Posted on 03/28/2011 2:58:06 PM PDT by La Enchiladita
So who is the real Black Swan?
Ironically, a film about a ballerina who is haunted by a doppelganger is dealing with critical comments being made by a dance double who worked on the movieand now the director is weighing in.
Sarah Lane, Natalie Portmans dance double in Black Swan, told the Wall Street Journal this weekend that she did the overwhelming majority of the dancing in the film. I should specify the actual percentage of dancing that Natalie did, Lane said in one email. They are saying that it was 85-90% of the dancing but I can tell you honestly that it was about 5% of the on-screen dancing.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Yes, but not an unprecedented one. There was some kind of stink that Jennifer Beals didn't do her own dancing in Flashdance either. The ballerina's "people" should have made her aware that something like that would happen. I am sure that something like that really is hard to take when you did all the real dancing in a movie, and it was probably quite difficult, with all the takes, etc. But that is the nature of films. Stuntmen have died for a $10,000 gig, while the star made millions and went on to bed the leading lady. It's just the way things are and she should have definitely studied the precedent cases.
The producers of Flashdance did the same thing back in 1983. They used a body double to do the dancing scenes and didn't reveal it until after the movie debuted. No big deal, really. Jennifer Beals still did the acting.
I’m sure it required a strict regimen of diet and exercise just for Portman to look enough like a dancer so that you could plausibly believe she was the same character as the ballerina double.
Maybe
“n the run-up to awards season, and epecially the Oscars, there was a concerted PR campaign that claimed Portman did almost all her own dancing. It seems that was a lie”
They did; they spent ad after ad and article after article mentioning Portman’s past in classic dance.
Are you new to cinema?
Do you understand that acting is not real? Those actors were not really cowboys, Indians, generals, pianists, dancers, writers, boxers. I am so sorry to shock you with this.
You need to sit down with your Mom and have a little talk about the Tooth Fairy soon too...
Perhaps the dancer will start by getting a better agent? Maybe the one Portman uses?
This movie is just another with doubles. Dancing consumed how many minutes of the 108 minute flick???
If it was Juliet Prowse or someone like that, I'd be concerned if there was a dance double.
End of discussion!
LOL! Of course I know they aren’t hwo they really portrya themselves to be, but a little more effort would be preferable.
Am I the only one who is suspicious because this “controversy” happens to show up at exactly the time the movie is being released on DVD?
Hubby picked up a copy for me this morning - just before I saw this thread. :)
Heck, I could'a done the job then...
LOL!!
Lol! Well, Johnny depp does put a lot
of effort into his makeup. (actually he is a good actor too...)
I like you even more after reading this, and the rest of your "review." I wouldn't go see this pretentious posing either unless I was hijacked into it.
I don’t disagree with that.
It is time that dancers got their due. It is not often they are in movies anyway. They spend their life, even their early years to gain the mastery necessary to even be able to do what they do.
I wonder if Sarah Lane was told that they would be putting the face of the actress over her own? She doesn’t say, but I wonder if she is speaking out now, if she was led to believe it wouldn’t be a complete rip off of her skills.
It’s disconcerting because before, actors and actressses used to do quite a bit, dancing, singing, acrobatics, some good stunts, and other such things. Now they just show up and look pretty and someone else does the work, with their faces offscreen. If someone is getting paid ten to twenty million dollars, they better be putting in ten to twenty million dollars worth of work and talent into their work and performance. If, say, Natalie had been paid and confirmed for a movie that would begin production in a year, she would have enough time, wiht her vaunted dance background, to get some genuine ballet moves in and do them well enough so that a double would only be used in a minimal way, not for nearly everything. If the paid double is doing the bulk of the dancing, the dancer should get half the check and a prominent mention in interviews and the trailer and be credited for it near the top of the credits and prominently displayed.
Lana spent a bulk of her life mastering the technique and Natalie only really posed. No one deserves that big of a paycheck for just posing and for the money studios invest in their entertainers, these people have no business not putting in the BEST POSSIBLE performance and they should be paid according to their skills, not looks. If Portman doesn’t haev the skill of a dancer, she should get paid accordingly and the bulk should go to the double.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.