The Black Swan Opening
- Opens on a single young woman dancing on a dark stage. Tchaikovsky music plays in the background, beautiful. The dark stage is so reflective it looks like water. We can see no audience.
- She is wearing white; represents purity, innocence.
- A dark figure approaches from behind. She cannot see him as he moves behind her. Lots of emotion, we fear for her. He changes into a demon with special effects that make us doubt it is fake. He changes her dress to something like a swan. She “flies” away, saddened.
- We are shown it was a dream by the ballerina waking up in bed.
- She stretches and cracks her feet, showing us she is in fact a ballerina.
- She talks about the dream with technical terminology which demonstrates her knowledge.
- Her mother is in helping her get ready. They are shown to be close by their conversation where they are joking and the mother helping her get ready.
- There is a scratched-up patch on the ballerina’s back. She brushes it off as nothing to her mother; clearly foreshadowing this will come into play later on.
- On the subway the girl is wearing a frilly white scarf, that looks feathered; represents her wish to be the swan.
- She looks through the subway and sees a girl who looks strikingly similar to her, but wearing black. She gets off at a different stop.
- The main character walks to a theatre house. She stops and looks at the posters outside, of another ballerina. A rival???
- Other girls are talking mean about another ballerina (Beth, the main soloist of the company) for her age. Main character sticks up for her timidly; we are shown she is compassionate, even towards her rival.
- Girls also complain about how no one comes to see the ballet anymore, and that the theatre manager will need to try something, and someone, new. Foreshadowing!!!
- Girl from train shows up. other girls whisper about her, is clearly new.
- We are shown ballerina prepping shoes, shows her as hardworking.
- We see her warming up with the rest of the company. The coach tells her she is doing beautifully, and to relax. Shows she os a bit of a perfectionist. Says her name is Nina.
- A man comes in and ballerina all change out of warm-up gear nervously. They dance the next warm up harder. Demonstrates he is important and influential.
- The man greets the coach and talks about the swan lake ballet as he walks around the room. He taps ballerinas on the shoulder as he goes. Talks about how they will need a new soloist in order to make the play interesting. The girl will have to play a pure white swan and a dark black swan.
- He says the girls who were not tapped will audition for it. Nina is relieved; she was not tapped.
- She is going through motions in the hall when Nina hears glass breaking. It is a girl breaking things in her dressing room and screaming. Door says it is Beth’s room. She storms away.
- Nina goes into the room. she walks among beth’s things and sits at her vanity. She takes one of beth’s lipsticks, coveting it. Shows she is maybe not so pure and innocent after all…
- She dances the white swan part for the man in the audition room. She is sweet and graceful.
- He tells her if it was the white swan part only, it would be hers. Then tells her to dance the black swan part.
- But she shows him the black swan, and he yells at her. She is not vicious, seductive enough. This shows us that Nina can channel the pure and innocent, but not the darker characters. She is spinning and discombobulated, shots showing she is nervous through the spinning. Another girl comes in and bangs the door, distracting her, and she falls.
- The girl is the girl from the train. She is from San Francisco, another dancer named Lily. She says she doesn’t need to warm up; shows cockiness.
- Nina seems to have lost her chance; she is dismissed.
