Brief Plot Overview:

• Nina had dedicated her life to ballet and when her dance companies artistic director decides their opening production will be Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice for swan queen. Nina is fragile and innocent obssessed with being perfect and is ideal for the white swan role. However new competetion Lily personifies the black swan role. The twisted friendship between the two dancers and the pressure Nina feels to be perfect causes her dark side to emerge and reality to become distorted leaving the audience wondering what is real and what is hallucinated. The film is Ninas journey from the fragile stability of the white swan to the loose and destructive black swan.

Nina’s Tragic Hero Elements:

• Nina’s tragic flaw/hamartia is her obssesion with being perfect. Her insecurities combined with her obsession cause her downfall.
• Nina becomes overwhelmed and begins to crack under the pressure of the black swan role. Nina begins hate Lily as she is worried she will steal her role. This could be seen as Nina’s Peripetea as she goes from a quiet normal person to crazed and obsessed.
• Nina anagnorisis is when she is laying on the mat after the production has finsihed and she is bleeding out. She has relaised that everything was a hallucintion and that she stabbed herself not Lily, at this point she was alreay dying and has little chance to enjoy her success.

Effective Cinematography Techniques:

• The end of the film primarilty focuses on Nina “letting go” become succesfully personified by the Black Swan role. One of her final dances when she becomes the swan is a combination of different elements such as mise-en-scene, lighting, sound and editing (special effects), these all contribute to Nina’s characterization and the drastic transformation she undergos in this dance scene.

Mise-en-scene:

– Costume:

• Costume is important in film as it prompts the audience to recognise the character. In the dance scene Nina enters the stage wearing the black makeup and attire of the black swan Odile. Throughout the film Nina dressed in pink or white, this represents her naivety and virginal mentality reflecting the role of the white swan Odette. Therefore when the audience sees Nina dressed as Odile they recognise and respond to her transformation.

– Setting: