The first act goes well, until Nina is distracted by a hallucination during a lift, causing her partner, playing the Prince, to drop her. Distraught, she returns to her dressing room and finds Lily there. Lily announces she is to play the Black Swan.

What was wrong with Nina's skin in Black Swan?

As the film progresses, Nina completes her transformation into the Swan Queen. She continuously scratches a specific spot on her back, which viewers are told she has done in the past. This behavior develops into the visual and tactile hallucination of Nina sprouting wings.

Why did Nina get dropped?

Towards the end of the ballet's second act, Nina is distracted by another hallucination and loses her stability as Odette. This causes the male dancer playing the prince to drop her on stage, which infuriates Thomas.

What mental disorder does Nina have in Black Swan?

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.

Why did Nina's eyes turn red?

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.

Black Swan (2010) - Dance of the White Swan Scene (5/5) | Movieclips

What is the mark on Nina's back?

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.

What illness does Nina have?

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.”

Did Black Swan portray schizophrenia accurately?

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.

Why is Nina so childlike in Black 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.

Did Lily and Nina sleep together?

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.

Does Nina sleep with Thomas?

Thomas also says her self-destructive tendencies made her compelling, and Nina is implied to have an eating disorder and impulsively scratch at herself. Beth is what Nina will become when she gets older: bitter, clingy, and still mentally imbalanced. Nina had sex with Thomas, not Lily.

What does the Black Swan represent in Swan Lake?

In contrast, Siegfried's male lover is giving and compassionate. As the Black Swan, though, he represents what some South Africans, according to Masilo, see as dark forces in society: homosexuality and AIDS. Masilo plays up this dichotomy between the two swans in a pair of pas de deux.

Is Lily a hallucination in Black Swan?

Around the midpoint of Black Swan, a movie that I love because it's pants-crappingly amazing and off-kilter, it's clearly established that Nina (Natalie Portman) is able to hallucinate several hours' worth of false memories that heavily involve Mila Kunis's character, Lily—as well as various other graphic and violent ...

Why is Nina's mom so controlling in Black Swan?

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.

Is The Black Swan Based on a true story?

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.

How old was Natalie Portman in Black Swan?

Can child stars go on to credible careers? With her Ivy League credentials and a performance in Black Swan that's put her in line for an Oscar, Natalie Portman proves it can be done... At 29, Natalie Portman has already been in the business a long time.

How much weight did Natalie lose for Black Swan?

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.

What is the message of Black Swan movie?

The story's simplicity (an up-and-coming ballet dancer earns the coveted main role of White Swan/Black Swan in a production of "Swan Lake") belies what's really going on: an internal/external struggle that touches on the duality of women's lives and asks what we're willing to sacrifice to achieve success.

What is the Black Swan theory?

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.

Why is Black Swan controversial?

After the 83rd Academy Awards, where Portman won Best Actress for her performance in the film as a ballerina, controversy arose over how much credit for the dancing in the film was being given to her and how much to her "dance double", American Ballet Theatre soloist Sarah Lane.

What is the skin picking in the Black Swan?

Excoriation disorder has been the subject of several episodes of Obsessed, a television documentary series that focuses on treatment of anxiety disorders. Skin picking is shown as a symptom of Nina Sayers' anxiety and OCD in the movie Black Swan.

What age is Nina in Black Swan?

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.

What happened to Beth in Black Swan?

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.

Did Nina died in Black Swan?

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.

Is Black Swan a good portrayal of mental illness?

Accuracy of Portrayal

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.