We heard rumors today that might question whether Natalie Portman deserves her Oscar. According to Sarah Lane, Natalie's stunt double in last year's "Black Swan," Natalie only did 5% of the actual dancing seen in the movie. "All the other shots are me," Lane claims.
What about the claims that Natalie trained for over year for her role as ballerina Nina Sayers? When a lot of the discussion around Natalie's performance centered around her ability to transform herself into a seemingly professional ballerina, it puts her performance into question... or does it?
"Physically, I trained starting a year ahead of time, and then the six months prior to [shooting] the film, went into a sort of hypertraining, where I was doing five hours a day of both ballet and crosstraining with swimming," Natalie told reporters at a press conference at the Venice Film Festival late last year.
It's hard to believe that Natalie would lie about something like that. And there's no taking away from the real method acting that took place on this film. Her body, her mannerisms, her demeanor- you believed that Natalie was going through everything a real ballerina would go through. So what's the real problem with this?
Well, according to Lane, Fox Searchlight explicity told her not to speak publicly about her role in the film, so as not to take anything away from Natalie and her Oscar campaign.
“They were trying to create this facade that she had become a ballerina in a year-and-a-half,” Lane commented to Dance Magazine in December. “So I knew they didn’t want to publicize anything about me.”
One person that Portman has on her side, however, is fiancee and father of her child, choreographer Benjamin Millipied. Lane “just did the footwork and the fouettes and one diagonal in the studio,” Millipied in an interview with the L.A. Times. “Honestly, 85 percent of that movie is Natalie,” he said.
So, should this take away from Natalie's Oscar win? What about other actors and actresses who have had similar issues? Should Marion Cottilard give back her Oscar, considering she didn't do most of the singing as Edith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose?" What about Adrien Brody's performance in "The Pianist?" He won an Oscar back in 2002, while only learning the exact keystrokes so it would seem like it was him playing the piano.
"They wanted to create this idea in people’s minds that Natalie was some kind of prodigy or so gifted in dance, Lane said. “It is demeaning to the profession and not just to me. I’ve been doing this for 22 years…. Can you become a concert pianist in a year and a half, even if you’re a movie star?” It's tough to imagine that anyone really though Natalie became a world-class ballerina in less than a year, but who knows with the Academy bunch.
Regardless, I don't think one can argue that Natalie didn't deserve that Oscar. "I just want to be perfect," Nina proclaims throughout the film. And for almost 2 hours, Natalie Portman came pretty darn close.
But what do you think? Would Natalie still have won the oscar had people known she only did 5% of the dancing (if that is even true).
UPDATED: Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky has finally released a statement regarding this situation. He said he got an editor to count the number of shots Natalie is dancing. "111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane," Aronofsky wrote. "If you do the math that's 80% Natalie Portman. What about duration? The shots that feature the double are wide shots and rarely play for longer than one second. There are two complicated longer dance sequences that we used face replacement. Even so, if we were judging by time over 90% would be Natalie Portman." Continued the director, "I am responding to this to put this to rest and to defend my actor. Natalie sweated long and hard to deliver a great physical and emotional performance. And I don't want anyone to think that's not her they are watching. It is."
Fox Searchlight has also released a statement, basically saying the same thing. "We were fortunate to have Sarah there to cover the more complicated dance sequences," Fox said, "and we have nothing but praise for the hard work she did. However, Natalie herself did most of the dancing featured in the final film."
However, I think film critic Roger Ebert summed it up best, when he tweeted: "Let us not forget Natalie Portman did ALL of her own acting in 'Black Swan,' and that's why she deserved her Oscar." Well said, Roger, well said.
Image Credit: Niko Tavernise; Inset: Joe Schildhorn/PatrickMcMullan.com
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