Treatment

Treatment

There are a lot of bear cans and cigarettes on the floor close to the couch. On the background the Tv is on and the news are on. There is the sound of the Tv.

Next we see Elena’s back and next to her is her phone. Suddenly her phones rings, but all we see is Elena opening her eyes as soon as the phone rang. From her expression we know she was sleeping. She grabs her head as if she had a headache.

Now we she her entire body and her hair is a mess. Her makeup is ruined and her eyeliner is drained. She reaches for her phone. In the screen of the phone says “Rebecca”, she reads the text that says “hey Elena, can u check in ur car if I left my purse there cuz I can’t find it, thnx girl” Then we see Elena’s face like ugh.

She Stands up and grabs the remote to turn off the Tv, but then the reporter says “in breaking news tonight we have been informwed that a psycho killer is loose in san Bruno, if anyone see him call (650-772-8868) and we recommend people to lock their doors and don’t go out alone late at night”.

Elena’s face is like yeah right (sarcastically). Then she makes fun by saying “how scary”

she turns off the tv and starts to walk, but she kicks a bear can and says “damn it”.


She walks out the door and closes it. The street is alone no people are walking. As she opens the door of her car, we see a shadow passing behind her. There is scary music.

She is looking for the purse in the car and everything is silent.

Suddenly someone puts a hand on her back and we see Elena’s face, she’s scare.

Then we hear a voice saying “what are you doing Elena”. She breaths and looks calmed now. Now we see the face of the guy and Elena turns around and she says “you scared me damn it”.

He says “sorry, but what are you doing out here in the street?” as he says this Elena turns around and starts to look again for the purse then she says “I’m looking for my friend’s purse but it looks like it’s not here” She stops looking and closes the door of her car.

Then from a window inside the house we see Elena and her friend saying goodnight. There is still scary music.

She is about to enter her house and notices her door slightly open.

She looks surprised but doesn't really care. Once she’s in she locks the door and everything looks normal.

Walks back to the couch and stars texting, then from a corner we see Elena, she writes “sorry Rebecca but ur” then suddenly we hear a noise as if something fall down.

Elena’s reaction is to turn her head in the direction the noise came. She puts the phone down and starts walking towards the kitchen (which is where the noise came).

The music in the background provides suspense. When she gets there she sees a vase is on the floor and the window is open, the wind is blowing. She feels relaxed and there is silence.

Suddenly she turns around and the killer is in front of her. He shuts her mouth and she tries to scream. Then she punches him and she’s able to run to another room.

As she’s running the killer is grabbing his face.


She stops in another room and her heart is beating so fast and her faces shows fear.

Then she remembers that she has call for help. She looks in her cloths for her phone, but is not there. Now her face is like I know where I left it, she says “the couch”.

Then we see the killer walking looking for her. She opens the door and looks in the hall to see if the killer is close.

The hall is empty and she walks out the room and goes towards the couch. She gets there safe and starts dialing. She’s shaking and there is scary music in the background.

We see the killer behind her, but she doesn’t. The pitch of the music increases.

He walks towards her and tries to strangle her. Then she drops the phone. As she’s dying, he starts to smile, but then she nudges him in the stomach and he lets go of her.

She coughs. He grabs his stomach. As she walks away, he walks behind her and pushes her to the wall. Her head impact the wall and she fall on the floor, he hits Elena’s head against the floor and now she’s dead. 

The killer drags her and everything fades to black.

Oral Presentation Part 5

V. Film Language and Representation

How are characters and issues represented?  
In this scene we see Nina’s transformation, from the white swan to the true and real black swan. In the beginning of the scene, Nina comes in crying about her performance, which shows her personality, but when she sees Lily dressed up as the black swan she explodes. She’s tied of being threatened by someone taking her spot. From the moment her neck grows taller and her skin changes, we know the black swan took over Nina. She eventually destroyed herself in the pursuit of perfection. The film’s themes was the price of perfection and this issue is addressed in this scene by Nina’s actions. In her head, Nina believed she was good enough to play the black swan, she was insecure about her capability and she felt that the only way to achieve perfection was by killing the only person that was standing on her way, herself. This the implicit ideology of the film, Darren(the director) wanted to show this fight with her double in order to imply that the price of perfection is dangerous and in this case it was at the expense of a life.

