Thursday, February 10, 2011

NYTimes Article on Black Swan

Something interesting to read before(SPOILER ALERT, kind of) or after viewing Black Swan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/arts/dance/10swan.html?scp=1&sq=The%20Many%20Faces%20of%20%27Black%20Swan%27%20Deconstructed&st=cse

4 comments:

  1. Fascinating article, Katy. Thanks for sharing!

    And, no small coincidence, it notes the importance of mirrors and female doubling in _Black Swan_. So many similarities to Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples" and "Loves of the Lady Purple."

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  2. Also, here is a link to Sarah Lane, Portman's double for the difficult moves and foot work:
    http://www.abt.org/dancers/detail.asp?Dancer_ID=103

    And, here is one of the most famous of the swan-like ballet dancers performing the famous 'The Dying Swan' by Camille Saint-Saens:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jiGjVQltH8

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  3. Hey All:

    Since I can't get this film out of my mind, here is another review worth reading, from the Ms Magazine blog. It mentions and has an interesting take on the slant taken by the mainstream media, in their focus on the lascivious "girl-on-girl" action:
    http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/11/30/sex-lies-and-ballet/

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  4. I tried to post these last weekend and failed spectacularly, so here they are again (potentially with less insight after the delay).

    I think this article is fascinating. I'm especially drawn to their reading of the ways Portman and Kunis' "committment" seems to be connected to the extremes to which each actress went:

    http://jezebel.com/#!5705897/was-the-filming-of-black-swan--about-discipline-or-something-else

    Also, this is not the article I originally referred to in our conversation, but it's equally scary. There are a distressing amount of them. Most of them feature frighteningly reverent language of Portman's arguably sick body.

    http://www.self.com/magazine/blogs/selfystars/2010/12/seven-steps-to-natalie-portman.html

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