What Went Right: Black Swan
By Shalimar Sahota
July 27, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Director Darren Aronofsky always has a tendency to choose difficult subject matter. He has mentioned how just like his previous films, Black Swan was also hard to finance. Along with Cross Creek Pictures, Fox Searchlight backed the film, raising a production budget of $13 million. Fox also distributed it in the US. Looking at it from a studio’s point of, who’s going to want to see a film that revolves around ballet? In retrospect, the real question is who would have thought that a film revolving around ballet would end up earning over $300 million worldwide? Before going further I will say that there are a few spoilers.
Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a ballerina who we see throwing up more than we see her eating. Dancing with a New York City ballet company, she’s been chosen for the lead role of the Swan Queen in their production of Swan Lake: The New Take, playing both the White Swan and the Black Swan. However, upon receiving the role, things start to get a little weird. Her director/choreographer (Vincent Cassel) pushes her to the limit in an effort to bring out the passion required to play the Black Swan, while a new dancer for the company, Lily (Mila Kunis), causes Nina to suspect that she could end up losing the role to her rival.
Aronofsky has so far always made original films. He says, “Unfortunately, studios don’t want to pay for most of the ideas we have. They’re too out there. They don’t know what box to put them into.” It’s quite difficult to shoehorn Black Swan as a particular type of film given that it’s so wonderfully out there. As both a hindrance and benefit to its success, it would be tough to gain funding for such a film, for upon completion it can also be an issue in trying to get people to see something so strange. Yet, Black Swan’s festival screenings created such a huge buzz partially because the film is so unlike anything else.
The basic gist of it involves Nina struggling to get to grips with the role of the Swan Queen, notably the pressure of playing the Black Swan part. Possibly afraid to become something which she is not, she is also afraid of Lily taking the role from her. She starts imagining things that are not happening and soon Nina finds herself turning into a swan. The premise sounds so ludicrous on paper that chances are it probably had a better chance of being made as a low budget B-movie.
Shot in 16mm, mostly handheld and (with the exception of one day) using just a single camera, it looks more like a gritty documentary and less like a film. The look adds to what realism there is and enhances the serious tone.
The film had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2010. As the opening film it garnered a standing ovation and the day after its screening, Portman was already being tipped as a serious Oscar contender. As it continued to play the festivals, early word was spreading about Portman’s performance. That she used to dance before moving into acting meant that she was able to familiarize herself with ballet. She did “many” of the dance scenes herself, having trained five hours a day for ten months. Kunis, who is often overshadowed, also trained for five hours a day for six months.
Opening in the US on December 3, 2010 in a limited release of just 18 screens, Black Swan played to mostly sold out shows and earned a remarkable $1.4 million, charting at #13. An expansion to 90 theatres in its second week allowed the film to enter the top ten at #6 with a fantastic take of $3.3 million. Word-of-mouth was spreading faster than a Kardashian’s legs. Those interested were not waiting for the film to show locally. Here was an instance where some people were going out of their way to watch it. In its third week, Black Swan finally opened wide. Out to 959 locations it was down at #7, but its weekend take had increased to $8.3 million.
The film had broken through to the multiplexes and spent nine weeks in the US top ten, crossing the $100 million mark on its twelfth week of release. It ended its run with $106.9 million at the US box office. And here’s something no one could have predicted - for Fox, the domestic total made it their highest grossing film of 2010 in the US, for despite the R-rating it surpassed the likes of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, The A-Team, and Knight & Day.
It also found huge success overseas, notably in the UK, France, Germany and Japan, with the film earning over $20 million in each of those countries. Adding in an overseas gross of $222.4 million, Black Swan had managed to earn $329 million worldwide, making it one of Fox Searchlight’s highest grossing films. It is also Darren Aronofsky’s most successful film by a huge margin. So how did this happen?
The first trailer for the film emerged over three months earlier in August. When Fox Searchlight uploaded it to YouTube it had received just over three million views within the space of 48 hours. The trailers, TV spots and posters all exude a sense of mystery and intrigue, enough to make you want to know what the hell is going on. Yet for some people, even after watching the film, they were still struggling to piece together what they had just seen.
Black Swan is intricately designed and plays like a puzzle. Everything is deliberate as Aronofsky screws with his audience (he revealed that the faces of his lead actresses are sometimes digitally swapped for a split second). There is a lot that one can deeply analyse; with its emphasis on mirrors, which are in almost every scene (note what happens when Nina finally breaks a mirror), the color scheme (interestingly it opens in black and fades to white), even the end credits, which offer a clue when we see that each of the main cast is credited as playing two characters. With an unstable Nina in pretty much every scene, this means that the viewer only ever knows as much as she does. For those that really wanted to decipher the film it would mean watching it again, and multiple viewings were reported as some went a second and third time. It would also mean chatting to those that have seen it and getting their interpretation. Cue a lot of people asking, “Have you seen Black Swan? You need to see Black Swan! You really need to see Black Swan!”
“Black Swan, the movie everyone is talking about,” said Mr Voiceover Man in the TV spot. If you weren’t talking about Black Swan, then it meant having to go see the film just to be included in the conversation. The film is a prime example of how positive word-of-mouth can ignite the box office. Since its release you can’t tell me that you haven’t had someone talk to you about it.
From talking to Entertainment Weekly, Portman said, “Everyone was so worried about who was going to want to see this movie. I remember them being like, ‘How do you get guys to a ballet movie? How do you get girls to a thriller?’ And the answer is a lesbian scene. Everyone wants to see that.” The slice of lesbianism in the film cannot be understated. Even before it had begun shooting, word got out that there was a lesbian sex scene. When it came to marketing the film, someone had the genius idea to include shots of Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman kissing in the trailer and TV spots. This alone is likely to have added a significant amount to the film’s overall box office. Seeing two Hollywood actresses locking lips was bound to have piqued interest amongst male moviegoers. So when women told their partners, “I’m off to go see Black Swan,” a large majority of men decided to tag along, some of them using the excuse that they wanted to see a well reviewed movie (from those I’ve talked to that have seen it, Black Swan appears to be a liked more by guys than girls).
When Black Swan was in release, it was parodied on Saturday Night Live with “that” Jim Carrey sketch, which only ended up bringing the film more exposure. It didn’t take long for the film to reach pop culture status. One only has to do a quick search on YouTube to find a multitude of make-up tutorial videos on how to create the Black Swan look (some were uploaded before the film was even released).
The film seemed to have everything going for it – fantastic word-of-mouth, positive reviews (even a good chunk of the negative reviews found something to like), a lead actress getting the best reviews of her career, and awards. Nominated for five Oscars, it won one, for Best Actress. In fact, Portman won damn near every single Best Actress award going, also taking home a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. After winning the Oscar, controversy arose from Portman’s dance double in the film, Sarah Lane, who claimed that most of the full body dance shots were of her, and not Portman. While heavily contested, it did little against the film’s overall impact, for by this point it had already amassed $280 million worldwide.
Hooked from the moment I saw the trailer, I viewed Black Swan the morning after it had opened. Days after I had seen it, I was still thinking about it. For me, it is one of only two films released in 2010 that delivered a truly cinematic experience. In the words of Nina Sayers, “It was perfect.” Unfortunately, I just didn’t have anyone to talk to about it at the time.