Black Swan

[IceAlisa]

It's a specific posture and grace that ballet dancers have in real life from years and years and years of pulling up and working turnout. They tend to look elongated, walking with the head high, with the head moving loosely on the neck. They also tend to walk with their feet turned out, like "ducks", although in my observation, that's mostly the women.

Absolutely. You can pick one out of a crowd if you know what to look for.

[michiruwater]

I got the height info on both Mila and Natalie from the interwebz, yes. I would be unsurprised if they were both quite a bit shorter. Observing them in their work they're always quite significantly smaller than anyone else. Every single time I watch That 70's Show I am struck by how ridiculously tiny Mila looks compared to the entire rest of the cast.

[screech]

I read on the movie's wikipedia site that both actresses trained for six months before filming, and that Natalie had taken ballet until the age of 13. Actually, apparently except for the wide shots where her character is en pointe for a long time, all dancing is done by Natalie and not her double.

I also read that Mila trained 4 hours a day, 7 days a week for this part, but that she had no prior experience.

[VIETgrlTerifa]

I want this movie to do well both commercially and creatively because it'd be nice to see a creative, different type of movie with two female actresses in the lead roles make some money and get some praise.

[orbitz]

Well I don't think anyone knows how creative or different this movie actually is until the final product is revealved to the public. For all we know, it could turn out to be another Single White Female .

[Holley Calmes]

It's not a horror movie, is it? I thought it was a ballet themed movie like 'The Turning Point'. Portman is supposedly quite good in the film, but isn't she too short to be believable as prima ballerina?

I'll weigh in on really wanting to see this! Height? Depends on the company. Ballerinas come in all sizes, although really tall is more difficult. When you go up on pointe, you add about 4" to your height. If you start out at 5'9", your partner better be well over 6 feet tall, and there are more average-to-short male dancers than quite tall ones, at least in my experience. Though there are some tall guys, there just aren't that many. Some major companies used to require that the corp all be between 5'2" and 5'5" so there wouldn't be vast differences in heights when doing corp work, especially in the big ole ballets where everyone's perfectly lined up, and that does make sense.

Had one of our alumni audition for Joffrey. There were 100 people. They chose two-a male and female-both over 6'. Our girl was 5'3". She wound up at Milwaukee.

Another one of our students won a full scholarship to SAB last year. About last winter she was facebooking all about meeting Natalie Portman and how all these movie people were all over the school filming. Kid has to live in her dorm at Lincoln Center.....poor kid.... I'm kidding, of course. Just for the record, this girl is maybe 5'2". I don't know if SAB prefers them a particular size, but that's just a school anyway, not a company.

[orbitz]

When I said that Natalie looks too short to play a prima ballerina what I really meant to say was that she doesn't have the long lean line of a Gelsey Kirkland, for example. Natalie has short legs. I'm sure most ballerina aren't 5'10" or higher, but they look tall. Katia Gordeeva is another example. She can't be more than 5'6" or 5'7" but her long legs make her look tall when she skates.

[kwanfan1818]

Proportions do matter no matter how tall the dancer is. A dancer could be 5'6", but with a long torso and short legs look quite small.

[Clarice]

When I said that Natalie looks too short to play a prima ballerina what I really meant to say was that she doesn't have the long lean line of a Gelsey Kirkland, for example. Natalie has short legs. I'm sure most ballerina aren't 5'10" or higher, but they look tall. Katia Gordeeva is another example. She can't be more than 5'6" or 5'7" but her long legs make her look tall when she skates.

I agree with what you're saying about proportions, and your example of Katia Gordeeva makes your point more than you know. She does seem taller when you see her out on the ice, but seriously, 5'6", 5'7"? She's really about 5'2", and so tiny that you almost don't notice her when she enters a room full of people. Same with Elena Berezhnaya.

[BigB08822]

I love horror/psychological thrillers but that trailer left me cold. It seems all too obviously in her head even if we know Mila's character is real. I don't know, maybe another trailer would be enough to convince me. I will probably still go see it if the reviews are good enough just because I love the genre and I will for sure rent it when it comes out. I have always really liked Mila Kunis so I am glad to see her get a big role in a big movie.

[Satellitegirl]

I'm a fan of Mila as well....liked her on That 70's Show and also on Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

[IceJunkie]

I cannot wait for this movie.

Natalie was actually a dancer before she was an actress. She took tap and ballet for many years, and I believe she got her start in off-Broadway doing dance and a bit of singing as a child.

[agalisgv]

I've read where people have encountered Portman in person and found her to be a fair bit shorter than that.

I've met her and would say 5'3" is about right.

[IceAlisa]

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[jenny12]

I want this movie to do well both commercially and creatively because it'd be nice to see a creative, different type of movie with two female actresses in the lead roles make some money and get some praise.

Yeah, that's the reason I really hope it's good. There's still a huge gap between the amount of male-centric films and female-centric ones, so I hope this succeeds (as long, of course, as it's a good film). I think having Darren Aronofsky involved is a good sign.

[viennese]

I love the trailer for The Black Swan: dance movie? chick gone bonkers movie? Single White Female w/ Toe Shoes? Swan Lake, directed by Dario Argento?

I don't care! This looks awesome. I'm so mad I can't see this at the Toronto film festival.

[essence_of_soy]

My favourite piece of ballet - related movie violence was in The Turning Point, where Shirley MacLaine and Ann Bancroft were beating the crud out of each other at ten paces with their purses.

High camp at its finest.

[Yehudi]

When I saw that Darren Aronofsky was directing it, my immediate reactions were 1) So that everything and 2) can't wait to see it.

There was a L&O Criminal Intent episode this season set in a ballet school and involved a creepy relationship between two of the students, the victim giving one of her fellow students the nickname "background", and the perp poisoning everyone's sports drink with anti-freeze. Classic!

[Anita18]

I want this movie to do well both commercially and creatively because it'd be nice to see a creative, different type of movie with two female actresses in the lead roles make some money and get some praise.

David Lynch is also renowned for his decidedly non-romcom female-centric films, but they're too weird to ever be mainstream, bless him.

I don't think Black Swan will be mainstream either. It looks like vintage Aronofsky, with a bit of the horror from Requiem of a Dream. But it'll get some press for Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, and the girl-on-girl action. Definitely will not translate to box-office success though.

[orbitz]

Some early words on TBS from the Venice's Film Festival, where the film is the opener:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movi...aronofsky.html

No critic so far disagrees on the ambition of what may well turn out to be the most captivatingly watchable film of the fall. But they are divided on which of the movies contained within the genre-bender -- the art-house dance film, the Freudian character study, the supernatural suspense picture -- work, and how they should or shouldn't go together.