All of the SPOILERS are forward.
With regards to nice psychological thrillers, Darren Aronofsky’s films will all the time be in that dialog as a result of the filmmaker is such a grasp on the style. This 12 months, Black Swan is popping fifteen years outdated, and it’s a good time to rewatch the film, particularly for the way a lot its messages about perfectionism maintain up. I do know I lately did, and I wish to break down Nina’s journey and what results in its tragic ending that results in the star ballerina’s dying.
Black Swan turned a huge hit regardless of its small funds when it got here out within the winter of 2010 and have become an award season darling, incomes Natalie Portman her Oscar. Fifteen years later, as Aronofsky has a brand new movie amongst 2025 film releases with Caught Stealing, I feel Black Swan could be very a lot value your time to revisit, particularly for the way the filmmaker takes the viewers by Nina’s intense psychological journey as she performs the Swan Queen in a manufacturing of Swan Lake. Let’s get into my studying of the ending:
The Meaning Behind The Black Swan Ending Is Actually Explained Upfront
When Aronofsky spoke about his inspiration for Black Swan to USA Today whereas selling the film again in 2010, he mentioned he took an interest within the ballet world after his sister studied it herself and he was uncovered to tons of productions of Swan Lake. He was initially within the concept of being “haunted by a double” for the reason that manufacturing itself is in regards to the twin roles of a White Swan and Black Swan.
And, throughout the first ten minutes of the film, when the creative director at Nina’s firm arrives to apply to announce his manufacturing of Swan Lake, it’s spelled out proper there the reasoning behind Nina’s final dying within the film. As Vincent Cassel’s Thomas says:
Everyone knows the story.. Virginal lady, pure and candy, trapped within the physique of a swan. She wishes freedom however solely real love can break the spell. Her want is almost granted within the type of a prince, however earlier than he can declare his love … Her lustful twin, the black swan, tips and seduces him. Devastated; the white swan leaps off a cliff killing herself and, in dying, finds freedom.
Thomas additionally calls the manufacturing of Swan Lake a “visceral and actual” model of the basic ballet, and that’s in flip precisely what the film Black Swan is. Nevertheless, Nina’s storyline shouldn’t be revolved round a prince, it’s her obsessive dream to be the very best at her career, and the worry that she’ll turn out to be like her mom (performed by Barbara Hershey), who was as soon as a ballet dancer too, however by no means bought the prospect to totally attain her potential after getting pregnant together with her.
Thomas’s Search For Perfection Is A Shedding Battle For His College students
The best way Nina is ready to win the function of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake early within the film is by convincing Thomas that she will be able to play each components of the White and Black Swan. Nina is set to do absolutely anything to win Thomas’s approval, however as proven by Winona Ryder’s character of Beth, it’s a dropping battle.
Beth was the star ballerina earlier than Nina, who Thomas mentioned was as soon as “excellent” however throughout Nina’s run-ins with Beth all through the movie, we see that her pursuit of perfection has left her on a darkish path. Whereas she was as soon as the apple of his eye and his “little princess,” finally he kicked her off the corporate, seemingly because of her age, and moved on to discover a new star. As Black Swan continues, we see how Beth’s life is on a downward spiral after leaving the corporate, from coping with an accident that leaves her with out the power to stroll (assumedly because of her being drunk on the get together that says Nina’s function in Swan Lake), to revealing her tendency to self hurt when Nina visits her within the hospital.
Beth symbolizes the ugly path Nina is occurring led by Thomas’s pushing his college students to be “excellent” with a purpose to be worthy of greatness. Whereas Beth ought to function a cautionary story for Nina, it appears she’s been fueled by perfectionism since she was a toddler by her mom’s personal poisonous background in ballet, and she or he solely follows in her footsteps.
Lily Is not The Villain, However She Does Symbolize Nina’s Darkest Fears
Now, Portman’s function is an unreliable narrator, who usually has hallucinations and imagines issues that change into in her head all through the movie. In Nina’s eyes, Lily is out to get her function, however oftentimes when Lily seems the Black Swan model of Nina is shut behind, which to me symbolizes what Lily actually represents. I feel Lily symbolizes Nina’s darkest fears of being changed and never being “adequate” to attain this perfectionism she’s obsessive about. Whereas she’d prefer to consider that Lily is behind issues, the perpetual reappearance of her seeing herself in Lily exhibits that the true enemy is herself.
The Black Swan Ending Reminds Us Perfection Is Unattainable
That leads us to the ending of Black Swan, when Nina performs the ballet and at last embodies each roles. Whereas starring in Swan Lake, Nina’s hallucinations have her stabbing Lily with a purpose to lastly turn out to be the Black Swan. Nevertheless, as we later discover out earlier than the ultimate scene of the play, Lily is completely advantageous and never bleeding out in her dressing room as she imagines she is. Whereas we don’t see it occur actually, Nina stabbed herself with the shard of glass, successfully killing herself by the tip of the present, very like the character she’s embodying leaping off the cliff and killing herself on the finish of the tragic ballet.
As she dies, Nina is pleased as she tells Thomas she “felt it” that she “was excellent” through the efficiency. Nina totally embraced the function of the Swan Queen he was obsessing over since getting the half, however I feel her dying exhibits how pursuing perfectionism is inconceivable. The one method she was in a position to obtain it was in her dying, as a result of as people it’s simply not in our nature to be with out flaws.
Black Swan is actually such a superb movie that takes the basic ballet and spins it right into a layered character research and stable reminder how placing too excessive expectations is usually a model of self hurt to ourselves.
