'Black Swan' Character Study

The main character in the film is Nina; the film follows her descent into madness at the hands of her perfectionism. In the world of professional ballet, Nina is not passionate about dance, but about being perfect. She wants to get all of the moves and choreography perfectly correct; she is not interested in giving a sentimental or fervent performance. This trait is represented when Thomas says to Nina that he sees her ‘obsessed getting each and every move perfectly right but I never see you lose yourself.’ Her perfectionism is driven by her over bearing mother, who ‘gave up her career to have her’. Nina’s mother was never satisfied with her and as a result Nina is never satisfied with herself. While it is not blatantly stated, it is implied that whether aggressively or passively Erica forced Nina to be a dancer and is attempting to live her career through Nina. When Nina tells her she got the role of the swan queen, Erica talk about that from her perspective, ‘MY daughter the swan queen’. But the biggest and darkest effect of her mother on her is Nina’s paranoia; Nina lives her life in anxiety. This is presumably because of her over protective mother. Erica has kept Nina in a watchful and possessive shell her whole life, and consequently Nina is fearful of everything. This is portrayed in the Mise en scene and the music of the film, by having everything except Nina as darker, more threatening and more dramatic the audience is able to see Nina’s anxiety. In particular, Nina fears that there is something following her, later it revealed that the evil thing following her shadow, her evil twin. This idea is portrayed through the visual elements of the film, the ever present hand held tracking shot from Nina’s back gives the audience the suspicion that there is something or someone following Nina. The film also uses special effects to build on this Idea, the film shows Nina’s hallucinations through this convention. The audience is able to see Nina hallucinating about other people having her face, or her reflection in the mirror moving. This allows the audience to see deep into Nina’s perspective, we are fully aware of what she is thinking and how she is paranoid.

Her paranoia consumes her when she is cast as the role of the black swan, and in order to be perfect like she wants she must “lose herself” in the role. Her desire to be perfect results in a total transformation into the black swan. She becomes very fearful of Lily trying to sabotage her, which results in a hallucination of Nina killing her. She wants to be like her idol Beth, who Thomas describes as “perfect” but also say that “everything Beth does comes from within. From some dark impulse. I guess that's what makes her so thrilling to watch. So dangerous. Even perfect at times, but also so damn destructive.” In the film, Nina’s dark impulse is personified, as her evil twin shadow, and in some ways Lily. This twin is purely a figment of Nina’s imagination, but she is still very afraid of her twin and that the doppelganger will take over her body. Eventually it does, Nina is totally changed into her sinister counterpart, her black swan. She has gone totally insane and the meek girl we knew is gone. We can see her insanity, her hallucinations through special effects, Nina’s eyes are reddened to be like a swan’s near the end of the film, her skin is seen to have huge rippling goose bumps that feathers eventually protrude from, and her arms metamorphosize into black wings during her performance. All this helps draw the conclusion that Nina has become the black swan. Changes are shown through Nina’s actions, she rebels against and attacks her mother, she becomes sexually liberated and she takes drugs at a nightclub. Her mental instability causes her to hallucinate that her doppelganger is trying to strangle her, Nina stabs her doppelganger with a shard of glass from a broken mirror. Of course, her doppelganger being herself she actually just stabs herself, it is later revealed.  Her death is symbolic as the culmination of the fight between good and evil inside her. The meek and fearful girl, the white swan, and the seductive careless girl, the black swan, fight each other, like in the scene at 1:29:05, and even fraternize and seduce each other, like in the scene at 1:05:27, all inside Nina's head. Eventually, their ardent relationship culminates in the murder of one and other and thusly the death of Nina. The way Nina forces herself to be consumed by the black swan shows her dedication to the role, the depth of her desire to be perfect. She is so dedicated to the role she is willing to die to get it perfect. This is shown when Nina is lying on her deathbed and all she has to say is: “I was perfect”.