Black Swan vs Perfect Blue

A comparison between Black Swan and Perfect Blue

Before starting this project, I had never heard of either of the above films. Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, released in 2010, is about the production of Swan Lake. The movie follows Nina, a dancer, at the New York Ballet City Company as she is cast in the titular role of the black swan in the company’s production of Swan Lake. Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue (1999) centres around the main character, Mima, as she transitions from a Japanese pop idol to an actress. In doing so, she sheds her innocent image to favour a more mature audience. This begins her descent into madness as she tries to cope with all the changes in her life. She fractures into multiple personalities, developing hallucinations and paranoia. This blog post will compare Black Swan and Perfect Blue as there has been much online debate regarding whether Black Swan’s director, Darren Aronofsky, copied/plagiarized Perfect Blue. I am therefore going to compare the themes of each film, the characters and the plot/storyline. According to the website Dazed, “Maruyama [the producer of Perfect Blue] confirmed that the late anime auteur met with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, who wanted to adapt the film as a live-action remake. Those plans never came to fruition” Dazed Digital, (2017)

Themes

The main theme is mental illness and health. Both characters follow a similar pattern of decline in their mental health, starting off with minor hallucinations and then gradually progressing to the point where the audience can no l

onger discern what is real. This is done very differently in each film. In Black Swan, Nina’s mother is very controlling and smothering. This theme is continued throughout the movie and contributed to the main character’s mental decline. In Perfect Blue, however, Mima is left to fend for herself, which emphasises a sense of loneliness. This could be one explanation for her hallucinations. However, she could have been hallucinating that she is alone.

Characters

Black Swan’s main character is called Nina, whereas Perfect Blue’s main character is called Mima. In Black Swan, Nina develops self-destructive and unhealthy coping strategies as a way to take back control of her own life. In Perfect Blue, Mima takes back control by switching from a Japanese pop idol to an actress. Mima’s agent, Rumi, in Perfect Blue, takes on the role of motherly figure to her. But in contrast to Black Swan, she is not smothering.

Perfect Blue’s main character’s mental decline happens a lot quicker. The way the scenes are quick and cut together leaves the audience just as disorientated as the character. In a similar fashion, in Black Swan, the audience is experiencing the hallucinations as though they are the character, this technique however is not grounded in as much reality as Perfect Blue. In Black Swan the hallucinations feel unrealistic because turning into a bird is something which is not possible, especially at the end, where Nina literally becomes the Black Swan with the use of CG feathers. The audience is experiencing this from her point of view, although you know that this is not physically possible; the illustration is broken and you see it from an outsider's perspective.

Story/Plot

Both films deal with the pressures and challenges of being within the creative/entertainment industry. Black Swan deals with the pressures of being a ballerina, whereas Perfect Blue deals with Japanese pop idol culture and the pressures of being an actor. Both productions also explore male and female power dynamics. In Perfect Blue, the main character has a stalker figure, which is a reflection of what often happens in Japanese pop idol culture.

Perfect Blue is a lot more violent than Black Swan. But that could be considered to come with the territory of anime, as these productions tends to be more violent than live action. Even though Black Swan is live action, its violence is less visually realistic. For example, in Perfect Blue there is a series of murders. In the 3^rd Act, Mima physically and quite violently attacks her agent and at this point, she discovers that she is the killer who is committing the murders.

In conclusion, both films are comparatively very similar. It is evident that Black Swan has been influenced by Perfect Blue. Both are really good and are equal in quality. I really like this quote from “rather than creating an outright retelling of the same story, Aronofsky has taken the elements from Perfect Blue that translate so well and crafted his own story around them. He has literally remade the film…. I’d say it’s a remake, but neither film is necessarily better than the other.” This captures my thoughts on both films. Dave, (2013)

Reference List

Dazed Digital (2017) Darren Aronofsky wanted to remake Perfect Blue Available at: https://www.dazeddigital.com/film-tv/article/37923/1/darren-aronofsky-wanted-to-remake-perfect-blue (Accessed 10th January 2020)

Dave (2013) Black Swan vs. Perfect Blue (2010, 1998) Available at: https://daveandhiscriticisms.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/black-swan-vs-perfect-blue-2010-1998/ (Accessed 10th January 2020)

Week 8/9 More pages, Finished Research Poster, Finishing essay, Polishing and Harvard ref

More Pages
I sketched out a few more pages with this project I definitely bit off more than I can chew however unlike in previous years when I have giving myself a lot of work instead of being able to scale back I just ended up giving myself more work to do instead of realising that I needed to cut down, I just kept adding and adding and adding to the point where I wasn't able to actually complete or finish anything. I think I focused too much on the research and not enough on the practical. My essay is definitely stronger than my practical as it has been in previous years but this year especially for the above-mentioned reasons.

Finished The Research Poster

Finished the Harvard referencing

Finished 2nd draft of essay. Gave it to Ben for feedback.

Feedback received

• The flow of your writing is pretty good and the content is great and engaging make sure,

• where possible, that you include appropriate references and figures (images) to support your discourse.

• MAKE SURE THAT THIS ARE PROPERLY HARVARD REFERENCED – check the libraries guide.

