19th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival – BLACK SWAN Darren Aronofsky Q & A
by Le Anne Lindsay, Editor
Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky in Philly
What Aronofsky’s Oscar nominated The Wrestler has in common with his latest film Black Swan is self destructive lead characters, and a lot of hand held, unfiltered camera shots; that’s where the similarities end, as The Wrestler was a true smaller Indie flick and Black Swan has the sweeping grandeur of an old-movie thriller.
There’s an ominousness surroundingg the film from the start. Even as you are experiencing the innocence pouring out of Nina (Natalie Portman) dressed in pristine whites shrugs and scarfs and baby pink coat, you feel there’s something else in store, you’re afraid of seeing something extremely disturbing. The film explores a lot of themes: Perfection is an impossible state of being; We can be our own worse enemy: The opposite scales of black and white in terms of Nina being very controlled and Lilly (Mila Kunis) being uninhibited and full of impulse. Mostly (sans the prince) it’s the story of the Swan Queen come to life in film.
Looks like Aronofsky will be back at the Oscars this coming March and Natalie Portman should be right beside him.
Q & A excerpts:
The impression you get of Darren Aronofsky is that he has to control his impulse to be a smart-ass. His biting wit reminds you of Sean Penn, only Penn would never be draped in layers of scarfs.
Kinda of hard to picture Aronofsky with Rachel Weisz who embodies such an Ivy League quality. Of course, if she was looking to marry a super talented director, than she chose very well.
Q: Was the film Perfect Blue an inspiration for this film?
Q: Hi I’m Andrea and I was in The Wrestler.
A: One of the major reasons I did the film was for Clint, my composer, because I knew it was going to be a big challenge to take one of the great masterpieces ever written by Tchaikovsky and to turn it into movie music. Clint deconstructed the piece, because if you play the music over normal scenes it’s just too overwrought. So he basically took those melodies, themes and ideas stripped them down and added his own stuff. Then we went to London and recorded with an 80 piece orchestra, which was amazing. So the score kinda weaves in and out of Clint’s manipulation of Tchaikovsky to real Tchaikovsky, rearranged so that darker tones come out. It was a pretty cool project.
A: Well I did that in The Wrestler (click for T & T post on film) wanted to show the effort, the emotion. Very few people get to see that up close. I was lucky, I got to stand backstage at the Bolshoi and at The Met and see how hard it is. I wanted to translate that to the audience. These dancers, they work their whole lives to make things look effortless. So when you see it you think, that’s no big deal. But when you actually see it up close and see what their muscles are doing; the intense pain and pleasure mixed all in one, it’s an amazing thing.
Q: Why the fascination with toe nails and finger nails?
A: I don’t know. (laughter) I do know that one of the dancers gave me her toe nail at the end of the shoot. It was really nasty. (jokingly) I think she thought it was charming, but she’ll never get another job from me. (turning back to Andrea) And maybe you won’t either Andrea.
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