What is the style and effect of acting and performance?     
It’s contemporary acting, Natalie Portman stays in character all the time and shows emotions that Nina would have. Portman won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role of Nina. Her performance in this scene is critical; she plays two characters at the same time. Being the evil Nina creates fear in the audience because we fear she might kill the real Nina. Additionally, by this point of the scene the audience didn’t know it if it was real or not. This shows Portman did a great job making the audience believe it could be real despite the fact you’re seeing two Ninas. And once real Nina stabs the double, the delivery of the line “no, it’s my turn” is so powerful that the audience truly believes is her turn.

Then when she sees it’s Lily the one that’s dead she starts to cry. For a moment she goes back to being the innocent girl and uncertain of what to do she decides to hide the corpse. Then she breaths deeply and the black swan takes over again. Her eyes remain the audience that this character would do anything in order to get what she wants, perfection. This performance makes the audience fear for Nina because she is mentally affected.

How is meaning created by camera angles, shots, and camera movement?  
Darren decide to show action and reaction through Nina’s character. The camera uses mostly CUs during the entire movie and this scene is not the exception. In the fight with her double, there is only CUs. This creates the feeling of suspense, the audience doesn’t know which one is goin to survive and after the the real Nina survives and  there is a extreme long shot, the audience feel fear because her eyes and what she just did was scary. Then when she starts crying we feel frightened just like she does. However there are MS and about 2 LS.  All this shots make the audience share the Nina’s feeling and doesn’t allow us to explore different emotions because we have Nina in CUs. In addition the angles are from the side given to the mirrors. They show the reflection of Nina and contribute to the idea of Nina seeing another Nina. Finally the camera movement is very important through the entire film. It gives the audience to feel more closer to Nina because most of the time follows Nina. In this scene it follows Nina when she’s dragging Lily to the shower, then we only see  Lily from Nina’s perspective making the audience see through Nina’s eyes. 

How is meaning created through proxemics, territorial design, or open and closed forms?(theme, genre)
Do to the fact that it’s a psychological thriller, Nina’s dressing room is so small and is close because it represents how Nina feels about her life,  trapped. She never had freedom because she was controlled by her mother in the sense that her mother was living her dream of ballerina through Nina’s career. Nina didn’t have freedom to make her own decisions and the dressing room represents that.

How is meaning created by editing and sequencing?
It is formalism because the editing tries to manipulate the audience by showing a CU of Nina’s face after killing Lily. Darren doesn’t allow the audience to decide who to look at because there is only CUs. There is Action match, movement match, eye-line match, 180 degree rule and the shot/ reverse shot is important here and reaction shot as well. This two last concepts of editing continuity are massive because they create emotions in the audience by holding those shots longer. They have a sequence and it starts slow with few cuts and then it picks up the pace of cutting and it creates adrenalin.

How is meaning created by lighting, shade and color?  
There is a good amount of lighting, but not as much as in other scenes, which implies that there is not a bright side for Nina. There are shadows in Nina’s face while fighting and it represents her dark side; Darren emphasizes darkness. This helps the audience to fear for Nina’s future and the consequences of her actions.   

Color is very important; white, black and pink are dominant not only in this scene, but through the  entire film. Deprez, the set designer intentionally decided to emphasize the meainig of the colors. White is for pureness and innocence, while black is the danger, evilness and darkness. Finally pink represents Nina’s childhood, how she never grew up because her mom didn’t allowed her to.

