Black Swan

  On 12/22/2010 at 3:57 PM, jefferoo said:

  On 12/22/2010 at 2:27 AM, Macca said:

  On 12/21/2010 at 12:31 AM, Enter a new display name said:

I love Aronofsky's earlier films but Black Swan didn't impress me at all. :(

well, I did like some bits of it.... there were a lot of inferences harking back to Pi (which I always felt was Aronofsky being heavily influenced by Tetsuo: The Iron Man) i.e all of those shots where she looks at the scratches on her back and squints in front of the mirror for a more painful angle, the whole metamorphosis process.

 

It wasn't a terrible film, the acting was ok and the story was fair play (it shows the broken ankles, the bloody toes with the sticky plasters side of ballet which I never gave a second thought) it just didn't strike me as much as his other films did.

 

I didn't see the new one yet but I've never liked Aronofsky's movies.

Of the ones I've seen...

Pi: I thought at times it was a bit of a weaker rip off of Tetsuo.

Requiem: All shock and style with no substance.

The Wrestler: His best movie but not without his usual dose of sadism toward the audience.

 

I honestly don't really care to see Black Swan.

I never thought Natalie Portman was a good actress. The Professional was a good movie and her character was a good character that people fell in love with but aside from that, she is very meh.

 

Vincent Cassel is awesome though. If there was one reason I'd see an Aronofsky flick, it might be him.

 

My suspicion is that this thread is more entertaining than Black Swan.

each to their own, I will agree though.

Aronofsky is very much a one trick pony when it comes to his narratives

The Aronofsky formula

1: Insert Problem (wife's illness (The Fountain), Solving the Stock Market (Pi), Lack of funds/whatever (Requiem), life goes down to shite (Wrestler)

2: Find means of fixing said problem i.e. "I can defeat Death" (The Fountain), "It's just some numbers sol! they can't hurt me" (Pi), "As long as we keep it down low we'll be ok" -shortly before the supply goes tits up in Requiem, and with the Wrestler it was familial related issues

3: Go through shitter i.e. all of the painful scenes of whatever in all of the above movies as protagonists blatantly struggle against whatever force opposes them

4: They succeed at the cost of their sanity/lives (finding the number in Pi then committing bathroom lobotomy), the entire ending sequence in Requiem etc etc

and that's the Aronofsky formula, make sure to spend the first part of "insert problem" heavily, Aronofsky gets that part and sails off with it.

I guess I kinda enjoy it when I'm in the mood, it's like a depressing metronome, at least I know what'll happen.

I was hoping that in the end of this he would differ from the predictable ending here (last act of the film is its weakest ironically, Aronofsky couldn't quite up his sadism as much here, mostly at times because I felt like this was supposed to be some niche drama anime film instead. You know, the kind Satoshi Kon might make if he had an interest in Ballet, except he wouldn't fuck up the final act, infact he wouldn't even use the Aronofsky formula :D)

PS: OSCI; you can't see the influences??? the black and white colour choice, the odd stop motion esque effects here and there, the use of sped up imagery from the POV of the character, the idea of organic nature merging with his machine (when he opens his computer, all of the organic tissue surrounding it.), Aronofsky's penchant for trains (the first major chase sequence in Tetsuo is at a train station) Outside of that I think it stops there imo, Tetsuo = much better film for the record since I'm a massive Tetsuo fanboy :sorcerer:

  On 12/27/2010 at 12:17 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

seriously.

fearlessly?

you kinda summed up the formula for all storytelling right there:

1 insert problem.

2 insert means to solve problem.

3 stuff happens inbetween.

4 an ending.

what im trying to say is that your formula is vague and not a formula at all.

more than formulas I see themes in his films they are similar but still diverse. I see them all to be about different things. requiem to me is about how easy is for everything to go very wrong, the fountain is just about love and death. simple themes with an original approach at displaying them.

  On 12/27/2010 at 7:07 AM, GORDO said:

you kinda summed up the formula for all storytelling right there:

 

1 insert problem.

2 insert means to solve problem.

3 stuff happens inbetween.

4 an ending.

 

what im trying to say is that your formula is vague and not a formula at all.

I wanted to say this earlier, but was too lazy to post it... thanks.

  On 12/27/2010 at 2:15 AM, beatfanatic said:

anyone know of the name of the song that was playing in that club scene???

I watched a video about the sound design in Black Swan the other day and they said it was a new track by The Chemical Brothers. They used samples from the original Black Swan just like Clint Mansell did.

EDIT:

Oh, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTXVkcsAI0

  On 12/27/2010 at 12:13 PM, Squee said:

  On 12/27/2010 at 2:15 AM, beatfanatic said:

anyone know of the name of the song that was playing in that club scene???

