The specific question I'm proposing to answer for my research paper about Black Swan is if there is one true meaning/moral to the story. The film has many different visual effects I guess you would say where you can't tell if things are just hallucinations by the main character Nina. Also it's hard to determine whether things are real or not. A sentence that works for my thesis statement is Black Swan is a film that can be determined any way you want it to. Here's my overview about what I already know about the issue: I really don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie but basically the story line is there's a ballerina named Nina and she's picked for the role of the Swan Queen in the new revival of Swan Lake. For her part she has to play both the Swan Queen and the evil twin the Black Swan. Her personality fits the Swan Queen perfectly (she's quiet, innocent, and is a perfectionist) but the main dilemma of the movie is her struggle to also become the Black Swan which is the complete opposite of herself. Nina's mind becomes obsessed with her trying to perfect the role and she begins thinking another ballerina Lily is trying to steal her part because of how easyily she can dance the role of the Black Swan. Again I don't want to give away spoilers but Nina goes through a lot of delusions where she sees weird things but it's unclear about what really happened. And in the end of the film something tragic happens (I don't want to say!) but does what really happen *really* happen? Also what is the moral of the story? Is it about the struggle for quiet people to come out of their shell? Is it the stress put on ballet dancers by their directors? Or is it something weirder such as occult symbolism? I want to show readers all of the cool things that could be interpreted from this movie because it's such a weird movie but it's so good. I also want to show readers a history of the ballet Swan Lake that the film was based on and show the role of the White and Black swans from that ballet. What I still need to find for this is I need to find sources that support my claims about the shy people coming out of their shell or if Black Swan's purpose is to attack the ballet world's pressures on their dancers. There might be some internet articles on that but I need to look. Those are just 2 theories I came up with after I saw the film. Some arguments I plan to make are for the first claim 1. Although Nina breaks free from that quiet girl in the end of the film, it ultimately causes her demise. 2. For the ballet world being too harsh, any profession can be stressful on people (musician for example, or jobs in business and teaching, etc), so it's purpose isn't to attack that career field. 3. An argue for the occult symbolism is that people are just making this stuff up just to get attention because there are a lot of people on the internet who make up stupid stories. Here are the sources I've looked at so far for my topic but I can always find some more to help me:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Movies/black-swan-psychiatrists-diagnose-natalie-portmans-portrayal-psychosis/story?id=12436873
http://www.oddfilms.com/blog/movie-recommendations/black-swan-movie-interpretation/
http://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/the-occult-interpretation-of-the-movie-black-swan-and-its-message-on-show-business/
http://journals.lww.com/oncology-times/blog/TurrisiTakesOnTheMovies/pages/post.aspx?PostID=4
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I also have a book about famous ballets and there's a summary on Tchaikovsy's Swan Lake. I also have a book about famous composers and it discusses Swan Lake in one part. I'm also citing the film Black Swan obviously. I need to find another scholarly article though.
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