Darren Aronofsky’s latest film is getting the buzz of “legitimate” press and their fancy awards predictions, but it’s just as crazy as The Fountain or Requiem for a Dream. Black Swan is a thriller about ballet dancers, so with Aronofsky involved you know it’s not just about tiptoe dancing. We sat in on a press conference with the filmmaker as he explained himself to the media.
The long, twisted path Black Swan took to the screen:
Darren Aronofsky: I've been a fan of Natalie [Portman]'s since I saw her in The Professional. Luc Besson is one of my favorite directors, and it turns out that her manager is an old friend of mine from college and so I had a little inside line to meet her. We met in Times Square at the old Howard Johnson's which is now an American Apparel which shows you where America is going. We had a really bad cup of coffee. We talked about the early ideas I had about the film. When she says that that I have the entire film in my head it's a complete lie. So we talked a bit about it and I started to develop it but it was a really tough film because getting into the ballet world proved to be really challenging.
Most of the time when you do a movie and you say, “Hey, I want to make a movie about your world,” then all the doors open up and you can do anything and see anything that you want. The ballet world really wasn't at all interested in us hanging out. So it took a long time to sort of get the information and sort of put it together and over the years Natalie would say, “I'm getting too old to play a dancer. You better hurry up.” I was like, “Natalie, you look great. You'll be fine.” And then about a year out before the film or maybe a little bit earlier I finally got a screenplay together. That's how it started.
It’s The Wrestler in a tutu:
Darren Aronofsky: I don't really think there's that much difference. I don't think it's that much of a big deal. I think people are people and if their feelings are real and truthful they can connect. I keep saying that it doesn't matter if you're an aging fifty something year old wrestler at the end of his career or an ambitious twenty something year old ballet dancer, if they're truthful to who they are and they're expressing something real then audiences will connect. That's always been the promise of cinema and that's why we can see a film about a seven year old girl in Iran or an immortal superhero in America. It doesn't matter as long as they're truthful.
That other ballet movie:
Darren Aronofsky: I actually wasn't aware of The Red Shoes. I mean, I had heard of The Red Shoes but I didn't see it and then Scorsese did the restoration a few years ago and then I was like, “You know what, I better go and see it.” It's a masterpiece, an unbelievable film and I saw that there were similarities in the story, but I think that's because we both went back to ballet and pulled from ballet the different characters and stuff. So we ended up in similar places, but I wasn't really influenced by it and I really didn't ever try to be influenced by it because it's such a masterpiece and the dance sequences, they weren't doing visual effects like that for twenty years they were so ahead of their time. So I just sort of kept it in the back and said, “Look, we just sort of address it.” I forget the year, but it's a long time ago and most people may not know about it, but unfortunately they do.
The low down on all that weird surreal imagery:
Darren Aronofsky: I think it's all about what the story is that we want to tell. One thing that I realized during one of these, it's funny because a lot of times you figure it out when you're doing the press because you start talking about it and becoming aware of it. The whole cinema verite, handheld approach to The Wrestler was a big risk to bring over into this ballet film because I had never seen a kind of suspenseful film that had this kind of handheld camera and I didn't know if it work. I was always really worried that if in a really scary scene everyone would wonder why Natalie wouldn't turn to the cameraman and go, “Help,” or something. So I didn't know if it was going to work, but I then we sort of went, “F*ck it. Lets just go for it because it's never been done,” and I really enjoyed the camera moving. Having a man hold the camera I could really move the camera in ways that you can't in any other way. The result of that is that the first third of the film has a very different feel than the last half of the film because it's got this very naturalistic feel which I think actually is kind of cool because it makes people feel like they're watching a very different type of movie that can't ever freak out like the way that it freaks out. Yet, it gives you that kind of immediacy of being in that other moment and being in this other world with little hints like she's peeling her finger and things are going to get really freaked out. In general it just feels like a documentary in the beginning before it freaks out. So it kind of worked out for us.
Black Swan vs. the ballet community:
Darren Aronofsky: We've had very, very different reactions from dancers elsewhere. I think so many dancers are incredibly relieved that there's finally a ballet movie that takes ballet as a serious art and not as a place to have a love affair. If you actually look at ballet, the ballets themselves are incredibly dark and gothic. Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet and of course Swan Lake and this movie could've been called Swan Lake. We took the fairy tale of Swan Lake and the ballet of Swan Lake and basically turned all the characters, Rothbart, The Prince, The Queen and translated them into characters in our movie reality. So it's really just a retelling of Swan Lake, but yes, it definitely shows the challenges and the darkness and the reality of how hard it is to be a ballet dancer. I think it also represents the beauty of the art and the transcendence that's possible with in the art all within retelling Swan Lake. So there are going to be people who are always going to have issues with things, but the margin by far, the dancers that we have met and talked to are like, “Finally, we have a real movie about ballet.” So that's response.
No genre can contain Darren Aronofsky:
Darren Aronofsky: I'm not really much of a genre guy. This was my best attempt at a genre film and I just don't know really or I just haven't been able to do that. I think that audiences don't need that anymore where you just need a very specific genre. Audiences are very sophisticated and as long as it's fun it's okay and entertaining. That's kind of what I was trying to make and I think it's also very different which I think people who are bombarded by so much different types of media are hungry for, just a very, very different experience. So that's what we were going for, something that keeps you excited and keeps you going and is hopefully memorable so that you talk about it with other people and hopefully they'll go to the movies.
The Fred questions, on The Wolverine of course:
Crave Online: You’d been circling the comic book genre since Batman: Year One 10 years ago. What excited you about the genre?
Darren Aronofsky: Yeah, I mean, just try something different, try something new, see what happens.
Crave Online: Can you bring any of your surreal abstractness to it?
Darren Aronofsky: Oh yeah, we’re going to have a lot of fun.
