Reely Bernie Faves: Black Swan (2010)

No director can get inside your head like Darren Aronofsky. He pushes his actors and actresses to physical and psychological extremes and challenges his viewers to accept both the real and the imaginary as truths. In Black Swan, Natalie Portman threw all self-preservation to the wind, trained for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week at NYC ballet studios and sacrificed her body to implore the needs of Tchaikovsky’s music, Aronofsky’s vision, and the madness of playing a person with paranoid schizophrenia. Or, is it dissociative identity disorder? No matter—this is an impressionistic piece, placing mood in front of the literal.

Some say it’s gothic, melodramatic, psycho-thrilling, operatic, hallucinatory.

I say, yup.

This is the kind of movie that drives Marvel Cinema Universe stans nuts, and a strong case can be made that images stay with you longer than action.

For me, the pull in Black Swan is found in its obsession with performance perfection and ferocious studio competition. Lead/understudy, white swan/black swan, Director/manipulator—there’s really no safe place on the stage except in the embrace of a standing ovation.

True to life or debunked, there’s enough movie in this movie to lift the veil on a professional artistry we would normally never witness. This is a classic example of entertainment and escape over facts and biography. Like he did to Brendan Fraser in The Whale (2022), Jennifer Lawrence in Mother! (2017), and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (2008), Aronofsky throws Natalie Portman to the wolves. There’s enough ambiguity for us to hope for the best and expect the worst. (That ending—wow.)

A challenging view from start to finish, and, for me, theatrical release to dozens of reps at home.

Reely Bernie Faves:

1. Amadeus (1984)

2. Magnolia (1999)

3. Poltergeist (1982)

4. Pulp Fiction (1994)

5. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

6. The Godfather Part II (1974)

7. Weekend at Bernie’s (1989)

8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

9. Goodfellas (1990)

10. Nosferatu (1922)

11. Pollock (2000)

12. Kicking and Screaming (1995)

13. Jaws (1975)

14. Fargo (1996)

15. Citizen Kane (1941)

16. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

17. The Endless Summer (1966)

18. Back to the Future (1985)

19. Angel Heart (1987)

20. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

21. The Goonies (1985)

22. Trainspotting (1996)

23. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

24. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

25. Bambi (1942)

26. The Paradise Lost Trilogy (1996-2011)

27. Psycho (1960)

28. Parenthood (1989)

29. Swingers (1996)

30. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

31. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

32. Smoke (1995)

33. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

34. A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

35. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

36. City of God (2002)

37. 1917 (2019)

38. Black Swan (2010)

39. School of Rock (2003)

40. Mulholland Drive (2001)

41. Groundhog Day (1993)

42. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

43. The Greatest Showman (2017)

44. National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)

45. The Florida Project (2017)

46. Cinema Paradiso (1988)

47. So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

48. Shadowlands (1993)

49. Steve Jobs (2015)

50. ¡Three Amigos! (1986)