Mike Goodridge from Screen Daily called the movie “alternately disturbing and exhilarating” and described the film as a hybrid of The Turning Point and Polanski’s films “Repulsion” & “Rosemary’s Baby.” Regardless, Aronofsky found active and inactive dancers to share their experiences with him and also stood backstage to see the Bolshoi Ballet perform at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Nina auditions for the part, performing flawlessly as the White Swan, but she is unable to emulate the characteristics of the Black Swan. Upset, she approaches Thomas and asks him to reconsider her as the lead role. Thomas forcibly kisses Nina which causes a change of character & bites him, convincing him that she has the ferocity to play the Black Swan. Black Swan events are important in risk management as they help you strategize for the worst possible scenario.

The internet was still new in 2001, with few online commercial applications being used. Yet technology companies were investing heavily into growth, and the stock prices of these companies became inflated. Eventually, companies started defaulting and prices dropped. Many companies shut down in rapid succession, leading to stock prices dropping further. Investors were hit hard as the economy entered into a recession. Note that, for instance, a market correction after a bull run isn’t a black swan event.

Furthermore, the regulations were modified in the hopes that this black swan incident would not occur again. When the hunter explains this rare sighting, everyone begins to laugh at him and question his sanity. They call him crazy and confused because blacks swans do not exist! The hunter knew no one would ever believe him unless he brought proof. It also had a Gala screening at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival later in the month.

For a short moment we can see how Lily’s face is a blend of hers and Nina’s. It is clear that Black Swan is the tale of a tortured artist whose pursuit of perfection makes her mentally unstable. In this sense, the film is comparable to other dramas that measure the price of perfection such as the Oscar-winners La La Land and Whiplash. With his physical capabilities burned out to the fullest, the titular wrestler still attempts to make a final leap in the ring. While Black Swan wasn’t called The Ballerina, it’s nearly the same thing, just more specific. Ballerinas dance in ballets, a famous ballet is Swan Lake, one of the starring roles of Swan Lake is the Black Swan.

‘Black Swan’ Ending Explained: The Price of Perfection

This treats outliers as rare cases to be ignored in modeling. Black swan logic, on the other hand, suggests that these outliers are what need to be studied more closely. Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological horror film directed by Darren black swan explained Aronofsky from a screenplay by Mark Heyman, John McLaughlin, and Andres Heinz, based on a story by Heinz. The film stars Natalie Portman in the lead role, with Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Winona Ryder in supporting roles.

Overall, the main takeaway from the Beth scene would be, I’d argue, how it plays into the concept of perfection. As Nina tells Beth, “I was just trying to be perfect like you.” Beth’s response is to say, “Perfect? I’m nothing.” If it’s self-mutilation, it would make sense Nina decides to do everything she can to be perfect because the alternative is to be Beth.

The effect of the crash was catastrophic and global, and only a few outliers were able to predict it happening. Swan Lake was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographed by Julius Reisinger in 1875. An evil sorcerer, Rothbart, turns a princess, by the name Odette, into a swan. She is cursed to remain like that until she finds true love. Prince Siegfried, a carefree prince, is being forced by his mother to get married.

It’s what the fans want—the match wouldn’t be right without the finishing move. And Ram has decided he needs to and wants to give the fans what they demand and deserve. Black Swan begins with a premise that’s simple enough, but it’s not long before its narrative twists and turns, daring viewers to follow through the distorted path it travels. As the plot grows darker and Nina begins to question what is real and what is imagined, so does the audience.

What is a black swan in crypto?

But her sheltered life does hold her back socially, as demonstrated by her awkwardness and meekness. However, there’s more to the meaning of “Black Swan” than meets the eye. Just like how a movie steeped in symbolism, like “Collateral Beauty” contains many hidden gems of meaning, the mind-bending nature of Aronofsky’s opus demands deeper interpretation. Just because something is outside of our expectations does not make it a black swan.

• Then these firms went bankrupt, and the negative risk was transferred to the investors.
• When the ballet’s second act is about to end, Nina gets a hallucination which causes the male dancer disguised as the prince to drop her on the stage.
• Traditionally, investors who are exposed to a black swan event in the market will likely see account values plummet.
• This plays a vital role in pessimistic personality development.

However, her carefree nature can be interpreted as reckless. Nina and Lily had opposing personalities, which eventually would have led to confrontation and conflicts. Later that day, it was of utter surprise to Nina that she got the role of Odette. Before she knows it, at a gala celebrating the new season, an intoxicated Beth indicts Nina of providing sexual favors in exchange for her role to Thomas, an assertion that is never true.

