Black Swan and the myth of the self-destructive female: The Red Shoes, Perfect Blue, Lust Caution

WARNING: Spoilers for the three movies mentioned in the title.

It's hard to know what to say about Black Swan, and I think this is a testament to the film. Every comparison and generalization comes with caveats; the only things that seem to hold unarguably true are the most obvious stylistic observations: it's a psychological thriller with all the aesthetic trappings of the classical world, remixed into a dark psychological landscape. It's a film about the collision of personalities, of the type you only find in an intense world like ballet: aggressive, unreserved personalities that deal in raw human emotional currency, like purity, desire, and control.

What impresses me most about Black Swan, I think, is the intensity of the personalities that collide in order to make this story happen. Portman did a brilliant job playing Nina, the virginal ballet purist who can't seem to let go of herself in order to find her inner "black swan" -- but this role is so perfect a showcase for a brilliant performance, that I think we all sort of expected this of Portman, who's never half-assed a role in her career. Mila Kuniz works wonders as her counterpart, too, but honestly, Kuniz never quite reaches the heights of authenticity that Portman attains. Her character is a bit too much of a foil, a bit too empty and enigmatic, for her to really show off her acting chops.

But Vincent Cassel as Thomas Leroy, the director of the ballet that drives these characters into conflict... he was really the stand-out, wouldn't you say? His performance is noble and degraded and inspiring and vicious, balancing the things that a ballet director would have to be: an embodiment of the art form's allure, and also a medium for its horrifying expectations, its life-destroying pressure. He sails through so many modes -- creepy, charming, enraged, and sensual -- it's hard for me to do any justice in describing his character.

There's a precedent for this character, of course: Boris Lermentov, the ballet director from the Archer Brothers' The Red Shoes, is a similarly ambivalent, enigmatic figure, a dangerous catalyst for Victoria's love for the dance. Ebert said of him, "... the impresario defies analysis. In his dark eyes we read a fierce resentment. No, it is not jealousy, at least not romantic jealousy. Nothing as simple as that." Lermentov may have a special sort of insidious purpose, but ultimately, he's not much worse than Leroy. Both manipulate their dancers, treat them as objects, and in regarding them as avatars for some dancing muse, forget that they're actually just young girls with real lives.

I think, though, that Thomas Leroy is a more complex character than Lermentov, because in place of Lermentov's melodramatic cruelty and cynicism, Leroy seems to really believe in the human possibilities of dance. And though Leroy is insidiously sexual, he seems to believe in love and sensuality, as well, even if he channels it all into the dance. So he's no less responsible than Lermentov was for the fate that befalls his performer, but in Leroy Thomas's case, it's hard to call him a "villain."

Some friends have suggested that Black Swan was not a literal hallucination-murder-death story, but rather a metaphor for the main character's artistic blossoming. They see a large part of the story as taking place inside of Nina's head (which the narrative gladly acknowledges), and they consider the possibility that the ending is inside her head, as well. This reading may be a little Inception-esque for my taste, but it's a compelling one to consider. Remember, for instance, that Nina saw herself as an actual, physical black swan, whereas she was seen by the audience as a dancer nailing the performance.

If you read the narrative in this way, seeing madness as the catalyst for a butterfly-like personal breakthrough, it comes to resemble another classic tale of creative ambition gone bad, told in Satoshi Kon's anime masterpiece Perfect Blue. That film, though dissociation was its organizing principle, turned out to be a coming-of-age story of Mima, its female protagonist, as she moved away from performing crowd-friendly girl-pop and into the adult world of acting and sensationalism. If you read Black Swan metaphorically, it's close kin to this animated cousin. There are a number of character parallels, as well: Nina's cloying mother has a clear equal in the over-protective casting agent in Perfect Blue, and Aaronofsky's Beth Macintyre, played by Winona Rider, plays a parallel part to the murderous fanboy who stalks Mima in order to prevent her from destroying her own innocence.

These three films are part of a broader cultural myth that's started forming in cinema: the myth of the female artist whose devotion, mixed with the dangerous elements of sexual desire and professional ambition, becomes her path to self-destruction. Aside from The Red Shoes and Perfect Blue (thanks, Frankie, for that observation!), this structure also appears in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution in a slightly modified form (thanks, Mai, for that suggestion!). In Lust, Caution, the theater is the political world, and the dissociation is between the protagonist's performance as a collaborator and her true identity as a subversive. It's a fascinating application of the template, remixed but undeniable in its fidelity.

So there are a few common characteristics that surface in these closely-related movies, and I'd like to enumerate them. If anybody knows of any other films that seem to reinforce this myth, please let me know, I'd like to hear about them.

