Black Swan press conference

There’s only one thing director Darren Aronofsky wants people to know about his audacious ballet thriller Black Swan before seeing it.

“That it’s f****ing great,” he jokes at a Toronto International Film Festival press conference for the film, which has already premiered at the Venice Film Festival to great buzz.

His star, Natalie Portman, isn’t phased by the Oscar talk generated by her performance as Nina, a ballerina who starts to crack in half as she rehearses the dual lead role in Swan Lake. “It’s very complimentary and flattering that people are talking about that, but obviously what we do is about wanting to make things that people connect to and that’s the biggest prize,” she says.

The journey from idea to film took so long and involved such intense preparation, Portman may well deserve a prize just for sticking with it. She says she first talked to Aronofsky about Black Swan back in 2002 while she was still in college.

“What he told me in that first meeting is what the movie ended up being,” she reveals. “It was not written [yet] but all the themes were there and plot points were there and the whole environment. So to have that sitting in the back of your mind for eight years is a great help. It just all exists in your brain. You’ve been living with it for a long time and processing it even when you’re not aware of it.”

The psychological preparation Portman needed to play a woman on the verge was then followed by a year’s intensive physical training as a ballet dancer. This period stretched longer than expected when Aronofsky had trouble getting the film off the ground.

“Because the money never really came through for a really long time, we kept having to push [the start date back],” Aronofsky says. “And one thing I didn’t realize until recently is that every time we’d push, Natalie was like, ‘Another three weeks of carrot sticks and almonds? I’m gonna kill you!’ So she really was tortured pretty badly because we had such a hard time getting the money for the film.”

Their working relationship ended up being as strangely symbiotic and doubled as the film itself. “My experience working with Darren was kind of telepathic, almost,” Portman says. “I’ve never had that with any director before. Darren could say half a word and I felt like I understood, and I could say half a word and he understood. We were in some strange zone of focus that allowed us to sort of share [the same] intention.”

But that doesn’t mean that Aronofsky’s style is airy fairy. “He was completely focused, completely alert in a way that tuned into every subtle detail of performance, camera, design,” says Portman. “He was consistently on it. And his discipline and militarism influenced my ability to focus as well. It was phenomenal.”

Winona Ryder, who plays the prima ballerina replaced by Nina, was intrigued by another duality in Aronofsky’s direction. “What I thought was really interesting was sometimes he would keep the camera rolling and he’d have you say something, like, really mean and then he’d say, ‘Now say it really nice.’ I saw him do it with Natalie and now [when I see the film] it’s like, ‘Oh, it worked!’” She turns to Aranofsky. “Without cutting you’d have us do opposite things but it worked.”

Aronofsky teases her, “Why are you giving away my secrets?”

Both Portman and Ryder found they could relate to their characters, especially their difficulties being in the spotlight.

Portman talks about what it’s like to have everyone’s eyes on her now. “You get used to watching yourself through a director’s eyes, through an audience’s eyes and you even become, like, a spectator of yourself,” she says. “But I think as an artist and as a human being, you have to see the world through your own eyes. And so that struggle – I mean, ‘struggle’ is a strong word… you have to fight against seeing yourself from without a lot. The borders around your identity get fuzzy. That’s what this movie is also about, when you start seeing yourself everywhere. I think that’s what the character goes through.”

Ryder agrees. “To be looked at and judged – you read something about yourself and you think, that’s who I am or that’s who I should be. It gets very confusing. It does drive you crazy.”

Aronofsky offers his own take on what Black Swan is really about.

“We’re just trying to offer an entertainment that people haven’t seen before,” he says. “There’s so much distraction out there – between your iPad and your internet and your TV watching, 3D movies. How do you make an independent film that makes people curious and want to come to it?”

He answers his own question. “Just get a couple of girls kissing and it’s all set,” he jokes.

Portman responds with a sigh, “I feel so used.”

- Kim Linekin

Tags:

black swan, Natalie Portman

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