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Black Swan

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COPYRIGHT ©2010 LAKE OF TEARS, INC.

112 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2010

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About the author

Mark Heyman

14 books6 followers

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143 (17%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
Profile Image for Ahmed AlQady.
201 reviews846 followers
December 29, 2015

اصعب انواع الصراعات تلك التي تحدث داخل النفس البشريه
والتي تراه منها ما يحدث حولك بعددة زوايه مختلفه
كلاً منها له تأثير علي الحياه غير الاخر
وتذداد شده تلك الصراعات حين يتعلق الامر بالتحدي والاسرار
علي الوصول الي القمه فيتولد داخلك ضددان..!! الاول يساعدك علي الوصول
والاخر لا يريد منك إلا السكون والتقهقر الاذلي الي ما لا نهايه له . .

البجعه السوادء صراع نفسي موحش محتدم داخل "نينا سايرز" التي تطوق
الي القمه في ان تكون ملكة بحيره البجعع في العرض الرسمي
فتقع بين طرفي الرحايا لا هي قادره علي الاكتمال بين ما هوا واضح وتتمناه !
ولا هي في استطاعتها ان تقوام بما يجول في نفسها
من اعتصار للرؤي وتخبط في اتخاذ القرارت
حتي تستطيع الوصول الي الانقسام الذي بدوره
يؤدي كل طرف من اطراف الصراع النفسي بتجسيد نفسه
داخل ذالك العرض متمثلا في البجعه البيضاء والتي تبُدع في ادائها نينا
والطرف الاخر من الصراع والذي تؤديه البطله نفسها ولكن بتقمص روحي ونفسي اخر . .

Profile Image for Hirdesh.
401 reviews95 followers
January 21, 2017
Great Story and Drama.
Every Psychological Students must read this or watch the movie.
I loved it.

Swan lake story:
Virginal girl,pure and sweet trapped in the body of a swan by a evil sorcerer. She desires freedom but that only true love can break the spell of the evil sorcerer.

Her wish is nearly granted in the form of prince. But before he declare his love to white swan, her lustful twin sister black swan tricks and seduces prince.

Devastated, the white swan leaps off the cliff, killing herself. And in death, finds freedom.

In the movie:
Nina (played by Natalie Portman) is a ballet dancer who always wants to be a swan queen (the lead role of the act). In the starting of the movie, she was seeing the poster of swan queen of her production house as obsessively as she always wanted her photo there.

But for the character of swan queen, dancer must play both the roles of gentle white swan and seductive black swan as they are twin sisters.

Nina is beautiful, fragile, and innocent. She has all the characteristic of white swan. If there had a role only for white swan then Nina was perfect casting for it. But black swan is seducing, dangerous, sexually aggressive and completely opposite of white swan.

Thomas, producer of the play, wanted these characteristics in her.

Nina has hallucination problem. She actually imagines her black swan character as seducing. At railways station, she first time sees her.

For the character of swan queen, her competition is new bold and confident dancer Lily (Mila Cunis) who could be the better choice for black swan. Thomas knows abilities of Nina but the attitude of black swan he wants in her, is not coming out of her. Still he gives her chance. He didn't want her to be fragile; he wants her seducing, aggressive. He knows role of white swan is not a problem but the real problem is how Nina would play black swan.


She always strives for the perfection. Thomas asks her to ‘lose herself’. He says, perfection is not only about control but it’s also about letting go.


From the moment she started dance, her long cherished dream was to be swan queen. She was actually dying to that role and when she gets it, she literally explodes in happiness.


Thomas don't want her to be weak. He wants her to come out of her self made restriction zone. He wants her to be expressive about her feelings.


The character of black swan has eaten up earlier swan queen Beth too as indicated by this scene.
She throws her toys as now she is not the same girls she used to be. She actually imagines her black swan character as Lily. It is interesting to see that she is fighting with herself as she is not able to distinguish between real and imagination (hallucination).

