Black Swan (2010) on Netflix
Nina Sayers dances with a New York City ballet company staging Swan Lake. She wants the lead, but artistic director Thomas Leroy doubts she can play the black swan; newcomer Lily can.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb8.0/10897,817 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
At a New York City ballet company, artistic director Thomas Leroy is preparing a new production of Swan Lake and needs one dancer for two roles: the innocent white swan, Odette, and the dark black swan, Odile. Nina Sayers wants the part above all else, and her mother, Erica, a former ballerina, keeps a close watch on her at home. Nina auditions with a flawless reading of Odette but cannot find Odile's sensuality, and Thomas dismisses her. She asks him to reconsider, and learns she has won the lead. In rehearsal Thomas points her toward a newcomer, Lily, whose uninhibited dancing suggests the black swan Nina cannot yet reach, while Nina feels her place in the company is threatened.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Charlotte Aronofskyas Mrs. Stein / Patron
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Black Swan (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Aronofsky called Black Swan a companion piece to The Wrestler, recalling an early project of his about a love affair between a wrestler and a ballerina that he separated because it was "too much for one movie"; wrestling, he said, some consider the lowest art and ballet the highest, yet performers in both make incredible use of their bodies.
- Kunis did cardio and Pilates, "train[ing] seven days a week, five hours, for five, six months total", on a very strict diet of 1,200 calories a day; she lost 20 lb from her normal weight of about 117 lb and reported that Portman "became smaller than I did".
- Several critics noted striking similarities between Satoshi Kon's 1997 anime film Perfect Blue and Black Swan; Aronofsky acknowledged the similarities in 2010 but denied that his film was inspired by it, and Kon noted in his blog that he had met with Aronofsky in 2001.
- Black Swan marked the fifth consecutive collaboration between Aronofsky and English composer Clint Mansell, who scored it from Tchaikovsky's ballet with radical changes; because of that use of Tchaikovsky's music, the score was deemed ineligible for the 2010 Academy Awards for Best Original Score.
- An article in The Independent suggested the costumes had actually been created by Rodarte's Kate and Laura Mulleavy; Westcott challenged that view, stating that in all only 7 costumes, among them the Black and White Swan, came from a collaboration between Rodarte, Westcott and Aronofsky.
- The Venice festival's artistic director Marco Mueller chose Black Swan over The American, starring George Clooney, as the opening film, saying "[It] was just a better fit" and that Clooney "will always be welcome in Venice".
