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.
No comments:
Post a Comment