How is meaning created by sound and music?(genre)
The sound is digetic; when the door shuts, when the mirror breaks and when Nina drags the corpse. Everything is something you would hear in a real situation. The effect has an impact in the audience it creates reality to the scene, the audience gets more into it and understand the degree of the fight. As for the music is by Tchaikovsky and The Chemical Brothers. It goes with the the scene, there is high pitch right when Nina stabs the double. Then it changes to Lower frequency sound right when Nina starts crying. Then there is a sound bridge when Nina takes a deep breath and right before the scene changes to a dancing scene. Finally there is also tempo and it’s significant in this scene. It goes with the fighting and it makes it relevant to the audience. It increases the intensity and highlights Nina’s feelings. It causes the audience care for Nina.

How is meaning created by location, set design and mis en scene.?
The set design has a purpose, it implies her childhood through the pink color and in other scenes such as the her apartment the details are part of Nina’s childhood. The location represents how she feels; trapped.

Does the film make use of symbols, metaphors, or allegories? Share are they and how do they work within the context of the film?
Mirrors represent a symbol; they stand for what Nina sees.  In almost every scene there are mirrors because she’s a ballerina and they need to sees their movements . Also, mirrors show the reflection of one’s self. In this case Nina never liked what she saw in the mirror, she felt she didn’t have the black swan and her reflection tortured her because she wasn’t perfect. Additionally, a piece of a mirror is what she uses to stab the other Nina. It’s ironic how a mirror reminded Nina what she was missing, but yet helped her to find her her inner black swan.  

There is also metaphor in Lily’s character; she represents the opposite of Nina. Nina is all about perfect technique and no passion while Lily is about passion and sloppy technique. It makes total sense that Lily would replace Nina as the swan queen because they are different but have something in common and that is the desire to be the swan queen.

How is meaning created by technical elements such as production design, mise en scene, composition, special effects (matte paintings, models or animation, computer generated images….etc.)
There is great special effects in the entire film and it’s showed a little bit of it in this scene. When Nina’s neck grows taller is a special effect and foreshadows the black swan. Nina’s skin also changes and that is an effect that is used in other sequences especially in the dancing scenes. The meaning created by this effect is first disturbing, but secondly and most important, is to understand the transformation of Nina into the black swan. She is a real swan, she owns that role and she’s truly perfect.   

11. What emotional information is conveyed through the filmmaking process?
Well this scene was shot with only one camera and it really focuses on Nina’s emotions and how tired she is of living and behaving as the perfect good girl. The filmmaking captures those feelings that were experienced before and in this scene show the effect they have on Nina.

Oral Presentaton: Part 4 Narrartive

1. What was you rationale for choosing this selection?
Well this scene is a great example of what the entire film is about; it has a bit of all the elements of the film. It establishes the conflict Nina faces, which is the plot, and it shows the effects that were used in different scenes. Furthermore, the visual details that are significant to the film are in this scene and the music is very important because it’s relevant to what the characters are experiencing. In addition the cinematography shown here is similar to the other scenes in the film.

However, in other to understand this scene you need to know the ending and understand the meaning of the line “the only person standing in your way is you”. At the end we learn that Nina never stabbed Lily, it was herself the whole time. She stabbed herself thinking she was going to lose her place because she screwed up in her first performance. Her mind went crazy and she ended up killing the innocence and goodness in  Nina with the purpose to find her dark side. She literary had to eliminate herself in order to find her inner black swan.

2. How does the extract relate to the film as a whole?
It relates to the genre,  a psychological thriller film implies suspense, fear and surprise. When Nina stabs  what seems to be her and later converts into Lily shows how everything is part of her imagination. This explains the genre, the fact that someone  would dare to kill do the idea of being the perfect swan queen(theme: perfection), it’s scary. This idea was created in Nina’s  mind and  causes her a mental and physical damage.

