Released in , Black Swan saw Portman transform into Nina , a ballerina in pursuit of the perfect performance, as she is selected to lead a new production of "Swan Lake. The story follows Prince Siegfried as he attempts to find love and does so when he sees a white swan transform into Odette.
Her transformation results from a curse put on her and others by an owl-like sorcerer named Rothbart. The curse can only be broken by Odette finding true love before Rothbart dies, but she ultimately sacrifices herself after Siegfried professes love for her black swan twin.
Even with Thomas Leroy's Vincent Cassell twisted take on "Swan Lake" in Black Swan , the same basic story is told, with Nina tasked to play the white swan and the seductive black swan.
As a result, Nina performs the closing number with a stab wound in her chest, which results in her actually dying at the end. In the ending of Black Swan , the movie fades to white while Nina bleeds on stage after having completed her perfect performance, but whether she actually died at the end of the film has been a source of debate. There is plenty of evidence in Aronofsky's movie that supports Nina dying at the end. The entire ballet cast and Leroy see the blood coming from Nina's abdomen, and call for help.
But that's not the sole reason the mother babies Nina. It's hinted at, then told to us, that Nina has had psychological issues in the past. These mostly had to do with scratching and other means of self-mutilation. There's a sad tension. The mom's trying to do her best to help her sick daughter not go over a psychological waterfall for a second time. But the mom is also so jealous and bitter that she's one of several primary reasons why Nina is about to breakdown again.
I mean, there's a whole room in their apartment dedicated to grotesque paintings of Nina. This isn't a healthy environment, and it's hard to determine what came first: the mental illness or the mother's obsession. If Black Swan was only about a mentally ill girl finally tipping into insanity This is why we have the secondary aspect of Nina's hallucinations. And a far more sinister interpretation of the hallucinations. When Nina confronts the director, Thomas Vincent Cassel , about whether she'll get the part, this is the conversation:.
Yes you're beautiful, fearful, fragile—ideal casting. But the Black Swan? Thomas: Really?! In four years, every time you dance, I see you obsess getting each and every move right, but I never see you lose yourself. All that discipline, for what? Thomas: Perfection is not just about control. It's also about letting go. Surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience. And very few have it in them.
Thomas kisses her. During the kiss there's a strange feminine soundscape that ends with what sounds like playful laughter. Nina then bites Thomas's lip.
Ending the kiss. This scene occurs 20 minutes into Black Swan. A general rule for movie structure is that there are a few places for important information: the opening scene, the final scene, the climax, and 20 minutes in.
Look at many of the movies you love and about the minute mark is when the main story conflict announces itself. The minute mark of The Lion King is when the hyenas attack Simba for the first time, a stark contrast to the lightheartedness that had defined Simba's story up to that point. Check out our deep-dive analysis of Fight Club if you really want to get weird. What's the last thing we hear Nina say? She's finished her masterpiece performance, the crowd's giving her a standing ovation, everyone in the company has surrounded and congratulated her, Thomas has praised her, but then there's horror as they see Nina's nearly eviscerated herself.
What did you do? And Thomas gives a look of shock and what could be read as understanding. Nina continues, clearly pleased despite dying , "It was perfect. That conversation shows Nina was very aware of what happened to her. She's not some confused girl having a moment of stunned clarity. She's a professional dancer who wanted to give a perfect performance, and she did what she had to do to give that performance.
She straight up told us at the beginning, "I wanna be perfect. But this plays back into what happens in the real world: ballerinas are held to insane standards, and the stress they face to maintain those standards is physically and psychologically destructive, at best. But it can be outright annihilating. I started doing some googling about the rates of suicides in ballet dancers, and even though there was not a lot of hard hitting solid statistical data, the number of articles was very upsetting.
The most noted dancer who committed suicide was a year-old lead dancer with the New York City Ballet, Joseph Duell in after performing in Symphony in C, and rehearsing Who Cares?
So while we can pretty safely assume Nina's dealing with some mental illness caused by her career and mother, she's also, in a way, aware of what's happening because she wants it to happen. If she wants to be perfect, to be both the White Swan and Black Swan, then this is what has to happen. Swan Lake is, after all, a tragedy. The distinction between the White Swan and the Black Swan is, I think, the final piece to the puzzle.
In the climax, when Nina finally gets to dance, we see her oscillate between two emotional states. The first is someone completely frayed and overwhelmed and either on the brink of tears or crying.
The second is angry, violent, territorial, confident, sexy, dangerous. At one point, these two sides of Nina actually fight one another. Some read this back and forth as indicative of Nina's mental health woes. And yeah, definitely. But we know that Nina wanted the performance to be perfect. And we're straight up told by Thomas what defines each of the swans. The Black Swan is about seduction, imprecision, effortlessness, lack of control, letting go, an evil twin, someone with bite.
As we see Nina in those backstage moments, it's easy to read her mood swings as a complete psychological break. But it could also be representative of an artist inhabiting their character in order to perform to the best of their ability and even approach perfection. To dance the part of the Black Swan, Nina allowed herself to fall under a spell. She drove herself to that darkness. By letting go, she surprised herself, surprised everyone else, and found transcendence. To reach that state, she stopped rejecting the pressure and duress of her career and mother.
