Identify the recurrent theme in Darren Aronofsky’s movie Black Swan, and briefly explain how the theme is reflected by a recurring motif in the film

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Like most of Darren Aronofsky’s movies, Black Swan reflects the recurrent theme of obsession. The film centers on a ballerina, Nina Sayers, who is obsessed with playing the lead role of the Swan Queen in Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake.
2. The role is difficult because the dancer must play two characters— the White Swan, representing innocence and beauty, and the Black Swan, representing danger and sensuality. In Freudian terms, one represents the controlling Superego, the other the wild Id.
3. Goaded by a stage mother from hell, and taunted by her director for being a professional virgin (and hence, way over her head in playing the sexualized Black Swan), Nina begins to crack under the strain.
4. Aronofsky uses the recurring motif of mirrors to suggest her increasingly fragmented psyche.
5. Like the heroine of The Red Shoes, another famous ballet film, Nina’s obsession with her career takes a terrible toll on her sense of personal identity, and she becomes a sacrificial victim of her obsession with her art.