"The Black Swan"

A movie you should see if you like classical music. A good movie, I'll even say ... but it is very disturbing if you ask me.

I thought I would like watching it with my wife, but I could tell she was reluctant to watch it, so I watched it myself. [I have DVR service now, wow, is that something!] Now I'm glad it went that way, I wouldnt have liked watching it with her.

I think it isn't too much 'spoiler' to say the dancer portrayed was quite neurotic. I have little patience with neurotic women, but the movie maintained my sympathetic interest in her somehow, which I imagine the film manages to pull off with most of the audience. In spite of being very familiar with the music, I realized I knew little about the ballet and its story. Perhaps also the film accomplishes that for a lot of the audience; the ballet explores the nature of evil in its way.

Me and Ballet: as you might imagine, I grew up in a culture that dissed ballet as total sissy stuff. I was exposed to enough better thing to know that such dismissiveness was misplaced and certainly realized pretty early on I could really like the music. The dancing, though, not so much; you could say my attitude was not much different than some of my crudest friends. Later in life now, I have come to appreciate Dance more. Pondering why, say, the dreck put out by the local and dying dinner theater was so inferior to that of a good theater company, well, I have come to realize Dance is just one of the big reasons it is so much better. I guess me and my wife both went through this realization, but if the truth were known, whenever we catch a bit of ballet on the tube I seem to appreciate it more. She says she can't get over the big feet of the female dancers. Ostrich feet, you know! [g]. I keep telling her that you don't look at the feet!

The movie manages to show none of the big feet thing, btw, and I don't think this is by accident! I suspect this has to do with the choice of shoes and how protective they are.

Quote: odiousgambit

A movie you should see if you like classical music. A good movie, I'll even say ... but it is very disturbing if you ask me.

I thought I would like watching it with my wife, but I could tell she was reluctant to watch it, so I watched it myself. [I have DVR service now, wow, is that something!] Now I'm glad it went that way, I wouldnt have liked watching it with her.

I think it isn't too much 'spoiler' to say the dancer portrayed was quite neurotic. I have little patience with neurotic women, but the movie maintained my sympathetic interest in her somehow, which I imagine the film manages to pull off with most of the audience. In spite of being very familiar with the music, I realized I knew little about the ballet and its story. Perhaps also the film accomplishes that for a lot of the audience; the ballet explores the nature of evil in its way.

Me and Ballet: as you might imagine, I grew up in a culture that dissed ballet as total sissy stuff. I was exposed to enough better thing to know that such dismissiveness was misplaced and certainly realized pretty early on I could really like the music. The dancing, though, not so much; you could say my attitude was not much different than some of my crudest friends. Later in life now, I have come to appreciate Dance more. Pondering why, say, the dreck put out by the local and dying dinner theater was so inferior to that of a good theater company, well, I have come to realize Dance is just one of the big reasons it is so much better. I guess me and my wife both went through this realization, but if the truth were known, whenever we catch a bit of ballet on the tube I seem to appreciate it more. She says she can't get over the big feet of the female dancers. Ostrich feet, you know! [g]. I keep telling her that you don't look at the feet!

The movie manages to show none of the big feet thing, btw, and I don't think this is by accident! I suspect this has to do with the choice of shoes and how protective they are.

couldn't resist a spoiler

The actress is so neurotic that intentionally the movie has the audience go through plot twists that involve realizing certain things shown didnt actually happen, but were unreal creations by her mental illness. Frankly, the movie goes way overboard with this IMO, to the degree that you could start to wonder if any part of the movie couldnt be dismissed as also unreal. This also gets into misuse of deus ex machina which always irritates me. Overall, still, a good but disturbing movie

My GF and I started watching it together, but she couldn't finish it. She has a weak stomach for disturbing or violent movies. Lest you chastise me, she picked it herself for the Netflix queue :)

I enjoyed it, but I don't think I would watch it again. It's kind of in my wheelhouse of "mindfuck" movies, but the excess of girly themes doesn't really get it on my list of watch-again movies.

It's a theme as at least as old as Hamlet. The movie or play featuring a performance whose story is mirrored in the lives of the performers.

Black Swan was good, but not the best of this genre. I would also recommend the film Carmen features Spanish Flamenco dancers who are performing the Opera Carmen. Wizard, it's a good movie to practice listening to Spanish.

Here is the problem with this budget and box office stuff.

You've got a movie entitled "Black Swan". Add in knowledge that one of the stars is Natalie Portman. Add in some coments "Its about ballet" or " its about ballet competitions".
What on earth does a movie goer have to really choose by?

Whatever final category you might put it in after viewing: eery, sicko, pycho, girl-girl movie, its hard to convey this at budget time.

So consider what investors had to go on and what viewers had to go on.