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Top 10 Steps to Self-Discovery for Best Actress Natalie Portman

January 1, 2012 By

Best Actress Natalie Portman transforms herself in the psychosexual thriller Black Swan. Here’s how she grows as a woman, a dancer, a daughter and a human being:

  1. Daughter to Adult. Portman’s character Nina Sayers breaks away from her overprotective mother (Barbara Hershey). She does whatever it takes to secure the Swan Queen role. “Where is my sweet girl?” Hershey asks. “She’s gone!” Portman screams.  Nina becomes her own woman as she dances in her bedroom filled with stuffed animals and dance figurines.
  2. Physical Stamina.  Portman reveals a determined dance martyr who cracks her joints, splits toenails and purges to stay thin. Self-mutilation is a disturbing part of her journey. The star performed much of her own dancing in Black Swan. At the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, Portman described dance as “expression through physicality alone.” She had to master every muscle, including “the detail on how the fingertips move, the eyes, the placement of the head.”
  3. Mental Endurance.  Nina has practiced for hours a day since childhood, so it is not a stretch to work even harder to win a leading role. Great performers often lose themselves while immersed in their craft. What is troubling is Nina’s complete loss of self.
  4. Sexuality.  Dance master Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) raises the bar. In his new production of Swan Lake, the star must play both the White and Black swans.  Nina can play the virginal White Swan in a heartbeat, Leroy says.  But can she manage the seductive, lascivious Black Swan? Leroy hits on Nina, using sex to bring her out.
  5. Professional Recognition.  Nina finally secures the Swan Queen role, but intense preparation holds psychological perils. Former company star Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder) confronts Nina and makes her reel with guilt. Beth is belligerent over her forced retirement, and seems utterly used up and violently crushed.
  6.  Sister/Competitor.  Nina allows Lily (Mila Kunis) to befriend her. Lily initiates Nina into the dark side of art and creation as they go out for a night on the town. The two vie for the same role, yet they complement each other. Nina embraces her own dark, hidden desires. Lily is moved ever so slightly by Nina’s genuine innocence.
  7.  Genuine Romance.  In real life, Portman fell in love with her co-star and choreographer Benjamin Millepied.  The two are engaged and expecting their first child, a boy, this year.  It’s a fairy tale ending that contrasts with Black Swan’s nightmarish course.
  8. Self-Love: Befriending the Self.  After Black Swan ends, filmgoers are left to consider self-love.  Will Nina ever be able to return to life after her peak experience onstage?
  9. Fame and Success.  Creation. Destruction. Sacrifice.  Black Swan dramatizes the life of a female artist. Society expects much from women. Women may raise that bar even higher. Is success worthwhile when the path demands so much?
  10. Darkness and Light.  Blending nightmare and fairy tale, Director Darren Aronofsky shows a woman who has lost perspective.  The Dance is one part of Nina’s life. She must learn that it is not her whole life.
  11. Professional Recognition.  Nina finally secures the Swan Queen role, but intense preparation holds psychological perils. Former company star Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder) confronts Nina and makes her reel with guilt. Beth is belligerent over her forced retirement, and seems utterly used up and violently crushed.
Filed Under: Awaken, Millenials Tagged With: , ,

Top 10 Films that Change Us 2010

January 1, 2012 By

 

Moviespirit presents The Top 10 Films That Change Us 2010 (c).  Congratulations to these excellent feature films that captivated audiences with characters’ personal growth and transformation.

1.     The Social Network.  Jesse Eisenberg is more than a misfit as he plays stilted yet very human visionary and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. His other-worldly focus on friendship and social status is like that of a wise old man. Eisenberg and co-star Andrew Garfield bring the techno-savvy pioneers and their high stakes maneuvering down to earth for the rest of us. Facebook becomes a multi-billion dollar social networking phenomenon.

2.     The Kids Are All Right.  The power of a good film is that it can change our hearts and open our minds. The Kids Are All Right is one of those films. In the naturalness that the actors achieve, with arch comedic timing and a point of view that’s honest but not overbearing, stereotypes melt. Here is a form of family – and it’s genuinely all right. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore create bona fidescreen history. Lisa Cholodenko directs.

3.     127 Hours.  What Aron Ralston seeks (and James Franco so eloquently discovers) is beauty in the strange and mysterious, a longing for the Divine. Danny Boyle’s film is unique as it portrays extreme sports action and Ralston’s inner life. The psychological suspense of this true-life adventure is intense even when we know how the story ends.

4.     The Secret in Their Eyes.  Ricardo Darin as retired detective Benjamin Esposito pours his passion into a true crime novel.  Juan Jose Campanella’s love story wrapped in mystery unfolds with considerable beauty and grace.  Love and truth emerge in the parallel story of Benjamin’s life. (Made in 2009, The Secret in Their Eyes did not open in the U.S. until 2010 when it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film).

5.     I Am Love.  Tilda Swinton’s plunge into passion and sensuality reveals Emma’s parched soul in Luca Guadagnino’s breathless, primal drama.  A successful wife who fulfills her role with grace, Emma seems content yet drained. The tension between old and new is palpable within and around her. Our true passion may be right in front of us.

6.     Winter’s Bone.  Ree Dolly’s quest becomes her initiation. We reel in shock at what she is expected to do. Even the coldness of the hill folk’s criminal element thaws alongside Ree’s resolute stand. Jennifer Lawrence stars as a scrappy 17-year-old who shepherds her family on the brink of losing their home.

