In Aronofsky's "Black Swan", Nina is seen eating a Grapefruit and Hard boiled Egg for breakfast, drawing reference to Aronofsky's previous film "Requiem for a Dream" where Sara Goldfarb, the Mother, eats the same meal as part of her goal to lose weight for her upcoming appearance on Television.
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.
The movie also alludes to her purging habits. Additionally, Nina's constant fixation on achieving perfection displays elements of an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
Natalie Portman took on the diet and training of a real ballerina. She would eat a few grapes for breakfast, a small salad for lunch, and a few more grapes for dinner while working 16hrs a day. She lost 20lbs for the role.
For her prima ballerina role in Black Swan, Kunis's trainer put her through a rigorous 6-month diet and fitness routine in order for her to shed 20 pounds off of her already lean physique. She ate only 1200 calories per day and worked out 7 days per week up to 5 hours per day.
Kunis had never had any previous experience in ballet, but trained for three months in order to "fake it." Kunis acknowledges that she got "crazy thin," as Stern puts it, weighing about 95 pounds. "I didn't starve myself," Kunis, who's 5' 4," stresses. "I did do it in the healthiest way possible.
There are simply too many psychological issues going on with Nina. She shows elements of an anxiety disorder with obsessive compulsive behaviors. She also manifests self-injurious behavior and some signs of an eating disorder.
- She is under her mother pressure to become a perfect ballerina and her mother does not aware that Nina has problem in that ballet world. Based on the movie scenes she experiences Anorexia nervosa. The hints of this clinical condition is when she refused to eat cake that her mother have bought.
According to Malaspina, Nina's affliction is most consistent with a severely neurotic, obsessive-compulsive patient with features of a borderline personality disorder who suffers from “mini-psychotic episodes.”
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.
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.
Nina is a teenaged girl, and she is being sexually abused by Thomas and her mother. The world of professional ballet looks nothing like what we see in the movie because it isn't one: it's a ballet school, Thomas is an instructor, and the Swan Queen production is a one-night performance by students.
Destruction of the body is the basis of all horror, but Black Swan's body horror serves a dual purpose by not only freaking out the viewer but also using symbolism to represent the decline of Nina's mental state. Though it isn't as overt as most other horror films, Black Swan is no less terrifying.
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.
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.
Although the film never outwardly declares that Nina is suffering from an eating disorder, scenes highlighting caloric restriction and purging allude to a battle with anorexia.
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.
When she returns the things she took from Beth's (Winona Ryder) dressing room, the shoe knife becomes a weapon of self-harm, as Beth repeatedly stabs herself in the face. Again, there is no confirmation whether this is imagined or actually happened but the theory that it is part of Nina's psychosis certainly adds up.
Mila Kunis plays an addict in Rodrigo Garcia's “Four Good Days,” and to play the part, she had to lose an extraordinary amount of weight and watch a lot of YouTube videos.
How much dancing did Natalie Portman really do in Black Swan?
In a written statement, "Black Swan" director Darren Aronofsky said, "Here is the reality. I had my editor count shots. There are 139 dance shots in the film -- 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. Twenty-eight are her dance double Sarah Lane.
How many calories did Mila Kunis eat for Black Swan?
Mila Kunis has confessed that her diet was restricted to 1,200 calories per day while filming Black Swan. The actress - who shrunk down to 95lbs for her role as a ballet dancer in the film - revealed that she was in "hell" during filming and only ate foods that fit in her hand, reports the Daily Star.