• Don’t bother writing Chapter 1, 2 etc., just give them appropriate headings and make sure that there is a separate title page (possibly with an image on – like a cover page) this should include your research paper title/question – which I still think is too long – and name and word count etc.

• Triple check spellings and grammar – make sure that you read this out loud to someone or get them to read it to you.

• Make sure that there in consistency within your Bibliography not titles in capitals etc – highlighted in yellow.

• The bibliography should be in alphabetical order:

• A reference list for the sources were the figures (images) came from should appear before the bibliography.

• The figures themselves could be either within the main body of the text or alternatively they could appear in a Figure Index, but either way make sure that they are clearly labelled: figure 1

** PROMPT in Action **

Source One
https://www.quora.com/How-would-you-describe-Light-Yagamis-psychological-profile-in-Death-Note-Is-he-a-sociopath-a-psychopath-or-something-else

Presentation 
A bit messy, with different colours of fonts, but reasonable font size.
Relevance Does relate to overall topic, being a discussion relating to an anime
character, and potential underlying mental health issues that may explain their
behaviour.

Objectivity Is a multiple expression of opinion, with the main point of referencing
being Wiki, so not objective, and not correctly evidenced. People expressing opinions
do not indicate they are “qualified” to comment on mental health, as do not indicate they
are currently practising mental health professionals, but still an interesting discussion.
This is quite an abstract idea. No one would make a diagnosis on the basis of observing
behaviour described in a comic book, after all.

Methodology N/A

Provenance Good. Descriptions, of authors, and qualifications.

Timeliness 2017, so within the last 8 years.

Source Two
https://casuistor.tumblr.com/post/149988857881/re-light-yagamis-presumed-sociopathy-and-why-he

Presentation Font size too small.

Relevance Does relate to overall topic, being a discussion relating to an anime
character, and potential underlying mental health issues that may explain their
behaviour.

Objectivity An interesting counter argument, with elements of research but no stated
author. Or referencing. Draws upon American research, so potentially American.

Methodology N/A

Provenance Poor. No clearly stated author. But well argued, with no overwhelming
bias. This is a discussion about a fictional character. Interesting level of self awareness
as states “the ability to read articles and checklists online does not translate into
academic or clinical literacy.”, and that they are not a medical professional but someone
with insight as they state “have had half a year of clinical psych is more exposure than
is typical”, suggesting they have accessed clinical psychology themselves, rather than
being a mental health practitioner.

Comics!

Comics

Comics are a universal language. Visually appealing sequential images that follow a narrative. They represent a primal need to tell and share stories. They are both easy to read and digest making them accessible to anyone. Panels are like scenes in movie or television as such some classic film cinematography is used such as Dutch angles which are used to imply conflict. Each illustration is therefore subject to basic filmmaking techniques and shot compositions. Instead of timing in animation, time is displayed as panels and usually involve action poses. The pacing is also left up to the reader as supposed to live action or animation where you are forced to experience the film at the director’s pace. The bigger, more illustrated panels are usually action scenes. This is because action scenes require more detail.

History

"Before 1929, almost all comics were part of magazines, newspapers or supplements and were not sold separately." Ramsey, T (2013) Western Comics and zines are read left to right and typically speaking have more realistic proportions.
In later years comics where used to spread WWII propaganda and uphold the American image. Caption America and Superman are great example of this. They use colours and patterns associated with the American flag and utilise strong American cultural themes such as Freedom and The American dream

“American children were targeted through some of our most prominent superheroes to date such as Captain America, Superman, Batman and several others. These superheroes embodied the ideal virtues of American soldiers and demonstrated the courage and resolve needed to fight evil during World War II.” Onyon, D (2018)

Comics can take on many different forms and uphold many different meanings and interptations. This is largely in part due the country that they are published in. Japan for example has the largest comic book market. The term Manga “was first used in 1798, to describe the picture book Shiji no Yukikai (Four Seasons) by Santō Kyōden. In 1814, it showed up again, as the title of Aikawa Mina’s Manga hyakujo and the celebrated Hokusai Manga books of drawings by the famous ukiyo-e artist Hokusai.” Kordic A, Pereira L, Martinique E. (2017) In addition to this "The history of manga is said to originate from scrolls dating back to the 12th century, and it is believed they represent the basis for the right-to-left reading style.” Wikipedia (2019)

Manga is characterised by over evacuated facial features and body proportions. These give the artist more freedom to come up with unique and interesting character designs. However, It's not specific to just Japan. Almost every country in East Asia has its own style of manga.

Ramsey, T (2013) The History Of Comics: Decade by Decade Available at: https://the-artifice.com/history-of-comics/ (Accessed: 12^th November 2019)

Onyon, D (2018) THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF COMICS IN AMERICA DURNIG WWII Available at: https://www.sagu.edu/thoughthub/the-political-influence-of-comics-in-america-during-wwii (Accessed: 12^th November 2019)

Kordic A, Pereira L, Martinique E. (2017) A SHORT HISTORY OF JAPANESE MANGA Available at: http://www.mangabigbang.co.uk/blog/a-short-history-of-japanese-manga (Accessed: 12^th November 2019)

Wikipedia (2019) Manga Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga (accessed: 12^th November 2019)