Product Description
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Academy Award® and BAFTA® winner Natalie Portman stars
in the award-winning and critically accled Black Swan.
Nina (Portman) is a ballerina in a New York City ballet company
whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely
consumed with dance. She lives with her obsessive former
ballerina mother Erica (Hershey) who exerts a suffocating control
over her. When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Cassel) decides to
replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Ryder) for the opening
production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first
choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Kunis), who
impresses Leroy as well. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play
both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan,
who represents guile and ity. Nina fits the White Swan
role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan.
As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted
friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark
side--a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.
Special Features:
* Metamorphosis: A Three-Part Series--A behind the scenes look
at the filmmaking process from Darren Aronofsky’s visionary
directing, to the physically-demanding acting, to the stunning
special effects.
* Behind the Curtain--An inside look at the film’s costume and
production design.
* Ten Years in the Making--Natalie Portman and Darren Aronofsky
discuss their creative journey, from “preparing for the role” to
“dancing with the camera.
* Cast Profiles: Roles of a Lifetime--Presented by Fox Movie
Channel, the stars reflect on their challenging and rewarding
characters.
"Magnificient” The Times
"Masterpiece" ***** News of the World
"Ravishing" ***** Daily Mirror
.co.uk Review
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Feverish worlds such as espionage and warfare have
nothing on the hothouse realm of ballet, as director Darren
Aronofsky makes clear in Black Swan, his over-the-top delve into
a particularly fraught production of Swan Lake. At the very
moment hard-working ballerina Nina (Natalie Portman) lands the
plum role of the White Swan, her company director (Vincent
Cassel) informs her that she'll also play the Black Swan--and
while Nina's precise, almost virginal technique will serve her
well in the former role, the latter will require a looser,
lustier attack. The strain of reaching within herself for these
feelings, along with nattering comments from her mother (Barbara
Hershey) and the perceived rivalry from a new dancer (Mila
Kunis), are enough to make anybody crack… and tracing out the
fault lines of Nina's breakdown is right in Aronofsky's
wheelhouse. Those cracks are broad indeed, as Nina's
psychological instability is telegraphed with blunt-force
emphasis in this neurotic roller-coaster ride. The characters are
stick figures--literally, in the case of the dancers, but also as
single-note stereotypes in the horror show: witchy bad mummy,
sexually intimidating male boss, wacko diva (Winona Ryder, as the
prima ballerina Nina is replacing). Yet the film does work up
some crazed momentum (and undeniably earned its share of critical
raves), and the final sequence is one juicy curtain-dropper. A
good part of the reason for this is the superbly all-or-nothing
performance by Natalie Portman, who packs an enormous a of
ferocity into her small body. Kudos, too, to Tchaikovsky's
incredibly durable music, which has meshed well with
psychological horror at least since being excerpted for the
memorably moody opening credits of the 1931 Dracula, another
pirouette through the dark side. --Robert Horton