow; it’s one of the best films I’ve seen this year.

Also Black Swan Cinematographer Matthew Libatique tells American Cinematographer magazine that most of the film was shot with a 12-18 mm lens, a wide-angle format that creates a subjective effect (subliminal or exaggerated, depending on the shot itself) in which the background wraps itself around the subject in the center of the frame. Like "The Wrestler," "Black Swan" uses what Libatique describes as handheld 16mm (gauge) cinéma vérité to follow the main character around, especially when she's dancing, in rehearsal or onstage.

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ac/ac1210/?ap=1#/32

Daytripper

Saw it today. Great movie. Very intense. Portman better win best actress over Bening if it comes down to just the two of them. This is definitely one of the year's top 10 films.

Solid Snake

I liked the closeups...it didn't bother me at all.

marty888

"We used a lot of close-ups. For me, the close-up is one of the great inventions of the 20th century; it allows an audience to sit in a dark room and stare into the eyes of a person who’s emoting without being self-conscious.

Very true, but that doesn't justify the incessant close-ups of people walking away from the camera when their eyes are not visible.

Count Dooku

That's supposed to create a connection between the viewer and the character's subjective viewpoint.

Following Nina around staring at the back of her head suggests that some of what we are seeing is the creation of her mind.

Julie Walker

I don't mind hand head camerawork at all, but I do hate the excessively shaky and random zoom in style that many movies and tv shows use today. While this film did avoid the random zooming, it did have moments of excessive shakiness that drew attention to itself rather than feeling 'natural'.

Night of the Living Dead(1968) is shot hand held docudrama style and the camera work is stable with the occasional quick motion or 'shaking' but it's still more subtle than how the style is used today and makes for a very effective experience.


I was disappointed in the cinematography after getting exited when the drapes in the theater moved into 'scope' position once the trailers began. I didn't know the film would be 'scope' at all until that moment,so I was expecting some pretty impressive photography, only to wind up with constant up close above the shoulders framing, that felt cramped to me as I wanted to see what was going on off to the sides and background since the close ups got boring fast.

That disappointment mixed with the sometimes excessive shaking in some moments really annoyed me. In fact I don't see why they didn't shoot in 1.85:1 since there was no point in aiming for a wider format and not making the most of it in my opinion. In fact I was beginning to think the projection was really off with how badly framed the film appeared to myself. Yet I find it's all intentional, and well it certainly does not work for me,that's for sure.

In fact, the framing reminded of of scope movies being cropped to 4x3 and you wound up with lot's of extreme up close shots of actors faces while losing everything off to the side and more, and when this image is blown up to theater sized screen, it's pretty much an eye sore to view. That's a good way to describe how the framing looked to myself anyway.

RichC2

The close-up camera work gave the movie a sense of clausterphobia, imo. It actually enhanced the sense of anxiety. It did catch me off guard at first, though, and required some adjustment.

I will say, seeing people jump and/or scream during this movie absolutely cracked me up.

JumpCutz

Exactly. Not sure why people aren't getting that.

james2025a

Primarily to Sessa17:

We each have our own opinions on movies and i, like most people on the forums here, appreciate hearing others. I know that i will not agree with everyones all the time...but that is why they are opinions. I have not mentioned anything at all about your level of intellect, sophistication or choice of approved movies, however you seem very judgmental in your opinion on my opinion. I choose to not agree with your opinion....but you know what i respect that you have a different opinion. I don't make judgement calls on your intellect or taste in movies because i do not know you. Instead of trying to suggest that i misunderstood or was too dim to "get" the movie i feel it would be a better display of your character to accept that i do not have the same opinion as you do and that maybe....just maybe i did understand the movie. As i mentioned before, i was with a group of people when i watched this and every single person i was with felt the same way that i did. This is group of movie fans who are intellectually very bright professionals and i respect their opinions (and we do disagree a lot of the time).

Addressing my thoughts on Natalie Portmans performance, i really just found it to be dull and uninteresting. I found this was as much the actual character itself as written as much as her performance. I know she is a fine actress and just hoped for more from her.

JumpCutz

Not meaning to be contentious, but out of curiosity, what would you consider to be a better Natalie Portman performance than the one she gave in Black Swan? I personally think it's her best work to date.

Solid Snake

I have tp say the same thing JumpCutz. All her other stuff are roles that I knew she could do and no big deal. THIS on the other hand...was a damn fine job...

on another note: In the horror aspect given from what is shown in the film...that

Supermallet

Ah, but that was foreshadowed

sleepyhead55

Strange the camera work didn't really bother me as well. The last 45 minutes or so of this was excellent and very intense. I thought Barbara Hershey also gave a great performance as the mother. Vincent Cassel is great in this as well. I hope this will lead to better roles in mainstream American films.

The only other Portman performance that might give her Black Swan some competition would probably be Leon (although I haven't seen that one in some time).

Anyway excellent flick. I was surprised that the theater I was at was close to 60% full considering that I saw an afternoon matinee.

Solid Snake

Foreshadowed or not...that's irrelevant. The fact it happened freaked me out. Disturbed me a bit. Dunno why but it does do so for me.

Count Dooku

I wish you could carry that same opinion into the True Grit thread.

lamphorn

I'm always the first to complain about hand-held/shaky cam, but I wasn't bothered in the least by the camerawork in this movie. In part because it doesn't feel like the camera person is gratuitously waving the camera around and zooming in and out. Also, in part, because I find close-ups of Natalie Portman (and Mila Kunis, too) to be so pleasurable to look at.

Solid Snake

Maybe this is the reason we're so mixed on the whole camera work. If you don't like it..you hate Kunis and Portman close to you. If you do, well..you a like the pretty faces close to you.

Hokeyboy

Fantastic movie. Beautifully shot, performed, and acted. In the hands of a lesser director, this could have been delivered with all the artistry and subtlety of a "Final Destination 3D"-styled bullcrap cheeseball thriller. If the movie has a flaw, it would probably in its reliance on flirting with cinematic cliche in function, but, to its credit, not in form. It doesn't subvert audience expectations (if you've seen enough movies dealing with obsession and megalomania, you know where things are heading) but Aranofsky's exquisite storytelling skills elevates this haunting, tragic thriller. And Mila Kunis deserves an Oscar just for breathing.

Superboy

I thought it was just "okay". I thought pi was interesting for its cinematography, I can't stand watching Requiem for a Dream because it's so horrifying, and I absolutely loved the wrestler, which was probably one of the best movies of the last 25 years. I should mention I hate wrestling.

I didn't think there was anything especially wrong with the movie, or that there were any real glaring flaws. The movie just didn't pull me in.