Black Swan, he brings out the evil in the cloistered world of the New York City Ballet. The movie stars Natalie Portman as a mentally deranged dancer so obsessed with her starring role in Swan Lake that she begins an excruciating physical transformation into a black-feathered beast. “Swan Lake is about a young woman turned into a half-swan, half-human creature by an evil magician. When I heard that, I realized, oh wow—this is a werewolf story,” Aronofsky says. “I started thinking about Natalie Portman and the idea of turning her into a swan, and I thought, it’s gonna be gruesome.”

Tchaikovsky’s sweeping symphonics accompany American Werewolf-esque morphing sequences (there are 300 f/x shots in the film—impressive for a modestly budgeted indie), making Black Swan the world’s first surrealist-horror-thriller-sci- fi-ballet movie. Or something like that. “Alec Baldwin described it as Jacob’s Ladder in tutus,” Aronofsky says, laughing. “And I’m not about to disagree with Alec Baldwin.” Indeed. To the list of things that terrify us, add 90-pound divas.

Photos: Niko Tavernis

Authors: Nancy Miller

to know more click here