7.     The King’s Speech.   Colin Firth is called upon to be a leader just as he’s ready to surrender. Geoffrey Rush co-stars as King George VI’s speech coach in this true story of a remarkable friendship and triumph over disability during some of history’s darkest hours.

8.     Eat Pray Love.  How big the world is, and how it puts our personal struggles into perspective. Liz (Julia Roberts) meets a memorable array of characters in Italy, India and Bali as she searches for herself and the Divine. Along the way she finds gratitude for her friends and for life. Eat Pray Love is a lush travelogue of self-discovery.

9.     Black Swan.  Natalie Portman surrenders herself wholly as a strong yet self-destructive ballerina. Lavish and captivating, Darren Aronofsky’s film shows artistry and self-actualization. In order to achieve wholeness, the Dark must roar alongside pure intention and high ideals.

10.   Greenberg.  Ben Stiller reveals the human side of a prickly narcissist. Who Roger Greenberg is and who he’s being are very different. This is a mature, breakout performance for Stiller as Greenberg embraces the life he never planned on.

Honorable Mention (in alphabetical order): Conviction; Fair Game; Get Low; Hereafter; Solitary Man; The American; The Fighter. 

 

Filed Under: Top Films Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Black Swan: Natalie Portman’s driven performance wins an Oscar

December 30, 2011 By

Natalie Portman surrenders herself in Darren Aronofsky’s psycho-sexual thriller Black Swan. In a film of many superlatives, it is Portman who catapults it to greatness with her best performance ever.

Ballerina Nina Sayers has sacrificed her childhood, her mind, body and soul to the dance. Now she is keenly focused on the coveted Swan Queen role in Swan Lake. Slavishly supporting Nina is her former ballerina mother, Barbara Hershey (stupendous here).

Awards well deserved

Portman won the Oscar for Best Actress, as well as Golden Globe, Spirit and Screen Actors Guild awards for this role.

Black Swan swept the Spirit Awards, winning for Best Feature, Best Cinematography and Best Director.

In his new production, ballet director Thomas Leroy (ever driving Vincent Cassel) has raised the bar. The lead must play both the White and Black swans. Nina can play the virginal White Swan in a heartbeat, Leroy says. Can she manage her seductive, lascivious counterpart? He doubts it.

As The Wrestler (2008) reveres the male sportsman, Black Swan pays bold homage to the female dance artist. Both Aronofsky films show art consummated at the expense of the individual. In order to achieve wholeness, the Dark must roar alongside pure intention and high ideals without destroying them.

Psychology of Nina

It’s striking how little self worth Nina really has. Brainwashed, she believes that being a perfect dancer is all. As little girl/woman, Nina lives sheltered in her mother’s Upper West Side apartment. Her bedroom is filled with stuffed animals and ballerina music boxes. Portman reveals a determined dance martyr who cracks her joints, hobbles on bloody, split toenails and purges regularly to stay thin.

Life, indeed reality, is what we make of it. Nina careens insanely in waves, relentlessly pushed by her own ego, her mother, the demanding Leroy, and wiley understudy Lily (ravishing Mila Kunis). As if this weren’t enough, she reels with guilt over the “retirement” of former company star Beth Macintyre. Winona Ryder wrings the last drop out of Beth, utterly used and violently crushed.

Audiences will lose track of what is real and unreal in Nina’s paranoid hallucinations. Portman has honed the self-destructiveness of Lauren in Heat (1995), and sustains it throughout. Action never lulls as Aronofsky depicts Nina’s inner and outer demons. The rousing cadences of Tchaikovsky billow like a sea beneath this adult fairy tale.

Sisterly competition

Kunis melds Lily’s smoky cattiness with just enough sisterly charm. Nina surrenders to her new friend. Knowing Lily is like walking through a dank museum basement filled with the Female’s dark artifacts: competition, raw hunger, erotic satiation.

Nina’s Black Swan emerges at last. She parties all night prior to morning rehearsal. Sex is her birthright, seduction her innate power. It’s a classic theme elevated by Portman, a revelation of both Hindu goddesses Kali and Lakshmi. Destruction becomes liberation as light and beauty shine. Portman performs most of her own dancing.

Cassel advances upon his prima ballerina to push her onto dangerous new ground. He transcends sexual harassment as he is able to control desire. “That was me seducing you. It needs to be the other way around,” he says.

Hershey’s needy innocence gives way to a mother’s overbearing rage, then morphs into teary adulation.

Technical mastery

Several masterstrokes ensure the film’s success. Mark Heyman and John McLaughlin rewrote Andres Heinz’s original script to focus on Nina’s psychology. Cinematographer Matthew Libatique follows Nina and the action closely, making subject larger than life.

Digital effects complement cinema verite. Blood flows. Feathers sprout.

Benjamin Millepied of the New York City Ballet choreographs. Clint Mansell created Black Swan’s rousing musical score. Much of the film is set in Lincoln Center.

In real life, Portman fell in love with co-star and choreographer Millepied. The two married and had a son.

Creation. Destruction. Sacrifice. Black Swan’s ending will leave you yearning for Nina to embrace herself wholly. (5 out of 5 stars)

If you like Black Swan, you might enjoy: Melancholia; The Other Woman.

Black Swan 2010 / R / 1 hour, 48 min

Cast Overview: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Genres: Drama, Thriller

Filed Under: Character, Heal Tagged With: , , , , ,