As what happens in Swan Lake story, is parallel happening in the movie. She wants Thomas to believe in her but she thinks Lily is seducing Thomas to get her role and Thomas is getting attracted towards her.
That feeling of jealousy, envy transforming her character. In due course of time, she is changing from white swan to black swan.
She is learning to oppose things.Here, first time she opposes her over protective mother to get out of her room. The character of black swan was eating her up.
She has transformed. She wants to end that black swan character developed in her. She ends that character by putting broken glass in her stomach. Stabbing in the mirror is her losing who she is and becoming swan where she fights good self against evil self.

Nina, as the White Swan, gets through the first scenes of the ballet okay but panics during the 'Dance of the Swans' when the faces on all the swans begin to look like hers, causing the Prince to drop her, which enrages Thomas. When the scene is over, she returns to her dressing room in tears and sees Lily seated at her vanity in costume for the Black Swan. Snottily, Lily offers to dance the Black Swan for her. Enraged, Nina yells, 'Leave me alone!' and smashes Lily (who has turned into the double) into a mirror, shattering it into bits. When the double tries suffocating her, Nina stabs her in the abdomen with a shard of mirror. She hides the body (who now looks like Lily again) in her bathroom and dresses for her turn as the Black Swan. Back onstage, Nina dances with abandon, wowing her partner as well as the audience. Suddenly, she begins to physically transform, her arms become black wings. As the audience gives her a standing ovation, Nina exits the stage, kisses Thomas passionately, and returns to her dressing room to change back into the dying White Swan, first covering up the blood on her floor with a towel. As she finishes with her makeup, she hears a knock at the door. It's Lily, alive and well, congratulating Nina on her amazing performance. When Lily is gone, Nina looks under the towel to find there is no blood. Suddenly, she becomes aware that she is bleeding from her abdomen and pulls out a shard of glass from the broken mirror. Despite her wound, Nina dances the last act until it becomes time for her to commit suicide. As she prepares to throw herself from the 'cliff', she looks out over the audience and sees her mother (Barbara Hershey), smiling and crying. As Nina falls onto the mattress below, the blood stain begins to widen. The audience erupts in thunderous applause. The rest of the dancers gather around her, and Thomas invites her to take her bows. 'My little princess,' he says, 'I always knew you had it in you.' Suddenly, Lily gasps, and the blood stain can be seen across Nina's entire abdomen. Thomas calls for help and asks Nina what she did. 'I felt it,' she replies. 'It was perfect.' The crowd continues to roar with applause as the screen slowly fades to white.

Climax- Nina actually dies is left unanswered. Thomas calls for help, and the screen slowly fades to white, leaving it up to the viewer to decide whether or not Nina survives. A least literal explanation is that, if we accept that the whole story is a metaphor of growing up, then she doesn't have to die. Since the mother of Nina has always affected her, Nina was prevented from growing up in order to keep her disciplined, which helps her to be perfect (e.g. after her metamorphosis, she mistakes in a part at the show)

Profile Image for Rama.
55 reviews52 followers
February 1, 2019
the only person standing on your way is you... lose yourself
a great dramatic and psychosis story about a dancer who wanted to reach perfection
in the end it was PERFECT! she felt it!!
but everything has a price to pay.... and you always have the choice...
to be a black swan or to be a white swan
you choose :)
Profile Image for Bethany Sterling.
Author 9 books2 followers
April 2, 2014
It's rare that I'd rate a commercial script and movie 5 stars, but this production merits it. It's a tightly and beautifully crafted story that puts many concepts of art into question. It's life experience that is the true "duende" of the performing arts, and as the movie shows, that life experience can be pain and madness.