3. How is this film constructed according to narrative/story being told?
The story is told in first point of view, Nina’s point of view. We are introduced to Nina as the innocent girl that has worked years to be the best ballerina, and finally her opportunity has come with the role of the Swan Queen.  She is a dedicate ballerina and is the perfect white swan, but she has trouble portraying the black swan. She’ll go through so much in order to find her inner black swan no matter the consequences.

The conflict is that Nina believes Lily is trying to take her place as the Swan Queen and that she’s following & provoking her, but it’s all in her mind. Nina is obsessed with being the perfect swan queen and she puts her health (mentally and physically) in danger. After her first performance as the white Swan, she goes back to her dressing room and feels terrible because she fell. Then she sees Lily dressed as the black swan, but when Lily turns away from the mirror she becomes Nina’s double, and then Nina pushes her against the mirror.  Nina’s double reaction is by trying to strangle the real Nina while saying “it’s my turn, my turn”.

Suddenly Nina’s neck grows taller and starts to gain force and defends herself by stabbing her double and saying “NO, it’s MY turn”. After this line the fake Nina turns back into Lily and Nina’s reaction is full of surprised. Then someone knocks the door saying “black swan be ready in 5”. Nina realizes she has killed Lily and she decides to hide her in the shower that is part of her dressing room and continue with the play despite everything.

However, in other to understand this scene you need to know the ending and understand the meaning of the line “the only person standing in your way is you”. At the end we learn that Nina never stabbed Lily, it was herself the whole time. She stabbed herself thinking she was going to lose her place because she screw up int her first performance. Her mind went crazy and she ended up killing the innocence and goodness in  Nina with the purpose to find her dark side. She literary had to eliminate herself in order to find her inner black swan.

 

4. Is the narrative organized by plot or time sequence,character driven vs. plot driven?
The narrative is organized by plot because the story has a beginning, climax and resolution.  Also is Character driven because the decisions the protagonist (Nina) makes affect the story and have a consequence. Her decisions are what dictate the story of the film. For instance, when she decides to continue with the play after killing Lily; instead of looking for help lead her to the death. Because of her decision she died, she did not looked for help.
 
5. Does the film use other principles than narrative sequence as a structure (for instance, an argument?
No, it’s about narrative sequence.

6.What is the nature of our engagement with the story or characters?
Well, the nature of our engagement  with the story and characters begins with the fact that we can relate regardless if you are a ballerina or not. We all have gone through a similar story or have experienced what the character of Nina feels. We have wanted something badly that we have done dangerous things in order to obtain it. Some of us have tried to reach perfection that along the way we didn’t noticed the price of it. Others, as artists know what it means to do something perfectly and value the years of effort. However, we all have been confused by our minds in different ways and this makes us care for the character and story.

Oral Presentation Part 2 and 3

II. Historical and Institutional Factors-

1. What are the institutional factors that may be important?
   It is a film by Fox Searchlight Pictures
2. as a production of a specific producer (i.e. Walt Disney), institution (Disney Studios), specific economic factors (Studio Film), or a political background? (U.S. politics 1959)

1. What is the film’s historical significance?

 .       as a document of its time? It shows a modern and different perspective of what most people would think of ballet. They would never think of it as crazy, dangerous and wicked world. It changes people’s perspective of ballet in the sense that not everything in ballet is pretty.

a.                as a part of history of film? most people liked it so it’ll definitely influence other films and Black swan would be remember for showing the price of perfection in a sort of documentary style.

III.  Socio-cultural context

1. What is the film’s socio-cultural context?

a.                as a work from a specific country? It’s from the U.S, but not because it’s from the U.S only Americans can relate. On the contrary, anyone from any part of the world can relate. It speaks form the perspective of a ballerina that happens to be American, but ballet itself is a universal language and in the dancing parts it brings something from the dancing world.

2. As a work from a specific culture? It’s the artistic culture, an artist can understand what Nina is going through by pursuing perfection and art has no boundaries.

