Among the top contenders for a Best Actress Oscar this year is Natalie Portman, formerly Princess Amidala in the goofy Star Wars: I’m Going to Drive This Thing Straight into the Ground, as Nina in Black Swan. Now I know most of you took off work opening day to make sure you got seats to see the very first showing of this thing, but for the few who haven’t had the pleasure, it’s the story of one young ballerina’s quest for perfection in the role of her lifetime: Swan Lake. Driven to this by a bitter, overprotective/surreptitiously undermining mother, a skank of a director, and colleagues whose sense of esprit d’corps would have terrified even Nietzsche, Nina slowly but surely descends into any one of several dissociative psychological disorders.
Director Darren Aronofsky, whose work is always interesting (Pi, The Wrestler), if not always coherent (the unintentionally funny The Fountain), is quite successful in drawing the audience into Nina’s tippy toe into Loonyville. Perhaps the primary catalyst is Nina’s ballet director-cum-seducer (Vincent Cassel), who applauds her “White” Swan even as he deplores her manifestation of the Black Swan. Nina is simply too naive, too fragile, too “good,” even, to access the “dark side.” She is offering up only half a performance. She must “free” herself! Only then will she be capable of delivering the “whole,” even if it means a terrifying fragmentation of her personality
But with a little help from her friends, and her own internal pressures, she gets better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). And better. Until she achieves that unity of purpose that renders the “perfect” artistic performance—to her ultimate peril.
The film is a compelling enough essay on that thin gray line between genius and madness, on obsession and its uses, and on the various cultural voices who dictate success and the meaning of self-worth. Who am I? Why am I here? Who am I out to please, really? Myself, my mother, my peers, my boss? And what will “success” ultimately cost? My soul?
The film is not subtle and Nina’s inner life, her delusions and paranoid fantasies, trace the borderline of camp. But what is really missing is a way out of this false dilemma between “perfection” and “failure.” Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, and so in order to achieve it one must always subordinate the self to some other authority, which, in this realm, is always, always fallible. It is a self-defeating exercise, because even if you think you’ve achieved it, give it a minute, and the criteria by which that perfection is judged will shift, and you’ll find yourself having to place catch-up. To be perfect is, by definition, to fail. And the ultimate failure is death.
Which is why we Lutherans have placed such emphasis on law/Gospel dichotomies. Every time gospel implies “You must” or “You must not,” it becomes a word of condemnation, of failure, because, with all do apologies to Yoda, “you can’t,” try as you might. The good news is that someone already did, and you can rest in his success as if it were your own. You can put yourself under his authority without fear of collapsing under its weight, because his yoke is easy and his burden is light. The price of admission to perfection is faith alone, because the cost of that admission was paid 2,000 years ago. And faith is never a work. Only believe.
But Nina never hears that word, drowned out as it is by the disparate and competing demands of “You must.”
January 20th, 2011 | 12:40 pm
Caught your title immediately.
Reminded me of Lewis’ “sounds from the land of home.”
January 20th, 2011 | 12:47 pm
Is “corps d’esprit” a deliberate reversal? If so, I don’t get it.
January 20th, 2011 | 12:55 pm
Faith and works. Faith and works. They are inextricably intertwined. In Christ we participate. In Christ we are “acting persons”. In Christ we work because we have been given the gift of faith.
January 20th, 2011 | 1:33 pm
I’m still astounded that anyone would take that film seriously. It was one of the silliest, (with one of the most poorly written scripts), I’ve ever seen. Oh, and consequently, destined for many an Academy Award this year I’m sure.
January 20th, 2011 | 1:48 pm
Only artists really, really suffer.
January 20th, 2011 | 3:39 pm
Mat 5:48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
BTW: The film’s obsession with blood and obscenity propels it into laughable farce.
January 20th, 2011 | 3:54 pm
Bill: That is what we call an “oopsie.”
Nick & Grymwish: I wanted to laugh this one off too — and almost did. But I found myself strangely pulled into this character’s particular nightmare. (Perhaps because I was already reading into it my own ideas.) Although, I may come across it on cable TV in a year or two and laugh my head off: “What was I thinking?” That’s happened before. The film everyone seemed to love and that I found laughable was the Coens’ remake of “True Grit.” WHO TALKS LIKE THAT?
Bangwell Putt (which sounds like a name out of Evelyn Waugh): Of course, the two are inextricably linked. Even in the thick of Lutheran theology, the Gospel is the consummation and the fulfillment of the law, which frees us for its “third use,” and the law drives us to the Gospel’s message of redemption and liberation. (There is both law and Gospel in the Old Testament and the New. “Dichotomies” was probably too strong a word. “Dynamic” might be better. Although, as far as justification goes, “dichotomy” is sound. Ah, leave it.) And keep in mind that I am writing specifically within the context of the film’s premise, which is that this woman’s self-worth is wrapped up in a vain notion of “perfection,” which can only have deadly consequences, as it does in the spiritual life if one is determined to look strictly inward.
January 20th, 2011 | 4:15 pm
“WHO TALKS LIKE THAT?”
You will like this-
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1945368
January 20th, 2011 | 4:49 pm
The film was pretty bad, not only for its highly unrealistic treatment of ecstasy (no way you could dance ballet the day after), but also because of the sex scenes that I had to cringe through because I went to see the movie with my parents. :(
January 21st, 2011 | 5:02 am
[...] via Black Swan: Law vs. Gospel » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog. [...]
January 21st, 2011 | 9:41 am
Anthony I liked the way they used language in True Grit. People that learn to talk from what they read and the only thing they have to read is the KJV of the bible may indeed talk like that. And since the film is about justice (revenge) in the eye for and eye OT form it made it even more interesting.
January 21st, 2011 | 10:00 am
This was a terrible film. Could have been a superior film but it was not. Themes of “persona” and one’s own duality were there, as well as the cruel but beautiful world of ballet but none of it was utilized properly. Natalie Portman was excellent but the film never looked into her character’s soul. Internal intensity was stripped and replaced by poor understanding of human erotic experience.
January 22nd, 2011 | 9:25 am
Was this line meant to say, “Every time law implies “You must” or “You must not,”?
January 22nd, 2011 | 3:04 pm
[...] the movie (too grueling and twisted for me, thanks), First Thoughts has an interesting review of Black Swan and how it portrays the contrast between the Law and the [...]
January 25th, 2011 | 10:03 am
You know, some people actually liked The Fountain.
And by some people I mean me. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who liked it.
February 7th, 2011 | 12:31 am
I liked the Fountain.
It’s also interesting to see so many of the comments being “this is terrible” or “really bad.” I mean come on guys, does a movie have to perfect in order to get any credit? (that’s a little Black Swan-themed sarcasm, btw)
I work with youth kids in Asia where there is so much pressure to perform and reach perfection (some of them are even in ballet) that this movie rings true in so many ways.
Art is always pushing things beyond reality to a point of absurdity so that we can see the more subtle lies found in our real lives.
I thought Black Swan was good, too graphic for some, but definitely not a terrible movie.
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