The Bitter Script Reader analyzes “Black Swan”

The always excellent TheBitterScriptReader is running a series this week analyzing the movie Black Swan, paying particular attention to changes that were made from script to screen. Today he looks at the character Lily. An excerpt:

Oscar nominations are coming out later this week, and as it happens I long ago had to read a draft of Black Swan. It was about a year-and-a-half between reading the script and getting to see the finished film, and though I thought there were interesting aspects to the script, there were other elements that I wasn’t convinced would work on screen. After seeing the movie, I was struck by how certain details translated to the screen, and how even small changes had a big impact on the meaning of the film.The draft I read is credited only to Mark Heyman and it’s dated June 2009. The final screen credits are: “story by Andres Heins, screenplay by Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin.” That’s per IMDB, but I’m pretty sure Heyman was listed second on-screen, which suggests the first draft was written by Heinz (which the “story by” credit also supports), with Heyman rewriting him, and McLaughlin rewriting Heyman.

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How a character is introduced can have a major impact on how they are received, but when a character is introduced can also be of crucial import. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know that dancer Nina (Natalie Portman) meets her rival Lily (Mila Kunis) very early in the film, probably in the first ten minutes. Lily is “the new girl” and she makes a memorable appearance by coming to dance class late, disrupting Nina’s audition for the Black Swan.

But that’s not how she turns up in Heyman’s draft. There, she doesn’t arrive until p. 33 — arriving after Nina got the role of the Swan Queen. There she turns up in mid-rehearsal, and Nina is momentarily taken aback because — as the description notes — “she looks EXACTLY like Nina.” Then moments later, it’s noted “she no longer looks exactly like Nina” but then Nina herself remarks, “She looks a lot like me.”

I will follow up later this week with a character archetypes analysis of the movie.

For more of TBSR’s post, go here.

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