 

I watched a video about the sound design in Black Swan the other day and they said it was a new track by The Chemical Brothers. They used samples from the original Black Swan just like Clint Mansell did.

 

EDIT:

Oh, here it is:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTXVkcsAI0

woahhh. didn't remember it being that cool on the movie, nice track, not cheesy

I thought the movie was great, even better than I expected from an aronofsky film.

Yeah, you basically know what's going to happen, but I was still totally sucked into it. NP gave an amazing performance... She made the film. A few cringe moments, but overall I enjoyed it. The true test will be watching it on a small screen, sober.

I expected crap, but got turned on and pleased from start to beginning. Beautiful shots, anxious moments, awesome acting, superb ending, and not that predictable. I'm getting to like Aronofsky.

  On 12/22/2010 at 6:34 PM, GORDO said:

  On 12/22/2010 at 3:57 PM, jefferoo said:

 

I never thought Natalie Portman was a good actress.

 

 

 

Nor did I but this film will turn your mind around. honestly it's worth seeing just for portman's acting.

Yeah she was fantastic in this movie. I agree with some of the criticisms in this thread about the film overall (especially how the CG was largely wack), but I don't see how there's any way you could argue that NP is not amazing in this. She basically literally carries the entire film, like almost in a Tom Hanks/Cast Away sense. She is never (?) off the screen and completely solid throughout.

loved it. portman was brilliant. it succeeded my expectations. even though I guess I'm somewhat of an aronofsky fanboy, I think he held back a bit with all the style shots and cuts and it still worked. I hope he gets some recognition finally and if portman doesn't win best actress it will be a damn shame.

6

oh come on ..

Thinking back, the introductory ballerina dreamy scene seems to be a rip-off from David Lynch's Inland Empire., the ballerina bonus in the dvd extras.

the entire movie seems like a rip off of inland empire... without the nutty nutjobs

I loved it, really like Clint Mansel's Tchaikovsky arrangements.

i hate to be a nit picker but in this case i didn't think it was nitpicking...

I thought it looked good enough but i watched the dvdscreener so... dunno if in proper quality it looks cgi as fuck. also it's supposed to be a delusion so it's not necessary for it to look 'realistic'. in the end i think the effects of that final scene achieve their theatric purpose.

Overall I enjoyed it, it sucked me right in, shitty effects can pull you out sometimes but that was not the case for me. i liked how it portrays the paranoia and insanity of the main character. i think that's what the movie is about mostly, more than any other type of metaphor or whatever. it makes the whole atmosphere of the movie.

I think aronofsky also hates cgi and likes to use it as little as possible. the final scene didn't bother me at all but when her legs went the other way in her bedroom looked like crap.

  On 1/6/2011 at 11:33 PM, GORDO said:

I thought it looked good enough but i watched the dvdscreener so... dunno if in proper quality it looks cgi as fuck. also it's supposed to be a delusion so it's not necessary for it to look 'realistic'. in the end i think the effects of that final scene achieve their theatric purpose.

 

Overall I enjoyed it, it sucked me right in, shitty effects can pull you out sometimes but that was not the case for me. i liked how it portrays the paranoia and insanity of the main character. i think that's what the movie is about mostly, more than any other type of metaphor or whatever. it makes the whole atmosphere of the movie.

i don't have a problem with it not looking 'realistic', on the copy i had it looked like overly shiny obviously hand animated computer graphics, especially on a scene so poignant and important it seems like a shame. What ever happened to the cool stylistic transformation effects techniques from American Werewolf in London? that looks far better than any new werewolf transformation CGI stuff i've seen. I was surprised by the lack of budget (or seemingly) so in some of the CGI/effects work in Swan because i w as very impressed by the work done in the Fountain. Compared to that this movie seemed like it was on a shoestring effects budget. and yeah the Arrival style hyper extending of her legs was pretty 'wtf' , 15 years later and it still only looks equal to the effects quality in the Arrival with Charlie Sheen

the effects in the fountain was microscopic photography of different chemical reactions. it was amazingly smart and well done. there was obviously some cgi but he tried to use as much photography as possible.

i remember that, it was visually beautiful. The parts that did use digital effects, cgi and compositing like when he goes to the Tree of life and the scenes inside his floating bubble looked extremely high quality

but the movie was utter shit

nope

i wasn't asking

  On 1/7/2011 at 12:55 AM, Awepittance said:

i remember that, it was visually beautiful. The parts that did use digital effects, cgi and compositing like when he goes to the Tree of life and the scenes inside his floating bubble looked extremely high quality

perhaps, but the opening scenes in the jungle that were so clearly shot on a Star-Trek-quality stage were quite lol. I understand they were under a tight budget, but couldn't they at least have driven to the woods somewhere, to avoid that "studio lighting" look?

In any case,

  On 1/7/2011 at 2:46 AM, THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

but the movie was utter shit