Course Note #96: Black Swan & Dr. Jekyll

Hi There, 
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the movie Black Swan since I saw it two days ago.  I had heard that it was a movie about an anorexic ballerina who descends into madness.  I had also heard that it was "disturbing", "demonic", and "psychologically challenging" --  Wow, spare me that! So I wasn’t really interested in visualizing all of that, nevertheless, I remained intrigued and so finally I went to see it.

            It is an incredible movie on every level.  After my son saw it in December, he said that it contained everything he likes in a movie, and I feel the same way about it, in fact, as I write this I am yearning to see it again. 

This contains SPOILERS, so if you have not seen the movie and don’t want to know anything about it, stop reading now.

            As the movie begins, the ballet company director, Thomas, describes his vision to the dancers:

            “We open our season with Swan Lake. Done to death I know, but not like this. We strip it down, make it visceral and real. A new production needs a new Swan Queen. A fresh face to present to the world. But which of you can embody both swans? The white and the black?

“We all know the story.  Virginal girl, pure and sweet, trapped in the body of a swan.  She desires freedom, but only true love can break the spell.  Her wish is nearly granted in the form of a prince.  But before he can declare his love, her lustful twin, the Black Swan, tricks and seduces him.  Devastated, the White Swan leaps off a cliff, killing herself, and in death, finds freedom.”

Natalie Portman brilliantly plays Nina Sayers who is a ballerina obsessed with perfection.  She has lived a sheltered life with a controlling and manipulative mother, and is the epitome of the virginal white swan.

While Nina desires the role of Swan Queen, Thomas does not feel that she can capture the role of the Black Swan:

Nina Sayers: I came to ask for the part.
Thomas Leroy: Well, the truth is, when I look at you, all I see is the White Swan. Yes, you're beautiful, fearful, fragile. Ideal casting. But the Black Swan, it's a hard job to dance both.
Nina Sayers: I can dance the Black Swan too.
Thomas Leroy: Really? In four years, every time you dance, I see you obsess, getting each and every move perfectly right. But I never see you lose yourself. Ever.
Nina Sayers: [quietly] I just want to be perfect.
Thomas Leroy: Perfection is not just about control. It's also about letting go. Surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience. Transcendence.

            I very much related to this conversation.  For most of my life I did not think of myself as “creative” at all.  It seemed that the more inner work I did, I came to find out that I had talents I never knew I had.  What I have observed, however, is that they come forth most powerfully when I lose sight of “me” and let go to allow my true Self to extend through me.  In a sense, this is what Thomas urges Nina to do throughout the movie.

The movie is filled with archetypal symbolism especially in regard to the shadow.  I found it fascinating in its depiction of the shadow side of human nature, and how exploration of it can take one into a sort of madness, as it literally did in Nina’s case. 

Along the way on my spiritual journey, quite a few years ago I was urged from within to explore the shadow.  In my book, “Oh My God. It’s Me!” I wrote a chapter on the shadow and how we can begin to integrate it so that we may know true perfection, which is really wholeness. 

The “shadow” has been thought of as the dark self, the repressed self or the “other” self, but really, it isn’t a self at all.  It isn’t even our darkness; rather, it hides from view that which we don’t want to see.  It shades aspects of both the dark and the light within that we have disowned.

The shadow is friend to the true Self because, as we bring awareness to the suppressed or denied aspects of ourselves, we can then accept and own them and thus experience wholeness.  For the same reason, the shadow is an enemy to the false self, which has no interest in becoming whole, but merely yearns to fit in, or as in Nina’s case, to be perfect.

The shadow unrecognized will somehow emerge, and usually unexpectedly.  It may erupt in illness, sexual dysfunction, mental and emotional disorders or in the conflicts one may have each day. 

In Nina’s case, we see it emerge in neurosis.  In her exploration of the role of the Black Swan, she begins to suffer hallucinations and a distorted sense of self.  There were many scenes where she appears to be harming herself in one way or another, although this is mostly going on in her mind. 

Beth, the dancer Nina replaces, was in a tragic accident where she walked in front of a car.  Thomas relays to Nina that he thinks she did it on purpose “because everything Beth does comes from within, from some dark impulse. I guess that's what makes her so thrilling to watch. So dangerous. Even perfect at times. But also so damned destructive.”

I found this fascinating as well, that Beth in her quest for perfection also became self-destructive. 