Predicting Black Swan Events

Confused, Nina sees the mirror is still broken, and the towel she used to mop up the blood is clean with no corpse in the bathroom. She looks down and pulls a piece of glass from her abdomen, realizing she stabbed herself – not Lily. As a bleeding Nina looks up to the stage lights, Aronofsky establishes an uncertain fate for his protagonist. Be it in The Fountain or Mother, Aronofsky has never shied away from dabbling in religious imagery and themes. The lights falling on her, and she gazes upwards might even incorporate a descent toward heaven. Her final line and the look of satisfaction on her face possibly imply that Nina is finally content with her artistic capabilities, and it no longer matters to her whether she survives or not.

There was no one prepared or equipped to deal with the epidemic. Therefore, it had a significant influence on stock market crashes, unemployment rates, business failures, and so on. Then these firms went bankrupt, and the negative risk was transferred to the investors. This occurred during a period of rapid economic expansion in the United States, as well as a surge in private wealth before everything spectacularly crashed. At the time, investment funds were pouring money into technology firms with exorbitant valuations and no market traction.

• Next day, six princesses arrive for the prince to choose from.
• Nina hides Lily’s body and readies herself to go back on stage, but she is shocked and confused to find Lily standing in the doorway — alive.
• “You’ve been scratching yourself again! I thought you were done with this, Nina!” Erica cuts Nina’s nails violently, hurting her daughter’s hand where Nina hallucinated her earlier injury.
• This specificity might seem the opposite of The Wrestler, but hear me out.

Nina returns home late with Lily, fights with her mother, barricades herself in her room, and has sex with Lily until she smothers her with a pillow. The next morning, Nina wakes up alone and is late for the dress rehearsal. When Nina arrives at the studio, she finds Lily dancing the Black Swan. After she confronts her, Lily admits that she spent the night with a man she met at the club & Nina realizes that the sexual encounter didn’t really happen. Thomas wants the same ballerina to portray the innocent, fragile White Swan as well as her mysterious, sensual twin, the Black Swan. Prior to 2008, lenient standards for home mortgages led to housing market inflation, eventually leading to bubble-level prices as subprime mortgage issuance increased.

Related Read: Every Darren Aronofsky Film Ranked

Aronofsky called “Black Swan” a companion piece to his previous film The Wrestler, recalling one of his early projects about a love affair between a wrestler and a ballerina. He eventually separated the wrestling and the ballet worlds as “too much for one movie”. Set in New York City, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), is a professional dancer in a prestigious ballet company and lives with her overprotective mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey).

In the final ballet performance in Black Swan, Nina is flawless and seems to have achieved the perfection that she was striving for so long. But given that her abdomen wound was still open and bleeding, she most likely succumbed to the bleeding as she falls through the air and lands on the mattress. Even though her director Thomas and other crew members start panicking and calling an ambulance, Nina can be seen at peace as she utters, “Perfect. I was perfect.” It’s highly possible that the medical authorities reached on time and saved her but the final fade to white might hint at her death. She starts the movie in a very childlike way—waking up from a bad dream and going to tell her mom about it.

The black swan persona gives Nina the power to slam the door on her abusive / intrusive mother. Alternatively, it coincides with Nina’s developing maturity, in which she forces separation, sexual identity and the end of childhood (see also Run). But when the scheming Rothbart passes his daughter Odile off as Odette, Siegfried mistakenly asks her to marry him. The traditional ending sees a heartbroken Odette choose to die rather than remain a swan. Angry about being forced to marry, Prince Siegfried heads into the woods to hunt swans, where he discovers the beautiful Odette.

The burden of responsibility that has fallen, as well as problems with her mother, physical exhaustion, and a conflict with another ballerina psychologically break the heroine. As a result, feeling that she cannot cope with the force that controls her life, she loses touch with reality. Natalie Portman’s committed performance conveys Nina’s artistic journey, but it is also effective as a subversion of the very play that she’s performing in. A ballet theater classic, Swan Lake was written by Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky and plays out as a tragic fairy tale as Prince Siegfried falls in love with Odette. However, trouble arises when an evil sorcerer transforms her into a white swan. The Prince eventually falls for the sorcerer’s daughter Odile who he transforms into an identical twin to Odette.

Mother convinced Nina that her meaning in life was to achieve excellence in ballet. As a result, the good girl Nina went crazy, and committed suicide only for the sake of her mother’s favorable look. The meaning of this theory lies in the fact that in the final Nina, who subconsciously sought to get rid of maternal overprotection, managed to gain wings. Unfortunately, nothing good came of her pursuit of perfection. Neglecting it might even land a person in greater danger.

Later, Beth meets Nina and asks her what she’s done to get the role. Beth says that Thomas always considered Nina to be a frigid little girl. At his home, Thomas asks her about her previous boyfriend, if she’s a virgin, if she enjoys making love, etc. He asks her to go home and touch herself as a homework assignment.