Kirsty - AS Media

In this essay focusing on mise-en-scene elements, I shall be studying ‘Black Swan’.

As the opening credits roll on the plain black screen, music plays in the background. It’s a piece from ‘Swan Lake’, introducing the theme of ballet straight away to the audience. As the title fades onto the screen, it is met with the sound of wind and devilish female laughter, disrupting the peaceful ballet music (potentially foretelling the disruption of the main character’s career in ballet later on in the film), causing discomfort and unnerving the audience, creating the origin of this film’s thriller characteristics.

I would say the music is diegetic, as the film opens with the main character, Nina Sayers (played by Natalie Portman) dancing to it. Low key lighting is used uniquely as although this is a dream, it’s not made obvious (with high key lighting for instance). This could portray that Nina’s dream is within reach, or perhaps that her dream should be considered a nightmare. A sense of ambiguity is kept as to where the ballerina dances, but the floor could be assumed a stage. The use of a spotlight on Nina tells us that not only is she a key character, but continues to show that performing is a big part of her life. The use of strong contrast unsettles the audience, especially as although her body is lit up, a shadow falls across Nina’s face creating further ambiguity. The juxtaposition of dark and light not only in the shot of her and her surroundings but just on herself, show she is at conflict with herself, alongside struggling to understand and get on with the rest of the world.

The first camera shot used is a long shot. This way, we can see the whole character, her pose and costume. Straight away, we can assume she is a dancer, if not from her pose then her movement as her back is straight whilst her arms are held gracefully in position. Her costume, white against the black surroundings, perhaps shows her innocence in such a dangerous, sinful world. Though the costume cannot be used to tell you what era this film is set (as it is a costume itself), it helps to draw your eyes towards her – the lighting is so dull it would be difficult to perhaps see any other colour. This dullness is strange for a dream, but could reinforce the idea that it’s more a nightmare. The next (medium to close up) shot follows her feet as she dances, making sure the audience know that she is a dancer, and more specifically, a ballerina.

When Nina sits down, the camera angle is at eye level to her, showing that the audience may relate to her. This is helped by the fact that we can finally see her face, which holds a small warm smile (friendly towards the audience). Though the lighting causes her skin to appear grey, her dress is highlighted, perhaps showing the audience that ballet (or the role of the white swan) is more important to Nina than anything else, including herself.

A hand held tracking shot is used next, making the audience feel frightened as it feels as though something is creeping up to the only idea of light and safety on screen. A character dressed in black (representing evil) comes out of the darkness, and with a change in tempo, the music becomes much less graceful and accompanies the action with liveliness itself. Back lighting is used to show the crisp outlines of the characters whilst the action takes place. The new character, a white male painted in black, could offend some audiences (as the character is evil, some may relate it to blackface). A sudden costume change both confirms that this is a dream/warped vision, and that the piece Nina is performing is Swan Lake as the costumes are now adorned with feathers. Several medium to close up shots are used to feature Nina’s face, so we can see her facial expression as she dances. Towards the end of the scene, sadness, worry and despair can all be seen on her face, adding to the dance and story of Swan Lake. As the scene draws to a close, the camera zooms out to a long shot, showing an entire body shot of Natalie Portman’s lit up silhouette, once again reminding the audience of her purity, innocence and peacefulness. By zooming out, she becomes smaller and smaller – this could represent multiple things to the audience including, becoming a swan in the dance, her dream coming to a close or how powerless she is in real life as reality draws closer.

 Looking back at the opening scene, we can pick out the genre conventions such as the use of unsettling sound effects, unsaturated (almost noir) colouring, creating a dramatic melancholy which radiates around a pure character - soon taken advantage of by a stereotypical evil character represented in black (binary opposites introduced within only minutes of the film), introduced with camera shots that make the audience’s perception of the ‘protagonist’ look like prey. We see the protagonist at the mercy of the antagonist – a classic thriller convention not often able to be pulled off in the opening scene of a film.

The use of having even only a minute of equilibrium shows the key moment of disruption in Swan Lake, and actually foreshadows the ending of the movie.