The concepts of the subconscious, paranoia and fears-- and their connection to art-- are darkly and interestingly displayed in this film.
Profile Image for Moataz Mohamed.
Author 4 books646 followers
October 25, 2014
إنها الروعة متجسدة يا عزيزي القارئ.
الصراع الأبدي بين شقي الإنسان متأصل في التاريخ الوجداني من مئات السنين. لكن إنه يتجسد علي الورق زي كدة وبالروعة دي، وبعدين تيجي واحدة زي ناتالي بورتمان وبإخراج أرونوفسكي ويجسدوا الكتاب الرائع ده في فيلم ملحمي بنفس الإسم، أظن إن قليل أما الواحد يشعر بكم الشعور المتناقض ده.
The only person standing in your way is you.
ده ملخص الكتاب.
الصراع الداخلي بين الين واليانج. بين قابيل وهابيل.
لازم يقرأ حتي لو شفت الفيلم.
Profile Image for Jamie Grefe.
Author 18 books61 followers
September 5, 2013
A very clean screenplay, economical without much flourish, and having seen the film, it is clear how well-written this is in it's ability to convey character through action and dialogue. I imagine it would be easy, if one hadn't seen the film, to walk away with a clear picture of each character's drive and how to play them. Very good work.
Profile Image for Nick Martin.
302 reviews1 follower
April 8, 2020
1. Some one new
2. He picked me
3. She is not faking it
4. The other way around
5. How is your skin
6. Live a little
7. End the pain
8. I am the swan queen
Profile Image for جابر طاحون.
418 reviews218 followers
September 3, 2015
طبيعة الانسان دومًا حلم الكمال ، و استحواذ كل شيء . لا أحد يقدر علي مساعدتك في الحياة سوي ذاتك. الانسان يجب أن يرفض العزاءات كلها ، كل ما يجعله ضعيفًا أو خاضعًا ، و ده مبغي الفلسفةمنذ ظهورها ،
وصولًا أحيانًا لدرجة التطرف ، مثل نيتشه و كلامه الناري عن الانسان الكامل البطل ( superman)
و رفض كل عزاءات الانسان حتي رفض الآلهة و الأنبياء ، و جملته النارية : " إن الله قد مات "

الطريق الوحيد للسعي نحو الكمال هي التخلي عن الصورة الجمالية و الخيالية للحياة ،و تقبل الحقيقة حتي لو كانت قاسية و االايمان بنفسك و عدم الاتكال إلي أي عزاءات أخري .

Thomas Leroy: The only person standing in your way is you.

[image error]


Thomas Leroy: Nina, what did you do?
Nina: I felt it. Perfect. I was perfect.

[image error]

Profile Image for Maggie.
50 reviews20 followers
October 29, 2010
So I was naughty and downloaded the original script, dated March of 2009. The script was amazing, but honestly if you read the script its not that much of a spoiler for the film I feel--ok maybe the last 10 pages you might want to hold off on, but other than that the script feels like a novel version of the film instead of what we've seen even in just watching the trailer.
Profile Image for karina ♱.
15 reviews3 followers
March 1, 2025
this was my first time reading a film script, and it was literally perfect! i adored it, and the movie was also amazing. the whole idea of the movie is beautiful--i love obsession, self-destruction, and ballet!
Profile Image for Doaa Mohamad.
44 reviews23 followers
March 1, 2013
The only person standing in your way is you ... Perfect !
Profile Image for Realini Ionescu.
4,149 reviews20 followers
August 8, 2025
Black Swan based on a story by Andres Heinz
8 out of 10

Notes and thoughts on other books are available at:

- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... and http://realini.blogspot.ro/

Black Swan is a tour de force.
It won 91 awards and was nominated for an impressive total of 257 prizes.

Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role and the film was also nominated for:

- Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing
- Golden Globes for the same categories plus Best Supporting Actress- Mila Kunis
- BAFTA for the above and Best Screenplay

The brilliant Natalie Portman has also won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA for her extraordinary rendition of the

- Black Swan

It is a metaphor for the sacrifice required by creation.
A chef d’oeuvre cannot be accomplished without tremendous effort and extreme pain, seems to be the key.

Positive psychology contradicts what I just said and demonstrates that one saying –among so many others- is wrong:

- No pain no gain needs to be transformed into
- No pain, more gain!

