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 NATALIE PORTMAN ...in difficult role |
Portman glows in dark
psychodrama about ballet
of TheColumnists.com
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NATALIE PORTMAN won the Best Actress Oscar on Feb. 27. This column was written before the telecast. |
Like many a young
girl of the 1950s living near Hollywood, I dreamed of becoming
a movie star on the order of Jane Powell, Debbie Reynolds or
Sandra Dee. To that end, I doggedly took classes in tap, acrobat,
ballet and baton.
(For those who don’t know what a baton is, it’s that
thin little silver thing a girl throws up in the air 50 feet,
twirls around five times and catches as it comes down. It’s
usually done in front of an enormous high school or college marching
band. There isn’t much use for baton twirlers otherwise.)
I was best at tap and baton, a tad too chubby to be any good
at aerobics, but what I was worst at was ballet. Candidly, I
looked about as graceful as a stuffed goose. So why, I told myself,
would I want to go watch Natalie Portman torture herself in this
year’s “Black Swan." one of the 10 Best Picture
nominees?
The two-word answer: Natalie Portman.
An amazingly intuitive actress, Portman seems the perfect woman
to take on the role of Nina, the conflicted, repressed ballerina.
We’ve all read about what she did to get the role, training
up to five hours a day, which included three hours of ballet.
And then there’s the ghastly anorexic look she achieved
by starving herself for several months. Portman herself acknowledged
that many of the rituals required to become a prima ballerina
are actually OCD behaviors. It was tough, grueling and very physical.
That said, the movie itself is perhaps not quite as successful
as its leading player. For one, there are some parts that are
so bizarre and excessively psychological they are difficult to
understand. Did she really inflict that damage on herself…or
did she only think she did? Was she really in a sexual lesbian
relationship with another ballerina….or just having a wacked-out
nightmare?
Those kinds of scenes are great in a horror movie (which some
critics contend “Black Swan” is), but perhaps a bit
too heavy-handed for this one. Personally, I liked the psycho
touches, probably because those of us mere mortals consider the
tyranny of the ballet world to be too cruel and demanding, dominated
as it is by men who try to keep their stars like little girls
both physically and mentally.
Thinking of it this way, who the heck wouldn’t turn out
to be slightly askew?
Vincent Cassel certainly fits the role of the self-centered,
domineering ballet master. By turns aloof, magnetic and demanding,
Cassel feeds into all of Nina’s insecurities--and then exploits
them to gain the end he wants to achieve: Turn shy, timid Nina
into a sexually vicious black swan.
Lila (Mila Kunis) is Nina’s foil and
real (or imagined) rival. Kunis brings just the right mix of
moxie, affability and sensuality to her role. She even steals
a scene or two from Portman.
Then there’s Barbara Hershey as Nina’s over-protective,
smothering mother. First let me say that I adore Hershey. There
isn’t a movie she’s in that wasn’t made better
by her presence. But this lady she's playing is one nut shy of
letting the table collapse. Who could possibly live in that closeted,
toxic environment without becoming a complete basket case herself?
And what were all those squirrely drawings she pinned up incessantly?
Candidly I’m surprised Nina didn’t just walk out and
beg for pennies on the street long ago.
So, for me, Hershey’s performance
was not up to par. She was saccharinely solicitous to the extreme.
Ugh….it gave me the creeps, which, I guess, was what director
Darren Aronofsky intended. Aronofsky, incidentally, did a brilliant
job of directing bad boy Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”
last year. Wow! Certainly shows this guy loves challenges.
I have to point out that I’ve acted in a number of theatrical
productions, and occasionally the backstage theatrics are far
more intriguing than the play itself. One, in particular, stands
out. The theatre’s Artistic Director (AD) started taking
over the direction of the drama, usurping the authority and,
eventually, the confidence, of the director. The actors secretly
backed the director, so our plan was to play our roles the way
the AD wanted--until opening night, then go back to playing them
the way the director directed us.
But….as luck would have it, one of
the actors broke her ankle during the first weekend of the run
and the haughty Artistic Director took over her role!
Needless to say, backstage was not a pleasant place to be.
So the chicanery and conniving in “Black Swan” has
an air of authenticity to me. To my mind, Nina was too much of
a Milquetoast to ever achieve black swan status. Maybe the only
way she could do it was to become a full-blown schizophrenic.
One other performance deserves mention. Winona Ryder, as the
aging star ballerina the ballet master “retires” to
bring in his new Swan Queen, was a revelation. Her chameleon
transformation was so complete it wasn’t until the closing
credits that I realized Ryder played the role of Beth Macintyre.
Simply dazzling.
The other-worldliness of ballet has been a frequent subject of
films--some excellent and some not so. The gold standard in this
genre has to be the luminescent 1948 film “The Red Shoes.”
My personal favorite is “The Turning Point” (1977),
but that’s probably because I’d stare at Mikhail Baryshnikov
dancing anytime, anywhere and anything. Hmmmm…..why couldn’t
HE have played the ballet master and twirled Portman around a
time or two?
©2011 by Joanne Engelhardt. The photo is courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. This column first posted Feb. 21, 2011.
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