Unfortunately, I just saw "Black Swan" on DVD (or fortunately since I could fast-forward through some of the dreck and boring stuff). Based on Aronofsky's comments in the special features section of the DVD, he's changed his tune or is further elaborating (making it up as he goes along ) on what inspired him to make the film. He says on the DVD that he was interested in Dostoevsky's story "The Double," and then when he saw "Swan Lake" at the ballet shortly after reading "The Double," a went off in his head. In other words, he thought Odette/ Odile and the ballet as backdrop would be a great way of exploring the concept of "double." Well, then, he failed miserably. To me, with Kunis' character vs Portman's Nina vs the vicious black swan trying to get out of her, DA is depicting more of a weird ridiculous psychotic idiotic triangle (or quadrangle if you throw into the mix the has-been Ryder character). The director DA fails to explain why or what the masturbation and oral sex scenes have to do with developing either his theme, or the characters, perhaps because those scenes were just salacious add-ons to titillate the audience and the mostly male filmmakers. Okay, par for the course with Hollywood filmmaking. The Black Swan makeup, the computer special effects and the piggy-backing on a classic is all this film is about(without the filmmakers understanding anything at all about "Swan Lake" or ballet history, or ballet dancers or ballet companies, and probably not anything about Dostoevsky either).
Natalie Portman is a competent actress, but not a great actress the likes of Nicole Kidman, Annette Bening, or even Michelle Williams (if the Oscar voters, as they usually do, wanted to give an Oscar to a hot young actress, it should have been given to Michelle for her role in "Blue Valentine," in my opinion). The really funny thing to me is that Winona Ryder (who is also a competent, but not great actress) played the over-30 ballerina ditched in favor of the nubile supposedly frigid chick, Nina Sayers. In fact, that's pretty good casting, since Portman reminds me of the young Winona Ryder: a well-connected, way over-rated hot young Hollywood actress.
In regard to the body double controversy: Sarah Lane has as much right to voice how she feels, as the director had to make this schlocky film. I don't blame Sarah for speaking her mind, hopefully she's learned that it's not personal but just how Hollywood works. It's pretty obvious they downplayed the fact that Sarah did all of the dance scenes in wide shot with actual dancing on pointe -- with Natalie's face tracked in via computer. This is obvious in the features on the DVD, but no effort is made to fully explain this or focus on it in any great detail, so its easy for average audience members to be misled as to how much actual dancing Natalie does. I don't think Sarah spoke out because she wants to be a star, or she wants publicity, but just that she expected to be more fully credited for her dancing, which was one of the better things about the film, let's face it.
Yep, black turkey, indeed!