by JUDITH MACKRELL
Black Swan stars Natalie Portman as a ballerina hitting the big time. How realistic is the movie? We asked the cream of British ballet to give their verdicts
Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky, claims to penetrate to the romantic, obsessional heart of ballet. Based loosely on Swan Lake, the film follows Nina, its ballerina heroine, as she grapples with learning the dual role of Odette and Odile (the white and black swans in Swan Lake).
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Prior to the film’s US release last month, the dance community had imagined Black Swan to be an update of Powell and Pressburger’s ballet classic The Red Shoes. As they’ve since discovered, the film has more in common with Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby: a terrifying portrayal of one woman’s descent into madness, set in a world of claustrophobia and pain. Feathers have been ruffled: Robert Gottlieb, the New York Observer’s dance critic, found Aronofsky guilty of “recapitulating all the old ugly misrepresentations of ballet”, and of portraying ballet as one great “sadomasochistic trip”.
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