More than ten years after its theatrical release, “Black Swan” by Darren Aronofsky could have its version on the boards of Broadway. The director would consider a musical of the film carried by Natalie Portman.
black swanthe great performance of Natalie Portman
With black swan (2011), Darren Aronofsky imagined a real nightmare around Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. In this film carried by Natalie Portman, a dancer, Nina, does everything to get the leading role in the famous ballet. Nina tries to offer perfect performance to surpass her rivals and be chosen by the director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel). But by dint of putting pressure on herself and trying to go against her nature to be able to also embody the black swan, the evil double of the white swan, she will slowly lose her footing.
The film then switches into a hallucinatory, dark and harrowing psychological thriller, strongly inspired by Perfect Blue (1999) by Satoshi Kon. Thanks to her performance, Natalie Portman won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2011 and marked the spirits. In particular, she assured several dances after an intensive training of several months, although two doubles were used for the most difficult dances. Finally, note that it was on this shoot that the actress met the choreographer Benjamin Millepied with whom she has shared her life ever since.
Darren Aronofsky loves musicals
black swan is probably one of Darren Aronofsky’s best-known films – along with Requiem for a Dream which gained popularity after its release. And while his new feature film has just been released, The Whale, in the United States (March 8, 2023 in France). The director obviously already has other ideas in mind. And for the rest of his career, he might come back to black swan. But not for a movie, for A musical !
This is what he said in an interview for The AV Club. Asked about his taste for musicals, he said he was currently trying to mount one for black swan. A rather reserved work on the boards of Broadway therefore rather than for cinemas, as specified in the interview:
We’ll see what happens. But we are working on it.
At first glance, the idea is quite surprising. It’s hard to imagine Aronofsky’s characters getting into musical numbers. But in reality, the dramatic power and the overwhelming aspect of his works could suit the genre. Besides, the filmmaker is not closing the door on a musical film in the futureadmitting to having already thought about it.
I would love to and I have told many people about it. I had a few ideas. But it’s very tricky because music from musicals is no longer popular. (…) I think Hamilton was brilliant because Lin-Manuel Miranda merged hip-hop with musical comedy. And so he had this breakthrough that was really brilliant. But finding that angle, what the music would be, where it would come from, is the big challenge. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. And I hope one day I can find something.
While waiting to see him film musical numbers, we can discover his next film The Whale, which promises to be a heavy and trying drama starring Brendan Fraser. See you in theaters on March 8 to find out.
