Werewolves and Ballet

Tonight we got to see a screening of Black Swan at Skywalker--with Darren Aronofsky, the director, in attendance for a Q&A afterward. I thought it was good, albeit, as Sarcasm Girl put it, stressful, and the sense of being made about people who give their blood and sinew to create a seamless image is palpable. As a story it mirrors the story of Swan Lake itself*. But probably the thing that made the most sense to me in the Q&A afterward was Aronofsky's comment that it was essentially a subjective werewolf movie set in the world of ballet.

*it also reminded me forcibly of a teaching story A.J. Budrys used at Clarion about a girl named Sarah Jane who gets caught hitchhiking to an audition, playing her violin under the shelter of her umbrella in the rain, undergoing tribulations to get downtown to the theatre, where the technical brilliance of her playing is at last equaled by the passion that her bad day has freed her to express.

Except: no violin, no rain. Lots of feathers, though.