There is one scene where Nina visits Beth in the hospital to return a few items that she had taken from Beth’s dressing room.  When Beth asks her why she took them, Nina replies, “I wanted to be perfect, like you.”

Beth picks up the nail file and says, “I’m not perfect. I’m nothing, nothing, nothing…” as she stabs herself in the face with the nail file.  Her face then morphs into Nina’s face, seemingly symbolic of how Nina feels about herself.  Like so much in the movie, the viewer is not sure if this actually occurred. 

Sexual exploration is one of the ways that Thomas urges Nina to find the inner Black Swan.  Lily, another dancer who appears to embody the Black Swan, becomes a threat to Nina, and ultimately the one who Nina projects her darkness and sexual repression onto.

It doesn’t appear that Nina really wants the role of Swan Queen for adulation or glory, but more to prove her worthiness.  Throughout the movie she expresses her desire to be perfect, and for her, “perfect” means to embody the role of the Black Swan perfectly.  This takes her into madness as, ultimately, she morphs into the Black Swan. 

As she enters the stage to dance the part of the Black Swan, in her mind, she has actually become the Black Swan and dances to perfection.  Moments before the dance she left behind in her dressing room, Lily, whom she has just killed because, it is her turn to shine. 

Later, when Lily comes to her room to congratulate her on her terrific performance as the Black Swan, through Nina’s reaction we learn that she really did believe that she had killed Lily, when in fact, she had sought to kill off a part of herself.  I’m not really sure what occurred at the end of this movie, but it seems that she had literally stabbed herself. 

She dances her last act as the White Swan, again perfectly, and as she is to fall from a cliff to her death, she does indeed fall to her death.  Her last words:

Nina Sayers: [weakly] I felt it.
Thomas Leroy: What?
Nina Sayers: Perfect. I was perfect.

            As was foreshadowed in Thomas’s retelling of the story of Swan Lake, Nina finally found freedom, through death.

            This movie reminded me of the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  I’ll give you the nutshell version: Dr. Jekyll, being a chemist, devised a potion that would separate his dark self from his light filled self.  In the story, My Hyde began to overtake Dr. Jekyll, it was as if the dark side was enveloping the light.

            One night as Mr. Hyde, he murders a man of high esteem, after which he was filled with despair and at wits end wondering what he was going to do.  Ultimately he too, found freedom through death.

            Both stories, Dr. Jekyll’s and Nina’s Black Swan, are very interesting in that they reveal the consequences of attempting to separate off parts of ourselves.  Dr. Jekyll was unable to look at aspects within that did not fit with his ideal of a good and moral person.  In his attempt to separate these aspects of himself, he destroyed himself in the process.

            The Gospel of Thomas says that if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. 

            Carl Jung observed that the shadow is 90% pure gold, and that it is the seat of creativity.  As we begin to look at our projections, both positive and negative, we mine our gold.  It is the true Self that desires to extend itself creatively, abundantly, and with love, so we must bring awareness to all the ways we deny this Self-extension.

            Shadow work is a lot about looking at our projections, and it is not something we can really do alone without going mad (!), as do Nina and Dr. Jekyll.  We have guidance within at all times.  Spirit Within is our Comforter, Healer, Guide, Strengthener, Friend, and in my opinion, the Ultimate Therapist!   

            We glimpse enlightenment as we recognize that we are all perfect, and we are all imperfect.  The paradox of human life is that we must come to accept and even honor the imperfection within the perfection.

            As we go about our lives, may we become willing to embrace the light and the dark, the saint and sinner, the good citizen and the criminal within our own heart.  Thus, you come to know yourself, accept yourself, and yes, even love yourself.

Update: Black Swan: Part Deux:
            Since I originally wrote this post, I've thought about how the actual movie is a retelling of Swan Lake.  Nina wants freedom from her mother, her childhood, her self...  The black swan, so long repressed begins to emerge as it seduces and tricks Nina, finally she finds freedom through death.

                I have listened to a couple of interviews with Natalie Portman and the director and both spoke of the film being about a child becoming a woman, and that the child had to die for the woman to be born.

              I didn't get this message from it at all, for all the reasons I shared in the original post. Even the director says that it is a sort of ballet horror story.  I've read several different interpretations of the movie and have found each sort of fascinating and interesting. 

           Carolyn Myss weighed in on it talking about a "black swan experience", as in a life-changing event.  This didn't really ring for me either, as the film seems to be much more about an explanation of the psyche.  Anyhoo! fun!