1 - Female protagonist with a creative ambition that she pursues obsessively
1a - to the point of purism, self-denial, and/or monasticism
2 - A career change, accompanied by a high degree of pressure to perform well
3 - A demand, inherent in the performance, that leads to an unresolvable inner conflict for the protagonist

Some other common characteristics:

4 - the protagonist's final self-destruction (BS, RS, LC)
5 - an over-protective maternal figure limiting the protagonist's growth (BS, PB, LC?)
6 - a monster lurking at the margins, nursing resentment and/or jealousy toward the protagonist (BS, PB)
7 - an unhealthy conflation of desire and sexual repression (BS, PB, LC)
8 - a strong male gaze as catalyst for the protagonist's unhealthy obsession (BS, RS, LC)
9 - a theme of psychological dissociation (BS, PB, LC?)

This is among the most powerful mythic structures I've identified in my short time as a cinephile, with Aaronofsky's Black Swan as an apparent epitome of the type. I'd love to hear other thoughts on the growth of this narrative, if anyone has some other ideas. If you haven't seen any of the above movies, by the way, definitely go check them out. They're all amazing.

The Piano Teacher: Sick Movie for a Saturday Night

I saw my first film by provocateur Michael Haneke, The Piano Teacher (2001), and I decided to jot down my initial reflection, centered on my interpretation of the film's central theme, and the parallel themes that inform it.

In other news, I've started posting capsule reactions to Twitter whenever I see a film. Check out my Twitter feed if this interests you. So far, both reactions I've done have taken up exactly the 140 allowed characters... I'll try to continue this irrelevant trend!

This film, insomuch as I've discerned some order in its madness, is about masturbation: a compulsive, self-involved sexual appetite, fueled by fantasy and incompatible with reality. Erika could be a case study of a person whose inability to relate to people drives her to a life of sexual self-involvement, to the point of perverted pathologies. For starters, consider the film's obsession with hands (unavoidable, for a movie about piano virtuosity), and its themes of guilt and voyeurism, the most superficial telltale signs. The film doesn't contrive to explain Erika's obsessive self-indulgence/denial in any simple way... indeed, there are so many psychological forces hovering over her, it becomes a bit of an orgy of negative influences and broken behavioral patterns (if you'll pardon the figure of speech).

Of course, there's a few intersecting themes here... the alienation and indifference of the Vienna intellectual class is certainly a factor, having so deeply affected the psychology of the dominant characters. Only Erika's students are emotionally complete human beings: Walter with his compassion, self-possession, and vulnerability, and Anna, with her frustrated hopes and fragile self-image. The adults of Erika's world can only talk about things clinically, or judgmentally, or academically, having mistaken their aesthetic sensibilities for actual personalities.

Of course, it's hard to tell whether this clique is really so alienated, or whether we're just experiencing them through Erika's distorted lens. Haneke's cold shooting style seems objective, but to Erika, her own detached view of the world must seem equally objective, and indeed, even the earlier, quieter parts of the film are suffused with cynicism. Those who feel The Piano Teacher is objective and external have bought into one of the film's many hustles... it's actually a deeply internal film, but it's internal to a mind that's dead of sentiment and vulnerability, a purely aesthetic self-construction with no sensitivity to anything but music.

It's easy to dig into Erika's relationship with her mother for some deep Freudian explanation -- indeed, it's almost too obvious, considering the film takes place in Vienna -- but we don't really have to dig. Of all the film's relationships, this is one that wears its dysfunction most on its sleeve. It's a relationship with broken boundary issues and abusive patterns... a battle for control on the part of Erika's mother, and an already-lost struggle for independence on Erika's own part. Erika's mother's combination of physical intimidation and guilt-mongering is an extreme extension of bad parenting, and it's got Erika stuck in petulant child mode. This is why Erika's own sexuality is onanistic and adolescent: she's never emerged from that phase of childhood when we start feeling sexual urges and looking for ways to express them, but have to keep them secret from the watchful eyes of our parents. It's telling that Erika's only actual sexual encounters are in clandestine asides in public places: the bathroom of the conservatory, the closet of a skating ring, the classic refuges for guilty teenage sexuality. Stuck in such unhealthy proximity to her mother, it's natural that Erika would develop these patterns -- she doesn't even have the luxury of her own bed to have sex (or masturbate) in!

Among the most curious developments in The Piano Teacher is Erika's belief, apparently mistaken, that she would enjoy being the victim of sexual dominance. She spends the whole film reminding herself of her own power, intentionally undermining the people around her in order to keep herself in control of their emotional states. As her behavior develops, a pronounced dichotomy between reality and fantasy emerges. Apparently, Erika's obsession with dominance is rooted in a deeper fantasy about submission. Erika clearly hopes Walter can help her bridge this gap between the real and the imagined, and this belief turns out to be misguided. As unpredictable as Erika's desires turn out to be, it's even more confounding that these desires can't be fulfilled, or the whole construct comes crashing down.

One of the great strengths of the film is the logical ordering, and simultaneous incomprehensibility, of the main character's psychology. Haneke's storytelling is profoundly unpredictable, building up to missing climaxes (like poor Walter) and staging character developments at moments when the audience's expectations are off-balance. Yet, at the end of the film, all of the characters seem to make sense, their pathologies exhibiting an enigmatic insight into the strangeness of cognition and behavior. Hard to watch? Perhaps... but only because we recognize these twists and turns, though we purport them to be entirely beyond our ken.