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"Black Swan" - Hey, That's Not My Poster

Tom Dotan |
December 7, 2010 | 12:16 p.m. PST

Associate Editor

Black Swan (Fox Searchlight)
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight)
One of the realities of living in Los Angeles is that at some point you will be accosted in a public place by some sad sack holding a clipboard and offered a chance to attend a free movie screening.

With the all the major studios right in the vicinity, we denizens provide a convenient, if not quite ideal, test pool for the marketing gurus to precision tune a film for maximum commercial impact. As a movie fan, and a previously unemployed one at that, I’ve taken up the opportunity many a time. Sometimes they give you free popcorn.

This was how it came to pass that on an afternoon several months ago I was able to see “Black Swan” long before its public and even critical release.

My baseline for these events is “Expect Terrible” so it was more than a bit surprising to see Darren Aronofsky’s long-anticipated ballet thriller get the test screen treatment. A sampling of other films that I’ve seen under these conditions: "The Unborn," "Cop Out," "The Other Guys." Defendable films, perhaps, but not exactly Oscar bait.

Of course salvaging a flop is not always the case; often the movies are in perfectly good shape, the studio’s marketing departments just want to know which elements in the story are going to hit demographic sweet spots. Participants are asked to rate how much they “like” basic movie components, things like characters, plotlines, music, scenery, IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) contracts.

No doubt, it’s a trite and mechanical way of judging an art form—imagine telling Shakespeare that the whole Ophelia drowning bit tested very poorly with the over 35 female crowd—but movies are also a multi-million dollar endeavor and you can’t really fault the bankrollers for wanting to ensure their investment. Fox Searchlight even at their most magnanimous are hardly The Medicis.

Yet after sitting through "Black Swan," all, if any, unease at the studio seemed perfectly justified.

This film was a Frankensteinian monster—uncomfortable in its body, lurching within its themes, stumbling around scenes, and wrestling with turgid dialogue. Oh, did I mention this was a movie about ballet?

Also, the movie was unfinished, with many special effects still unfinalized and much of Clint Mansell’s score (always a central part of Aronofsky’s vision) not yet added. Before leaving, the screening officials gave the audience a series of one-sheet designs and asked that we circle our favorite. Most ranged from boring to outright heinous; I chose one with a somewhat tasteful side shot of Natalie’s eye and each of the lashes made to look like tiny sprouting feathers.

I left the theater a bit disappointed, but mostly bewildered. This was a movie that I was actually looking forward to seeing, and I now had an indelible opinion based on half-baked bread. 

Even more frustrating was the news several weeks later that “Black Swan” had been getting rapturous standing ovations at the film festival circuit. Natalie Portman was the toast of the town; the Academy was even designing the Oscar in her likeness.

Clearly, I thought, this movie had undergone serious refiguring. Winona Ryder’s gratuitous and distracting scenes were cut, the final special effects really looked dynamite, and Mansell’s somber and restrained score tamped down on the campiness at the edges of many of the performances (ok, that was unlikely, but you can always hope).

When the movie finally rolled out for public release, I did my best to get ready. I even rewatched “The Red Shoes,” the 1948 classic heralded as one of the greatest dance movies ever made, and an unavoidable comparison for Aronofsky’s story. Here was my mind, as unshaped and smooth a ball of clay as I possibly could make it.

Two scenes in, I realized it was all a waste of time. Nothing had changed. Well, the score was added, which, with heavy strings and ponderous thuds, brought the movie into even campier territory. Portman has a masturbation scene in front of stuffed, tutu-ed animals that is truly inspired. This may be one of the years’ great comedies.

As the film’s last shot fades to white (not before squeezing in a final repetition of the movie’s theme!) the ballet’s audience erupts into applause that grows louder and louder. Aronofsky’s hearing all he wants. The real live audience at this screening cleared out like someone had yelled fire.

None of which is to take away from Ken Van der Meeren’s effusive review of the movie in this here publication. It’s a well-written piece and I’m perfectly comfortable with it being the review of record for Neon Tommy. He’s in good company too, with 85 percent of critics approving according to Rotten Tomatoes.

I, however, remain tainted. Can I trust myself? Watching a film before it was finished, even if little was changed, is a horrible, and horribly unfair, way to judge a product. There is a removed innocence in seeing a film for the first time, and I was bereft. Exiting “Black Swan” for the second time this year, I glanced at the movie’s one-sheet: Natalie Portman sporting the black swan’s eye makeup atop the white swan’s foundation.

I will never attend a test screening again.

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