Synchronicity: Black Swan 1

I was recently gifted with a simple truth: there are no accidents; and it seems as though the Universe is on a mission to prove her point, bombarding me with synchronicity. Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events, apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner (Wikipedia). This post is the first in a series about those events.

There are two camps when it comes to Black Swan: people either love it or they don’t– there’s no inbetween.

I fall into the former camp and can say without hesitation that Black Swan is one of the best films I’ve ever seen. I love its cinematography–its graininess. I love the score. I love the story. I love the suspense. I love the psycho-horror. And mostly, I love Natalie Portman’s character Nina. She’s so troubled–so pained–for the duration of the movie. I can hardly imagine the energy that went into maintaining such a tortured persona.

The January 14th issue of The Week reported that “Portman was glad to be finished with Black Swan.”

“[She said she] has never been so glad to be done with a film, said Baz Bamigboye in the London Daily Mail. To portray a weight-obsessed ballerina in Black Swan, the 29-year-old actress had to do the reverse of what Robert De Niro did for Raging Bull, and drop to an emaciated 100 pounds. ‘I was barely eating,’ Portman says. ‘I was working 16 hours a day. I like to go home and be myself, but with this one, I didn’t get the chance. It didn’t leave me.’ The role transformed both her body and her psyche. ‘I had no shape, no boobs. All you saw was bone. I was like, ‘This looks gross.’

She was no less haunted by the dark, depressive nature of the role, with her character struggling with hallucinations and encroaching madness. ‘There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die. It was the first time I understood how you could get so wrapped up in a role that it could sort of take you down. It was more difficult than anything I’ve ever experienced before.'”

Portman’s award-winning performance aside, the film’s storyline resonated most with me. I felt akin to her ballerina–always striving for perfection…to a fault. Technically, she’s just that. But her company’s director, played by Vincent Cassel,  constantly gifts her with candid truths to remind her that she’s lacking that which will give her performances life.

“You could be brilliant, but you’re a coward.”‘

“…every time you dance, I see you obsessed with getting each and every move perfectly right, but I never see you lose yourself. Ever! All that discipline for what?”

“The only person standing in your way is you.”

Those words are gems that could be tossed at me in any given moment–and are–because, much like Portman’s ballerina, I struggle to shake my obsession with perfection. The most frustrating thing for me is knowing that technical perfection isn’t the essence of voice over. It’s about the personality your experiences lend to your characters, and it’s about fearlessly exposing that personality.

I know that Black Swan wasn’t made for me, per se, but Vincent Cassel’s words echo those that my instructors and coaches have bestowed upon me. Their timeliness definitely helps drive the point home!