In the case of Nina Sayers aka The Swan Queen, both sides given life by Natalie Portman, the ballet involves sacrifice.
And transformation.

I was thinking about Aldous Huxley’s masterpiece Point Counter Point, in which an actress becomes…the woman whose role she was playing.
Nina Sayers becomes…The Black Swan.

At least in her mind, the obsession with the role, with perfection leads to a madness and a dedication that is excessive.
According to positive psychology studies, perfectionists are inclined to suffering and it is recommended to:

- Aim for excellence and not perfection, because the latter is a recipe for unhappiness, or in extreme cases, like that of the prima ballerina in this Swan Lake to possible self- destruction

There are many angles from where we could contemplate this excellent film, many themes are presented, including the cut throat competition for leading roles, be that ballet, opera or cinema, the readiness to “kill for a part”.
The jealousy between Nina and Lily aka Mila Kunis extends beyond the stage and the sole of the Swan Queen.

The artistic director who takes the decisions regarding the ballerinas is Thomas Leroy and he is portrayed with great skill by Vincent Cassel.
I noted on his exhilarating performance in Read My Lips here: http://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.ro/20...

Lily and Nina Sayers seem to be competing not just for the position of prima ballerina, but for Thomas Leroy’s attention and romantic interest as well.
Real life, horrifying incidents came to mind, proving that Black Swan is not just a hyperbole with no basis in reality, where dancers are friends with each other and all is well, reflected in a documentary on The Bolshoi Theater.

For the reasons expressed earlier and visible in The Black Swan, envy, selfishness, pride, arrogance, vanity, artists form the prestigious Russian Ballet used acid against the artistic director, who was also responsible for mean acts.
Another take on Black Swan would be to meditate on the Dark side that we all have, The Black Swan in opposition with the White one.


Having to learn to get better at her part involving the Black Swan, Nina may end up with the force of evil winning the final victory.
Profile Image for Rêbwar Kurd.
1,031 reviews91 followers
July 12, 2025
سکوتی هولناک، نه در صحنه‌ی تئاتر که در روان آدمی طنین می‌افکند، آغاز فروپاشی‌ست. قوی سیاه فیلمی‌ست که مرز میان هنر و جنون را می‌کاود، میان میل به کمال و گریز از خویشتن. دارن آرنوفسکی با ظرافتی خشن، تماشاگر را درون ذهن نینا پرتاب می‌کند؛ دختری که برای ایفای نقش در دریاچه قو باید دوگانگی‌اش را بپذیرد: هم قوی سفید باشد، هم قوی سیاه.

نینا، با بازی بی‌نقص ناتالی پورتمن، در تلاش است تا همزمان دو نقش «قوی سفید» و «قوی سیاه» را بازی کند. قوی سفید، نماد معصومیت، پاکی و کنترل است؛ آن‌چه نینا در زندگی واقعی‌اش نیز هست: دختری مظلوم، فرمان‌بردار و در حبس مادری که کودکی‌اش را ناتمام رها کرده. اما قوی سیاه، زنِ اغواگر، رهاشده و شهوانی‌ست. برای ایفای کامل این نقش، نینا باید سرکوب‌شده‌ترین لایه‌های وجودش را آزاد کند؛ و همین‌جاست که سقوط آغاز می‌شود.

فیلم، مانند یک سرگیجه ممتد، مخاطب را وارد روان نینا می‌کند. با هر لحظه، مرز واقعیت و توهم مخدوش‌تر می‌شود؛ صورت‌هایی که در آینه عوض می‌شوند، صداهایی که فقط نینا می‌شنود، لمس‌هایی که شاید هرگز اتفاق نیفتاده‌اند. آرنوفسکی با استفاده از دوربین دستی، قاب‌های بسته، نورهای سرد و موسیقیِ تشدیدشونده، تماشاگر را در پوست شخصیت اصلی فرو می‌برد. گویی مخاطب هم مانند نینا، آرام آرام ترک برمی‌دارد و به انفجار درونی نزدیک می‌شود.

