For this assignment, I chose a scene from the movie, Black Swan, which was directed by Darren Aronofsky and stars Natalie Portman, Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel, and Mila Kunis. This particular scene marks the first time in the movie where we get an extensive look into Nina’s private world, her bedroom. The mise-en-scène is rich with discernible meaning as well as subtle connotations.
The scene begins with a long shot, which helps establish the complexities of the environment. Her bedroom is that of a young girl’s, not that of a grown woman who has her own life. It’s saturated in various shades of pink. Her small twin-sized bed equipped with headboard gives us a good indication of Nina’s state of mind as she follows her dreams… both as she sleeps at night as well as in her career as a professional ballet dancer. She seems to have the mentality of a naive immature girl. Nina’s smothering mother is cutting her toenails, a job Nina can obviously do on her own. This sets up an array of similar actions that conveys Nina’s incompetence and need for her mother to take care of her. Her mother is dressed in all black as she mourns her failed career as a ballet dancer. The choice of using a dark color can also be representative of her dark intentions of controlling her daughter. Nina, on the other hand, has on a short light-colored nighty, which symbolizes her simplicity and gullibility. The dialogue is the only sound present, which helps accentuate the significance of their verbal exchange.
The following shot is of Nina as she reacts to her mother hurting her as she cuts her toenails. This medium close-up gives us the opportunity to notice the butterfly wallpaper that is draped in the background. The butterflies symbolize the metamorphosis Nina will have to undergo in order to become the Black Swan… the process of her coming out of her cocoon and breaking free from her mother’s control. The close-up of her mother allows us to view the calculating emotion of a person in control. There’s ease both in her facial expressions and the delivery of her dialogue as she delights in the control she has over her daughter. The lighting is intimate, which is suggestive of their too-close-for-comfort connection to each other. In addition, the handheld camera provides a very subtle shakiness, which is reflective of their imbalanced relationship. These delicate nuances add to the dialogue as her mother explains how Nina would have been completely lost if she hadn’t taken her to her first professional ballet class.
As her mother criticizes her, Nina plops on her pillow with discontent hiding the full view of her face from her mother, but at the same time this medium close-up towards the viewers allows us to see her despair. When her mother removes Nina’s earrings, she expresses that she knows what it’s like getting older. The director’s choice to go back to the medium close-up lets us see that her mother’s words makes Nina feel worse as we ironically view the alcohol bottle in the background; a source used to heal.
The next shot is another long shot, which shows us a change in proximity between the two actors. This connotes the distance her mother’s words have created between them. The fluctuation in proximity of these individual shots is indicative of the overall story. It conveys the “pushing toward” and “pulling away” element within this mother and daughter relationship. Her mother reaches for a music box. As she winds it up, the ballerina twirls to the musical chimes. Due to the dialogue being the only sound present thus far, the introduction of the musical chimes has an auditory impact. It reestablishes, in the midst of this tense conversation, Nina’s aspirations. We go back to the medium-close up as she strategically places it by Nina’s bed, sort of like how a baby mobile is placed on or by a crib to console a baby. We see the ballerina twirling in the background as Nina accepts her mother’s soothing words that everything will be better in the morning. Nina turns to her with a half-smile then turns back to rest her head.
The director chose to place three mirrors in this scene. The presence of these mirrors makes a significant contribution to the storytelling and the feel of the piece. The concept of reflecting on oneself while seeing different sides of oneself is evident throughout this film. Nina has no problem being the White Swan, the good girl, but she has yet to get in touch with the defiant side of herself, the Black Swan.
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