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.