The companion films by director Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan and The Wrestler, explore the concept of an art form in a postmodern age and the effect it has on the individual and the individual’s experience of reality. In The Wrestler, washed up entertainer Randy “The Ram” Robinson comes to terms with the circumstances of his physical decline and the fading of his wrestling stardom, although he desperately ignores both for the sake of continuing pursuit of his passion. Black Swan focuses on Nina, a soloist at a prestigious New York City ballet, who finally achieves her dream when she is cast in the lead role in Swan Lake, only to be repeatedly traumatized by her own psyche. Both characters are seeking perfection and the acknowledgment and validation of that perfection from their peers, family members, and employers.
Both of the films take an almost identical postmodern approach to the concept of reality through their main character’s interactions with the world and the way the films explore the body. Yet they differ in the timeline of the postmodern fragmented self, Nina is at the beginning and Randy is at the end.
Black Swan and The Wrestler are postmodern chronicles of two very different professions, one low art and one high art. Together, according to Fredric Jameson, the films fulfill one of the most important requirements of postmodernism which is defined by Postmodernism and Film as the blending of the high and low cultures and focus on “identity politics,” one of the core narrative styles of postmodernist film. Although the films each explore a different profession, different family dynamics, and different main characters in socioeconomic background, location, age, and gender, the overarching theme in both is one of reality through the main character’s eyes.
The body is used in both films as a signifier of the different personas each character takes on when they are performing, and therefore, according to Matthias Stork, points to the character’s individual breaks and conceptualization of reality. Physical enhancement and mutilation are blurred in both films. In The Wrestler, the body is shown as a tool to enhance. Randy is on the tail end of his career, not only past his prime but also past the ability for his body to perform naturally. He is clinging to his profession that values youth, and therefore he physically manipulates his body to hold his fragmented self together: the Randy out of the ring and the Randy in the ring.
Nina in the same way clings to her youth, or is pressed down into it by her mother and by her profession that values a young girl’s body. But unlike Randy, Nina physically diminishes her body. Throughout the film, Nina is repeatedly shown making herself vomit. Apart from two exceptions, very little time is spent showing her eating. As her breaks with reality become more and more frequent as the film progresses, physical mutilation is often part of them. This is seen in film’s final scenes where she actually becomes the black swan and takes on a bird like anatomy in her leg structure, arguably the most important feature to a dancer, her facial features such as her eyes and skin, and in the famous scene where she is dancing the Coda and, as she fouettes, her arms morph into full swan wings.
Randy’s body, on the other hand, diminishes on stage, where the audience asks him to. In an early scene, Randy prepares himself for his show, meticulously preparing a shaving razor to place in the wrappings around his wrist, later using it during the show as a type of anti-trick to cut his own face and rally the audience in his favor. The opposite goes for Nina and her fellow dancers behind the scenes. In a profession that prioritizes one or a few dancers, where solos and feature parts are not only desired, but rather necessary, a team attitude is not common.
Both films portray the body as an entity that is transforming/decaying on both a mental and physical level. Nina and Randy’s bodies each fail as Randy suffers a heart attack and Nina’s own psyche causes her to stab herself in a fit. Both Nina and Randy are obsessed with their careers and the body plays an important role in showing how they are dealing with both their success and failures. Physically, Randy is declining, his own heart giving out. Mentally, Nina is flailing, her mind losing touch with reality. Although Nina’s mind is going, her body is not failing her and is possibly the only reliable piece in her life, allowing her for a moment some release from the mental pressures of her own psyche. And while Randy’s physical ability is almost gone, his mental state is seemingly stable, only conflicted by personal relationships that he has lost because of his career, the career that took his body from him. In their individual obsessions one aspect, in this case physical versus mental, of their overall person has to lessen if the other is to flourish.
According to Greg Cootsona, both films focus on the postmodern movement’s concern with change, where “nothing is absolute.” Where they diverge is in the main character’s journey through a specific set of significant changes, including family, relationships, careers, and health. Randy is at the tail end of his career. His past successes, although alluded to through his reputation with other wrestlers and older fans, are never directly shown. Because of this specific timeline, there is a large statement about obsession in a postmodern world where the only absolute is change; that it only leads to failure. This is most easily seen during the last few minutes of the film when both the audience and Randy realize the only thing left for him is wrestling, but soon he does not even seem to have that. The film indicates he is about to have another heart attack, his body once again reminding him of his limitations and the need to stop the obsession.
Nina, on the other hand, allows the audience to witness her life on both a personal and professional level before she reaches success, which comes at the very end of the film. Her obsession only pays off when she realizes it has its place in both control and freedom in dance and in her personal relationships. Nina is in contrast with Randy because of her success; specifically when her crippling self-doubt melts away as she dances the finale, uttering her finals word, “I was perfect.”
While the two films take different stances on postmodern obsession, they are identical in their ending of death, at least that death is imminent through the main character’s eyes as implied by their own bodily limitations; a heart attack and self-mutilation. The two films even complete each other in a circular fashion, starting with Nina’s quest in finding perfection, ending with her death, which gives birth to Randy’s stardom, leading to complete the circle by documenting Randy’s decline. The pair center on the paradox of achieving greatness but the possibility of losing everything else, whether it is life, family, romantic relationships, or the very self, shed away like a dead skin. Although both films differ on obsession and its results, they are in strong agreement on change and our present and future struggles to combat and survive it.