Mimesis in Black Swan — the devastating turbulence of the 'mentor and his muse' phenomenon

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2011)

AN Indian PERSPECTIVE The traumatic dichotomy between a mentor and his muse has hounded the history of performing arts since times immemorial. Pygmalion saw the reflection of an ivory statue of a girl he had sculpted, in a stream and fell in love with her; Svengali hypnotized Tribly to perform as a diva and went to the extent of sexually exploiting her; using the ruse of aesthetics he tried to gain complete control and authorship over her. Nearer home, fabled myths abound about the Guru Dutt – Waheeda Rehman , Raj Kapoor — Nargis or the Chetan Anand –Priya Rajvansh and the more recent Anurag Kashyap – Kalki association and obsession. Setting gossip mills churning sensationalism they set to stoke the fire of public imagination and try to point out how great art is possible only when an inevitable romance is sparkled between the director and his leading lady. Performing arts has always been about how flesh and blood coalesce to create kindred spirits who work in perfect sync to produce, everlasting masterpieces. Mimesis is all about how two souls reflect each other so completely that they seem to look like one. Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan(2010) is a mischievous, irreverent, part carnal part psycho-sexual take on this phenomenon. It has been labelled by The New York Times as "visceral and real even while it's one delirious, phantasmagoric freak out". It probes into this heart of darkness where the lines between morality and aesthetics seem to get more and more blurred as the auteur relentlessly pushes his audience into the skewed mind space of its protagonist essayed so eerily menacingly by Natalie Portman that it is bound to give you goose pimples. Yet it is to both the director's and Ms Portman's credit that this same woman in her white swan avatar retains a pristine child woman quality to her persona. Our area of study is not to critique the film but to deconstruct the phantasmagoria within which such relationships are often caught leading to gut wrenching experiences of both the mentor and his muse, ironically resulting in an edifying experiences of high aesthetic merit. Is it tragically inevitable that only through such blood curdling experiences that works of lasting value in dramatic forms can be created? Nina Sayers an aspiring ballerina who works relentlessly and ruthlessly to perfect her craft becomes a pawn in the hands of Thomas Leroy, the Artistic Director of a leading New York Ballet company (a chillingly cruel performance by Vincent Cassel). Thomas wants to get rid of the prima ballerina Beth (hauntingly etched by Winona Ryder) of the previous season, tired with the excess emotional baggage she carries of her former relationship with him. He needs a new muse to fulfill his dreams of creating a contemporary and more visceral version of legendary ballet The Swan Lake. A new muse entails a newer touch, the taste of new saliva, newer lips, newer boobs and maybe a juicier pussy. All in the name of inspiration! But under the authoritarian regime of her determined Mom, Eica( another stellar act by Barbara Hershey)she is so devoted to her art that the only physical sensation she can feel is pain manifest through her peeling skin, chipping nails and bruised toes — all a consequence of the sheer physical labour of practicing pure form. She has become virtually frigid. The irony is that in her twin avatar as the evil black swan, Nina has to play the ultimate seductress. Thomas has to arouse that side of hers. And in what better way than by seducing her, exploiting her fragile body with his swarthy hands and his hyena eyes penetrating deep down within her soul? So much so that she gradually starts losing her mind to become a psychological wreck. But Thomas does not care about this moral crisis. All such middle class notions have no place in his scheme of pure art form. Perfection must be achieved no matter what the price. Helplessly we watch Nina's deflowering as she transforms from a nubile nymph to becoming a warped mind hankering for and lusting after that 'one curtain call'. By then Thomas has drilled in into her mind that all that life was worth living for is 'the final curtain call'. That opium consumes her completely and destroys her. She mirrors Thomas's inner evil with such fecundity that it even leaves the maestro confounded at the end of it all. In a blood curdling finale, this film celebrates ruthlessness as a triumph of human tragedy. How perverse, yet how true!
It is fabled that the erstwhile cabaret dancer Maria Falconetti was so radically transformed while playing Joan in Carl Dreyer's epic, "The Passion of Joan Of Arc" (1928) that she lost her mind and could never act again. Graciously Dreyer took care of her for the rest of her life and even shared his rations with her during the Second World War. Back home, Guru Dutt could never fully recover from the trauma of his autobiographical film Kagaz Ke Phool, delineating his emotionally fraught relationship with Waheeda Rehman. Ultimately, wallowing in self pity, he committed suicide. Such tragic stories about mentor and muse abound. They are very cathartic for an audience and make great viewing material. But what happens to those caught within this matrix? With his cruel and incisive knife, Darren Aronofsky dissects this for us in Black Swan. You don't need any further nightmares after this. Coming from mainstream Hollywood, this dark diamond confounds and bedazzles us all!