Both the play and the film focus on metamorphosis as a key theme. While Odette transforms into a swan, Nina changes into the very character she was playing on stage, ironically dying in the guise of the White Swan.
The night before she is set to perform, Nina becomes convinced that Lily is going to take her place. Her paranoia and mental strain cause her to hallucinate that she's physically turning into the role of Odile, the Black Swan, complete with red eyes and black feathers protruding from bird-like skin.
Even with Thomas Leroy's (Vincent Cassell) twisted take on "Swan Lake" in Black Swan, the same basic story is told, with Nina tasked to play the white swan and the seductive black swan. As a result, Nina performs the closing number with a stab wound in her chest, which results in her actually dying at the end.
Similar to most real-life presentations, Nina's psychotic symptoms gradually worsen over time. Nina's disturbance in perception is evidenced by hallucinations, which evolve from shadows and seeing her face on others, to Nina's belief that she is physically transforming into a swan.
Personality… childlike, insecure, and psychologically disturbed. The pressure of being the Swan Queen has been affecting Nina's behavior, and her perfectionism is starting to take a noticeable toll on her mental health.
Nina's disordered relationship with her roommate mother Erica, played by Barbara Hershey, sets the stage for Nina's psychological breakdown. Erica is narcissistic, spending all of her time painting pictures of herself and completely infringing on Nina's space and well-being.
NOT REAL: Therefore, Lilly and Nina did not have actual sex (we know this because after sex, Lilly said something to Nina about being a ‘Good girl’ and then tried to smother her.
Although symptoms would not occur as rapidly as they do in Nina Sayers in most common cases of schizophrenia, it is plausible. Therefore, Black Swan is a decent portrayal of a person's descent into paranoid schizophrenia.
The Black Swan explained that, while killing her own doppelgänger, Nina fatally injured herself in the process. Earlier scenes also revealed scratch marks on Nina's back after her hallucinations showed a pattern of self-harm.
It is, though, far from being the whole truth. The “Black Swan” screenplay has surely been prompted by a number of dancers' memoirs — Gelsey Kirkland's 1986 best seller, “Dancing on My Grave,” is just the most famous — to convey its neurotic version of the internal life of ballet.
The two fight, breaking a mirror. Nina stabs her doppelgänger with a large shard of glass from the mirror, killing her. The body reverts to Lily. Nina hides the corpse in the bathroom and takes the stage, dancing flawlessly as Odile and seemingly turns into a black swan, her arms covered in feathers.
Black Swan signifies an insight about yourself changes your position from one of victim to victor. Black Swan is a graceful reminder to move from any position where you feel powerless and at the mercy of external forces; it is time to reclaim your personal power. Black swan can represent spiritual love and freedom.
Matthias was condemned to imprisonment at Hellgate. Nina stayed in Ketterdam instead of returning to Ravka because she wanted to get Matthias out of Hellgate. She was originally approached by Pekka Rollins and invited to join the Dime Lions, but Kaz sent Inej Ghafa to recruit Nina to the Dregs instead.
What are the scratches on Nina's back in Black Swan?
Early in the film the audience is shown a small rash on Nina's back; this has to do with a nervous tick she has developed where she scratches herself. When the mother finds that the rash has gotten worse, she strips Nina down to her underwear and pulls her into the bathroom to cut her nails.
Synopsis. The movie opens as Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a young ballerina in her mid twenties, is dancing the prologue to Swan Lake. Swan Lake is a ballet in which a princess is turned into the White Swan and can only be turned back if a man swears eternal fidelity to her.
But speaking as a psychiatrist, Lamberti said the film did not accurately depict schizophrenia, as has been widely speculated, but "does present a reasonable portrait of psychosis." "People tend to be scared of things they don't understand," he said.
The black swan theory is a concept proposed by the Lebanese-born financial writer and researcher Nassim Nicholas Taleb that describes rare and unpredictable events that have a major socio-economic impact. The term “black swan,” used to designate these events, comes from a 17th-century historical fact.
Natalie Portman has transformed herself for many film roles, but nothing was as grueling as her Black Swan makeover. The actress shed an astonishing 20lbs from her already slight frame to play a ballerina in the 2011 film and admitted it put such a toll on her body that she thought she was going to die.
Sometimes in these situations, where a mother is caring for a mentally ill child the child's life needs to be strictly regimented and controlled in order to maintain stability. This could be the reason why Erica feels the need to restrict Nina's movements and social interactions.
Lily was the evil twin and the director of the play was the prince, Lily was seducing the director (Thomas) but Nina becomes the black swan and seduces him but ended up killing herself to finally free herself from the constant burden she puts on herself to be perfect all the time.
