When “Black Swan” was released in 2010, many film critics thrilled to its tortured-artist twist on body horror, its depiction of ballet as a force that can make people martyrs and monsters.
Ballet dancers tended to be less enthusiastic about the Darren Aronofsky film. In its brittle, tormented ballerina — Nina Sayers, who descends into madness as she prepares to dance “Swan Lake” — they saw a jumble of bad ballet clichés.
They disliked that the movie’s deliberate confusion of reality and fantasy seemed to extend offscreen: Though Natalie Portman trained intensively for the role of Nina, her dance double, the former American Ballet Theater principal Sarah Lane, accused the filmmakers of misrepresenting how much dancing Portman did. And dancers couldn’t forgive “Black Swan” for portraying their devotion to ballet — a passion born of joy — as a kind of pathology.
This month, “Black Swan” returns to theaters for its 15th anniversary. Film fans still admire it; earlier this year, it made The New York Times’s list of the Top 100 films of the 21st century.
Ballet dancers’ feelings? Still complicated.
The American Ballet Theater principals Catherine Hurlin, 29, and Chloe Misseldine, 23, and the New York City Ballet principals Miriam Miller, 28, and Mira Nadon, 24, were young students when “Black Swan” came out. They grew up in its shadow.
Now, all four are making their mark on Odette/Odile, the white swan/black swan ballerina role of “Swan Lake.” They are living, as much as anybody can, the real version of Nina Sayers’s life. (I spoke with Misseldine a few hours before she performed the Black Swan pas de deux at the Vail Dance Festival.)
But these dancers also inhabit a professional ballet world that has evolved since the film’s release, pushed to change by a #MeToo reckoning and the convulsions of the Covid pandemic. In separate video interviews, they discussed how the cracked mirror of “Black Swan” does and does not reflect their experiences in ballet today. “We’re definitely a little crazy,” Hurlin said. “But we’re not that crazy. Nobody is growing feathers out of their backs.”
Here are edited excerpts from those conversations.
On Their First Encounters With ‘Black Swan’
MIRA NADON I was 9 when the movie came out, so I definitely did not see it right away. But it was so zeitgeist-y that I was aware of it. It did bring a lot of attention to ballet. I remember people saying that, after the movie, “Swan Lake” performances always sold out.
MIRIAM MILLER I was a kid in Iowa, and what I really remember was that “Black Swan” felt magical to me. It offered this picture of being in New York and dancing for a professional company. I don’t remember being alarmed or scared. Which is pretty funny, now. Maybe my parents fast-forwarded through certain parts. [Laughs]
CATHERINE HURLIN Scary movies were not my thing. So I probably watched maybe half of it when it came out. To be honest with you, I don’t know how many people in [my] generation have seen it.
CHLOE MISSELDINE I wasn’t really into ballet at that point. My earliest experience with “Swan Lake” was the “Barbie of Swan Lake” movie.
On the Dancing in the Film
MISSELDINE I found it fascinating that Natalie Portman took so many months of ballet training to look like a dancer, that she physically immersed herself in this world. That actually felt very true to ballet, to the way a ballet dancer would approach a role.
NADON I think it’s very admirable what Natalie did — she has quite beautiful épaulement, the arms, the neck. But even the way you hold yourself as a ballet dancer is so specific. It takes years of training to just stand there and look like a ballet dancer. They clearly needed the dance double for the full body shots.
HURLIN Of course I could tell the difference between Natalie’s dancing and Sarah’s dancing immediately. Maybe it’s because I know Sarah — I know what her body looks like. But you look at Natalie, and I’m sure she trained really hard, but she’s not a ballerina. Plain and simple.
MILLER When it comes to the caliber of the dancing [in the film] — even the big performance at the end — it’s not that impressive, and the choreography is not that grand. But that’s also not what this movie is trying to do. As much as we’d love for it to be about the magnitude of the beauty of ballet, that’s not what it cares about.
On Preparing to Dance ‘Swan Lake’
MILLER Nina seems very lonely, and that’s real. To be dancing this role can be lonely. There were moments in the movie where she would be by herself rehearsing, and it made me think about all the times where I would find an empty studio and just do my port de bras, all these hours just on my upper body, my swan arms. It’s a lot of time with yourself. In the movie, it completely overtakes Nina because she doesn’t have a lot of outside support.
MISSELDINE My experience was totally different from Nina’s. I didn’t have to compete with other dancers for the role. I felt very taken care of — I had all my coaches, I had all these hours training and working. It was definitely a lot of stress. But I felt like Nina was never enjoying it. For me, after a while, it was fun.
NADON It is true that “Swan Lake” feels like a pinnacle in an artist’s career, and that comes with pressure. But at least for me, it wasn’t an obsessive, all-consuming process. I felt very supported by all the people around me.
On the Film’s Sexualized Take on Odile, the Black Swan
MILLER I’ve seen Odile done the way the movie depicts her, as kind of vulgar and sexual. That doesn’t align with how I relate to the character, though. I think of her as a woman who is powerful and alluring because she is in control — she’s the one making this story happen. She knows everything, she knows how it’s going to end. That knowledge is where her confidence comes from.
HURLIN There are flirty cat-and-mouse vibes in the choreography. But really the Black Swan is like the girl in the red dress at a party. Everybody wants to be her friend, and she knows it. It’s a power thing.
NADON I think we’re supposed to be drawn to her inner confidence — confidence is alluring. I don’t think it should be overtly sexy, like in the movie. I mean, they’re at a royal ball.
On the Trope of Dancers Being Mentally Unstable
NADON I think ballet used to be more obsessive — you don’t go to school and you don’t have kids and you don’t do all these normal things because dance is expected to be your whole life, and that makes you a kind of alien species. Maybe ballet culture was a bit closer to that in 2010. I think the whole world, including ballet companies, has changed now. We still are so passionate about our art form, but we’re nurturing the other parts of our lives, too.
MILLER I don’t think people realize how much dancers are constantly working on themselves, not just physically but mentally, emotionally. We dance so much that if you’re fragile, or if you’re emotionally incapable of coping with it, like Nina, it’s impossible to do what we do. And all of that is talked about a lot more now.
On the Legacy of ‘Black Swan’
NADON The No. 1 question that people ask when they find out I’m a ballet dancer now is, “Oh, is it like ‘Black Swan’?” I feel like for a lot of non-dance people, that’s the only version of ballet they know.
MISSELDINE I actually think “Black Swan” did a better job with ballet than some recent movies and TV shows, because it didn’t make ballet a joke, and it didn’t make dancers seem like jokes. Everything is exaggerated, but the way it treats ballet is never unserious. There’s a kind of respect behind it.
MILLER If people in the dance world, especially young people, can watch this movie and understand that it’s not an accurate portrayal of what ballet really is, but still see it as this warning about how destructive perfectionism can be, and how destructive it is to you and the people around you if you don’t take care of your mental health — I think that’s worth something.
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