Instead, she let it devour her. She gave into her urges and rage. She allowed the repressed part of her to emerge. At first in the mirror, but then in reality. That dichotomy explains the hallucinations we see. On the whole, the hallucinations serve to coax out of Nina either the fear and fragility of the White Swan or the darkness and negative energy of the Black Swan.
A lot of the time it's a mixture of the two. The hallucinations ramp up for a reason: Nina's getting into character, and the closer we are to the performance the more in character she has to be.
The night of show, of course, she's at her most psychologically broken. Superficially, it's because she's overwhelmed by everything that's happened: the pressure of the role, the pressure from her mom, the years of psychological deterioration, the mix of paranoia and sexual confusion regarding Lily. It's a lot. But what's scary is that this is also what she wants, it's a choice.
Nina's such a perfectionist that in order to perform as the Swan Queen, as the best version of the Swan Queen, she needs to embody the character completely. So it's kind of like she lets herself be consumed by all of these emotions in order to bolster the performance. Real fast, I do love that Nina's dropped during her White Swan performance. It increases the fragility and fear because it's a huge flaw in the overall show. But at the same time, that kind of imperfection is part of what Thomas tells her makes for a perfect performance.
So she applies that lesson to increase the vulnerability and fragility of her White Swan character in the moments before the Black Swan emerges.
With most of the hallucinations, the movie tells us what happened. Like we're told Lily never stayed the night with Nina. We know Nina's legs didn't break backward because she can walk perfectly fine the next morning. There are two hallucinations we really don't get an answer to. Did Nina see Lily and Thomas hooking up after hours? And did Nina stab Beth?
With Lily and Thomas, the answer probably doesn't matter much. Nina wants to be Lily, as Lily is her role model for the Black Swan. So it's likely that Nina imagined Lily and Thomas together because it helps her imagine herself and Thomas together. It's part of her growing sexuality, while also being part of the fear and fragility she needs as the White Swan. So for Nina, it's a win-win. With Nina and Beth. I honestly don't know. I imagine if she had stabbed Beth, we would have heard someone mention it the next day, the same way we heard about Beth getting hit by the car.
With Beth, we see Beth use the shoe knife on her own face which then becomes Nina's face , causing Nina to run to the elevator. In the elevator, Nina's holding the shoe knife.
The implication is Nina attacked Beth. Which is why we think, later, Nina attacked Lily. But since it turns out Nina just stabbed herself and Lily was never in the room Given Nina's insanity levels, it could just be she imagined the whole thing—the shoe knife was still on the table, no one had ever touched it.
She could have cut herself somewhere though we never see it. Or she really could have stabbed Beth. It's a "is the glass half full or half empty" kind of situation. We don't have enough information to say conclusively one way or another what the truth is, meaning that it's up to each of our own interpretations.
Personally, I could see Nina attacking Beth as a precursor to her harming herself, also as a means of sealing her own fate—if she doesn't go through with the "perfect" performance then what awaits her is prison. But I think more likely is that she just imagined it as part of her ramp up to the performance. Overall, the main takeaway from the Beth scene would be, I'd argue, how it plays into the concept of perfection.
As Nina tells Beth, "I was just trying to be perfect like you. I'm not perfect. I'm nothing. If it's Nina attacking Beth, that'd be because Nina's so violently against the ideal of imperfection and ending up imperfect that she tries to destroy the representation of that fate which is why she sees herself imposed on Beth.
There you have it. I hope this was helpful. I think if you re-watch Black Swan after reading this, then the movie is going to feel way more obvious in what it's doing and why. If there are any other questions you have, then please leave a comment and I'll get back to you! Thanks for reading. Chris Lambert is co-founder of Colossus. He writes about complex movie endings, narrative construction, and how movies connect to the psychology of our day to day lives.
View all posts. Join our movie club to get similar movie recommendations and stories delivered to your inbox every Friday. Hi Chris, Good day. I just wanted to thank you for sharing your insight into what is a great movie. A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences.
Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the practice of explaining widespread failure to predict them as simple folly in hindsight. Psychosis is a symptom, not an illness. A mental or physical illness, substance abuse, or extreme stress or trauma can cause it. Psychotic disorders, like schizophrenia, involve psychosis that usually affects you for the first time in the late teen years or early adulthood.
Nina Natalie Portman is a ballerina whose passion for the dance rules every facet of her life. When the company's artistic director decides to replace his prima ballerina for their opening production of "Swan Lake," Nina is his first choice.
She has competition in newcomer Lily Mila Kunis however. As rivalry between the two dancers transforms into a twisted friendship, Nina's dark side begins to emerge. A rare black swan has been spotted more than 9, miles from its native habitat drifting down a river in the West Midlands.
The species, which originated in Australia, is common in wildlife parks in the UK, but is rarely sighted in the wild.
In the version danced today by the Mariinsky Ballet, the ending is one of a "happily ever after" in which Siegfried fights Rothbart and tears off his wing, killing him. Odette is restored to human form and she and Siegfried are happily united.
Act One will last for about 35 minutes followed by a short pause; Act Two will last for 35 minutes followed by a 25 minute interval.
Act Three will last for about 35 minutes followed by a 20 minute interval. Act Four will last for about 25 minutes. The black swan Cygnus atratus is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic conditions. Black swans are large birds with mostly black plumage and red bills.
How does Nina die in the Black Swan? Category: movies drama movies. Black Swan ends with Nina's demise, after she stabs herself with a shard of broken glass and dances to death onstage.
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