این فیلم درباره دگرگونی نیست، بلکه درباره فروپاشی‌ست. درباره آن لحظه‌ای که هنر به مرز جنون می‌رسد، و برای رسیدن به کمال باید خود را نابود کرد. نینا برای کامل شدن باید بخش سرکوب‌شده خود را بیدار کند، اما بیدار شدن این بخش، به معنای مرگ بخش دیگر است. تناقضی که در دلِ تراژدی نهفته‌ است: نمی‌توان هم قوی سفید بود، هم قوی سیاه، مگر آن‌که هویتِ خویش را قربانی کرد.

اما آن‌چه قوی سیاه را فراتر از یک فیلم روان‌شناختی یا درام هنری می‌برد، لایه‌های پنهان آن است: درون‌مایه فرویدی فیلم، بازتاب مناسبات مادر/دختر، میل و ترس جنسی، و تصویری از زن که همواره باید بین نقش قربانی و اغواگر یکی را انتخاب کند. نینا باید «کامل» باشد، اما کامل بودن، به معنای نابودی کامل است.

در پایان، وقتی نینا با چشمانی اشک‌آلود می‌گوید: «کامل بود»، حقیقتی هولناک را فاش می‌کند: برای رسیدن به کمال، باید خود را در نقش حل کرد، نه به عنوان بازیگر، که به عنوان انسان. در این‌جا، هنر دیگر نجات‌بخش نیست؛ شکنجه‌گر است.

قوی سیاه تنها یک فیلم نیست، آیینه‌ای‌ست تاریک که اگر جرات دیدنش را داشته باشی، شاید در عمق آن، تصویر خودت را ببینی.
95 reviews5 followers
April 8, 2021
i mean it is one of IF NOT my favourite film so a 5 stars was expected but jeez this was such a great script. Completely blown away every ! single ! time ! I experience this story ! Shit is just like CRACK to me i'm ADDICTED.

anyways

Favourite quote that didn't make it into the final film for whatever reason:

“Dance is not immortalised like music, poetry or art. It lives for now. For this moment only. And this is your moment.”
Profile Image for Sarah.
49 reviews8 followers
January 3, 2022
“Dance is not immortalized like music, poetry or art. It lives for now. For this moment only. And this is your moment.”

"Perfection is not always about control, it's also about letting go.."

The girl is a ballerina who has mental issues, living with a controlling mother, looking for perfection.
She is the battle of the white swan and the black swan!

Profile Image for n.
143 reviews
August 13, 2022
My Rating: 4 Stars.

A solid script where the producer obviously knows what binaries to bring forward in his product, aswell as how to masterfully use and manipulate them so they conform to his ideas.

I felt a level of disconnect that I think the film diminishes but I guess... that's the point.
Profile Image for Elizabeth.
23 reviews3 followers
April 1, 2021
I love reading movies so much. This was the film that really sparked my interest in filmmaking and score and all that. Felt extra special to revisit its screenplay.
Profile Image for martina .
36 reviews
August 16, 2021
la OBRA de arte q essss 😍😍😍 ademas sirve mucho de inspiración y no rompe ninguna regla de los scripts la vdd Hermoso hermoso
7 reviews
March 16, 2023
Good movie, strange to read though, and also not good to read in school with that one bit between nina and lily
Profile Image for Eman.
79 reviews23 followers
June 18, 2016
The book revolves around the dilemma of perfection ... to be the perfect ...
And that in spite of all attempts to reach a point of perfection , she did not feel it till death
It was a bit tough but wonderful
Profile Image for Toufiq.
23 reviews32 followers
May 14, 2013
I loved the movie 'Black Swan'- one of my favourite. But reading the extracted hard copy where most of the scenes are omitted or cut short, is painful.
Profile Image for Robzocampo.
1 review4 followers
March 3, 2014
I loved her dedication. She felt it, then it was perfect! Deserved the role "Black Swan".
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews

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