Time Machine: Initial Ideas & research- Black Swan

After being introduced and sent away to consider what visual media we may base our time machine essay on I decided to look into the film Black Swan as I love the film and find themes in the film very interesting. I did some initial research and came up with a few different themes that I found were most relevant and ineresting in them film:

1. Freudian issues- sex drive/death drive, psychoanalysis, duality of her soul- split personality

2. Baudrillard- seduction

3. Hallucinations- researchers?

4. Darren Aronofsky (director)- The Wrestler, Pi, The Fountain

4. Western societies- gender binaries, feminism

5. German & Russian backgrounds of ballet

6. The Red Shoes, Rosemary’s Baby, Perfect Blues

7. Art deco posters- background behind them

8. Time the original play swan lake was set- what was going on, Tchaikovsky

9. Dark, gothic background of ballets- sleeping beauty/ swan lake- translated in to the characters

I started exploring these different points by watching some films relating to the themes of Black Swan as well as researching & viewing other films directed by Darren Aronofsky looking at similarities in his work. 

The Red Shoes (1948)

- Fairy tale- torn between two sides, good & evil

- Performers need & want perfection

- In the ballet- the red shoes are evil- they do not tire & therefore in the end she dies just like at the end of Swan Lake

- Special effects- shadows etc. used to reflect the dancer’s mental turmoil, imagination- visual metaphors used

- Red= danger

- She dies because of her obsession & love to perform – consumes her

Darren Aronofsky- director

- Looks at the fragility of humankinds existence in the world, our mortality

- Isolation through career

- Pain- brought on by themselves

- Visions, hallucinations, mental issues, conflictions of reality

The Wrestler

- He is a wrestler- old in his field of work- a performer & it is his life

- Struggles through his passion- injures himself for his occupation

- Does everything to look the part eg. drugs

- The use of a stage just like the theatre stage in Black Swan

- Pain= good/positivity, warped perception again the same as most performers

- Threatened career by health scare- unhealthy career, short occupations due to injury

- Isolation- camera position through his point of view, when performing he is being looked up at- admired

- Confrontation with reality & his future

- Walking out to shop job is liking walking out on stage- he lives to perform

- In the end he knows by performing he will die, die for his art.

The Fountain

- SciFi/fantasy

- Addresses humankinds struggle with mortality

- Three parallel lives spanning thousands of years

- Visions- what is reality?

- Lives entwined- fighting to find a solution, to save the life of Izzi, Tom’s love.

- Visual similarities through the different worlds- camera movements, bright light- portals

- Main character- again is a performer is his own field- a doctor trying to save a ‘patient’, trying to do what he does best & in doing so destroying relationships etc.

- In the past he finds the tree but is unworthy, reincarnates into present where his quest is to discover eternal life, Izzi dies and he plants a seed & she turns into a tree, in the future Tom and the tree approach a dying star, the tree begins to die but finally Tom accepts death, the star explodes creating the universe- starting this endless cycle again.

  

When we had our seminar with Caroline I discussed my different ideas for my essay and I made a series of notes while we discussed my theme:

- Dead but happy as they achieved their goal- perfection, in death they find freedom

- How Aronofsky mixes reality & not- signalled visually

- Requiem for a Dream- destruction through trying to achieve their goals

- Pick specific scenes to analyse certain points- screen grabs

- Look at film reviews- theoretical, broadsheet reviews

- How the performance mirrors the psychological side in the theatre- take Red shoes as a reference

- Rationalism

- Find hypothesis (‘I think this’ & argue it out) or question & debate it

- Put synopsis of film in appendix

- Could just look at her relationship with mother through Freudian analysis

- Opens herself up to her unconscious, basic structure of the mind, oppression of instinctual minds, a shifting- very dangerous, if you tap into them, open up to eg. sex drive/death drive- you are vulnerable

- 60s/70s- repression was seen as dangerous- her rival Lilly, aware of these aspects

- Revisiting these views of Freud in a contemporary structure/form

 We then came up with a couple of more focussed ideas for me to choose from:

 

- Psychological space & the real- visually represented

- Aronofsky’s look at performers & pushing to breaking point

- Freudian analysis of the film & characters

I then went home and  watched the film again, while doing so I noted down different scenes in which the different ideas are present which could be starting points for my analysis of the film in my essay:

Black Swan scenes

-          7.08 Breaking in her ballet shoes- metaphor for the whole film

-          20.00 Talk with Thomas

-          23.50 Home after being chosen- scratch & mother  throwing away cake

-          34.30 After the drinks party with Thomas at his home

-          36.00 After going to Thomas’- with her mother

-          37.55 Masturbating- interrupted by mother

-          40.00 Talk with Thomas about Beth

-          43.00 Finds wood to jam door shut & mother crying over paintings

-          45.30 Rehearsal & dance with Thomas

-          14.50/47.50/49.40 Doppelganger scenes

-          54.00 Argument with mother & disobedients

-          1.04.00 Nina & Lily sex dream (doppelganger)- use of mirror to split personality

-          1.13.40/1.16.00/1.17.20 Doppeganger scratching in fitting room/spinning/with Thomas

-          1.22.00 After argument with mother- mittens, locked in bedroom

-          1.25.00/1.29.00 Hallucinations & transformations (doppelgangers)

Key:

Possible introduction into film analysis

Scenes with Thomas- sexualisation & liberation, freedom

Scenes with mother- oppression & repression

Scenes with doppelgangers, scratching, hallucinations, transformations

These are all scenes that sparked my interest and that I particularly liked; I found that I was attracted to scenes where the main character Nina was communicating with other characters; showing her different relationships throughout the film including her mother, theatre director Thomas & her hallucinated doppelganger. All of these different relationships highlight the different sides to her personality and the development of these as we progress through the film.

I have taken out a couple of books on Freud's theories of oppression & repression as well as 'The Uncanny' which talks about doppelgangers which I plan to read & start using the knowledge to analyse the films meanings. This will hopefully help me to narrow down my field of focus to just a couple of scenes and possibly just one relationship within the film.