Black Swan
(Dec. 4, 2010) Still too overwhelmed from Black Swan to have real thoughts. Only can say that Natalie Portman really is as amazing as everyone is saying (and totally revived my sixth grade crush on her) and even though the movie veered into some Brian de Palma territory there for a minute, it made it through. Also, [spoilers, etc., but nothing you hadn’t guessed] it makes me consider this idea of perfect art as a self-destructive force. The idea has a long lineage, from the versions of the myth in which Arachne bests Athena, to Victoria Page in The Red Shoes (and this movie owes a huge, though well-paid, debt there) to Antonia in Tales of Hoffman, to a certain romantic interpretation of artists’ premature deaths, whether Mozart or David Foster Wallace. The duality of creation as an equally destructive force is fascinating. Mawrdew Czgowchwz takes an somewhat novel approach, the precipice of the Liebestod both fracturing the diva’s mind and beginning the path to her eventual wholeness. But the underlying idea throughout any of this is that genius is unsustainable because reaching it requires too much of the artist. A theme worth exploring.