3. As a work representing a specific part of its society? It represents the artists, the ballerinas directly, but at the same time it represents people who have been confused by their mind and have felt they should do anything to reach perfection.

4. As a work made for a specific audience? It is as much as for ballerinas as for a adult audience. It’s for anyone that can comprehend the way the mind can work sometimes. Even if you are not familiar with ballet, the ballet scenes are very frontal and the audience understands how Nina is great for the white swan, but how it fails practicing the black swan (except the end, of course).

5. As a work made for a specific reason? It was made for the reason that some people have the wrong ideology about ballet. Darren uses implicit ideology in order to change the perspective people have of ballet. He also create this film as a complementary of his past film the wrestler and compare and contract these two types of art.

Oral Research Part 1- Genre and Audience

I. Genre and Audience-

On Black Swan

1) What tradition or genre is it in? Psychological thriller (sub-genre)

2) What are the features determining genre? There is suspense. The role of the Swan Queen is though and Nina feels someone (lily) is trying to take her place. She feels she's being chased but everytime she looks at the person is herself. THis is all part of her imagination; the ideas of being swan queen is affecting Nina mentally and pysically as well. Nina portrays very well the pure swan, but she's having difficulties portraying the dark swan. She is obsessed with reaching perfection and this lead her to extreme danger where her life is the price of perfection.

3)What other work might it be connected to? The Double: A Petersburg Poem. All About Eve, Roman Polanski's film The Tenant, Repulsion, The Tenant.

Who made this? Why? Darren Aronofsky. Darren Aronofsky first became interested in ballet when his sister studied dance at the High School of Performing Arts in New York City. The director had also seen numerous productions of Swan Lake, and he connected the duality of the White Swan and the Black Swan to his script.[3] When researching for production of Black Swan, he found ballet to be "a very insular world" whose dancers were "not impressed by movies". Regardless, the director found active and inactive dancers to share their experiences with him.

What can we tell about its’ creators?

-Darren is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. He attended Harvard University to study film theory and the American Film Institute to study both live-action and animation filmmaking. He won several film awards after completing his senior thesis film, "Supermarket Sweep", which went on to become a National Student Academy Award finalist. His films are the following: Below, The Fountain, The wrestler, Black Swan.

 -Matthew libatique is (American) the cinematographer of Blck Swan. He as team up with fellow AFI alumni Aronofsky for the short film Protozoaand. Since then he has worked in films such as: Requiem for a Dream, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Inside Man, The Fountain, The Number 23, My Own Love Song, etc. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Black Swan.

 -Therese DePrez. Production Designer. She has worked in Jack Goes Boating, Howl, Fighting, Brooklyn's Finest, Phoebe in Wonderland,Mr. Magorium's Wonder, Emporium, The Return, Dark Water and many more.

How does it fit within the director’s other work?

It is not similar into previous' films (in terms of genre), but there it can be compare to The Wrestler in terms of art.

a. Does it share significant narrative or thematic concerns?

"Aronofsky called Black Swan a companion piece to his previous film The Wrestler, recalling one of his early projects about a love affair between a wrestler and a ballerina. He eventually separated the wrestling and the ballet worlds as "too much for one movie". He compared the two films: "Wrestling some consider the lowest art—if they would even call it art—and ballet some people consider the highest art. But what was amazing to me was how similar the performers in both of these worlds are. They both make incredible use of their bodies to express themselves."

 b. Does it share particular visual or technical elements? It doesn't really share visual or technical elements, but Black Swan tries to adress the sory in a more personal and intimate way such as documentary. This is something the Wrestler shows.

What is the film’s theme?

The persuit of perfection. The consequences of trying to ahieve perection.

What is the target audience?

 Over 18 audience, people who like art,ballerinas, and mostly females

 How does it address its audience?

It tries to show that not everything in ballet is beautiful and perfect. Art is much more and it tries to make it interesting by showing the danger ballarinas face in ballet and how in general people suffer for trying to be perfect.