The simplest definition of Art is that which makes us actually see what we have already seen (but not seen); know what we already knew (but did not know). Key aspects of the human struggle are thoroughly known and explored by us all, many to the point of cliche and lost meaning. The magic of Art is that it breaks through this and shocks the viewer into a fresh understanding.
But Great Art goes even further: it evokes an actual experience of that which is being depicted.
The movie Black Swan does this. Natalie Portman is breathtaking in her performance. The Director, Darren Aronofsky, brings us through with reckless abandon, and yet with confidence and care. In the midst of an unpredictable and intensely uncomfortable journey through the swan queen’s inner horror, we never feel at risk. I still have chills traversing my body, though I left the theater more than an hour ago.
Black Swan‘s themes are quite familiar: a girl seizes adulthood and breaks through the crush of a maternal grip; an artist pushes past technique and reaches something transcendent; each of us faces his own worst enemy, which is in fact himself (though he imagines it to be the Other); the yin and yang struggle for supremacy in the play of consciousness.
All of these are intensely painful as each of us moves through life, but as humans, we endure life’s pain by numbing ourselves in countless ways; we dissociate and survive. Black Swan does not allow you this defense, and that is its genius: it rips you open, makes you feel it all, and summons your own shades of self destruction and inner turmoil, whether mild or severe. The beauty of it is that only in this field of experience can an act of transcendence, such as the one depicted in the final act, truly penetrate and touch your soul: the final triumph is revealed and experienced as the kingdom of god in the here and now, complete with the scars of a battle well fought (and not with the Hollywood fugazy of an unmarked hero). No one gets through clean. Life is a dirty business, yet glorious.
By the time the credits roll, we are there with her, and then deposited safely back on the ground, fully present, and yet on wobbly legs. To attain this condition is a gift, and we need Art to give it to us. Black Swan does.
I love your review of Black Swan! I recently went to see it and loved it as well. I wrote a post about my experience watching the movie as well, but your post seems to have filled in the hiatus of emotions that I had trouble putting into words. Great post!
Thank you, I look forward to reading yours
Your review is extraordinary, particularly since you wrote it only hours after seeing the movie! This is one film I’ll have to sit on and digest before I’m able to really talk with friends about it.
Good job, man.
[...] in a kind of schizophrenic but all-too-common state of self-destruction. The movie Black Swan is an absolute masterpiece of artistic rendering of this state. If the FDA had shown Nina a picture of broken toes and torn flesh, would it have pushed her out of [...]
[...] and Black Swan, in which Nina wrestles with the beast within her, nearly to the death, but also pierces the veil of consciousness. These are works of art made even more brilliant by the fact that they offer the viewer [...]
Your review is written in a very poetic way. Yet, I would say that, in particular, your penultimate paragraph, is an excellent emotional summary of Requiem For A Dream, not Black Swan. I’m surprised you haven’t touch upon any of Nina’s insecurities and paranoias (and mild schizophrenia). One cannot understand the emotional turmoil that Nina (and the audience) go through without appreciating her problems.
Thanks, though, for sending me this. Your first paragraph epitomises your review.
Thanks for commenting, I appreciate your thoughts. I don’t disagree with your diagnosis of Nina, but for me the movie transcended the rational and took me to other places. Nina could be considered psychotic in clinical terms, but again I see her journey as a visceral depiction of the journey we are all on (in a far less extreme way, though in just as much depth of experience, whether we allow ourselves to feel it or not).
This is the essence for me of the movie: it evokes the animal passions that drive us all and that we all keep under lock and key, mostly for good but with horrible side effects. As Freud said, the unconscious is running amok in the human psyche, and understanding those oceanic passions is our key to our humanity.