Black Swan (2010)
Brief Introduction:
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Distributed by: Searchlight Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox France
Genre: Psychological, Horror, Thriller, Mystery
Story by: Andres Heinz
Release Date: December 3, 2010
Budget: $13,000,000
Box office: $329,398,046
Synopsis: Nina Sayers, is a ballet dancer striving for perfection in a production of "Swan Lake." As Nina wrestles with the pressure to portray both the innocent White Swan and the seductive Black Swan, her mental state deteriorates, leading to hallucinations and a blurred reality. The film explores themes of identity and sexuality, culminating in a gripping performance where Nina undergoes a psychological transformation.
Clip duration: 2:44 (+40s idents)
Start point: 0:40
End point: 3:24
Idents
The original introduction of Fox Searchlight Pictures appeared, in 3D bold letters on a stadium with numerous light beams shining with drums, trumpet creating an orchestra-like sound. The transition then starts when all the lights shine into the beams, blurring out everything. It faded to black with a train honk, a running sound as the logo of Cross Creek appeared through a monochrome running train. The introduction of Cross Creek is considered complex, however might brought up a significant interest from the audience as the movie started.
Everything faded to pitch black, a small melodic sound came up then several productions, casts, etc slowly appeared and faded out.
Title
After the events, the film started off featuring the production, executive’s name using an identical font as the title appeared later on. Without showing any footage, the full title of the film appeared on a pitch-black background. As no hint was revealed, the movie remained a mystery.
Analysis
The first scene features a long shot of a female ballet dancer in her white tulle ballet costume. There’s only one source of light from above, highlighting the layers of the tulle skirt which
enhances the ethereal beauty of the beginning posture. Following the scene is a close-up tracking of the ballet dancer’s leg movements.
Surrounding the ballet dancers is pitch black, creating a large outer space and mysterious as nothing is revealed. Camera angle choice mainly focuses on highlighting the movements of the performances. As the scene continues, we can see that they are hand-held shooting with shaking and intense tracks following the female ballet dancer. After revealing the female facial expression, we can tell that she is hoping for something as she is looking towards the pitch-black space. Following the
POV shot, a male dancer walks towards the light source and reveals his back and black costume.
They both start to dance again, and the melodic music in the background increases its intensity, during the significant moment the male dancer turns and adds a devil-like mask. A mid-shot is used to show the hand movements as well as their facial expressions, furthermore, the tracking started to speed up showing the female dancer’s uneasy facial expression, and heavy breathing. At the end of the performance, we can see the female ballet dancer doing a bird-like movement flying away, in addition to the scene fading back to pitch black.
Camera Techniques
The most used are tracking and hand-held filming. As well as a close-up scene of her leg and facial expression during the performance. There are not many scene cuts, since the main part is tracking the movements of the dancing.
Mise en scene
The scene took place indoors, a pitch-black space with only one source of white light. With two ballets, the location might be a theatre’s stage. The title is Black Swan, which usually refers to ballet dancers dressed in black ballet costumes with dark feminine makeup. However, the first scene reveals a white ballet skirt with an angel-like face of the female dancer and a devil-like inspired male dancer, therefore leading to confusion and interest for the audience.
Sound
As the pitch black faded into the scene, a soft melodic violin was played. As the movements of the ballet are gentle, the music is playing an orchestra vibe. Once the male dancer entered the frame, the violin played slightly changed into an intense mysterious vibe. At a significant close-up of the female dancer's face, heavy breathing is recorded. The music now has been playing, it's rising to a point which leads the viewers to an uneasy feeling as a more heavy breathing sound is added. Once the male dancer has turned and revealed a devil mask, the music significantly changed into intense orchestral music. Where the melody is now faster and stronger combined with the movements creates a heart-racing scene.
To a point where the music reached its most intense moment, it dropped and slowed down to the beginning melodic and now the male dancer is no longer revealed in the scene. We could see the male dancer is the leading of the intensity in the music as he first participates in it.
Genre
With the title and the opening scene, the audience didn’t get the full picture of the film’s genre. The fonts used are unique, therefore the film remains mysterious as it continues. However, the film’s posters are giving hints, as the black swan picture had a smudge down as it was torn by a sharp object. Audiences take a hint from the main colour theme used in the poster, which is white, black and red, a familiar color for the horror genre.
Editing
Typography of title and credits for the production, full capitalized white serif font, the same font used for the poster.
Music: soft melodic violin pieces at the start, during the scene a demonic piece of orchestra music with intense melody.
The editing process isn’t needed much in the opening scene, owing to the fact that most scenes are connected through tracking the ballet movements. However, the scene where the male dancer changes his appearance, a match cut scene had to be accurate.
Audience
The age range for the audience is 16+, since the movie was R-rated due to some strong sexual content and disturbing violent images. Underage teens should watch or have a guardian's permission before watching. This movie will be recommended for audiences who like violence and intense psychological genres since several scenes in the movie might contain disturbing content.
However, ballet dancers who had a career might be related to the movie, due to high challenges in practising as well as intense competition among others.
Personal Judgements
The cameraman did a great job in tracking the ballet dancer’s movement, as scenes connect to each other smoothly. However, the opening scene might give the audience curiosity about the overall setting, with low lighting and pitch black space will raise a mysterious feeling in the opening.
Background played a significant role in leading the scene, as the feeling of watching a melodic ballet performance was changed completely creating a heart-racing moment just like music raising its intensity.
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