Here’s What I Love About The Fighter…

So I‘m watching The Fighter, and at some point in the film Sugar Ray Leonard, playing himself, shows up during a scene where our hero Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) has a pretty brutal bout. Now, it’s already been established that Micky’s troubled brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), who was himself once a boxer, fought Sugar Ray long ago, and even knocked him down. So Sugar Ray is already kind of a motif in the film, and we’re wondering if he’s going to recognize Dicky, who is Micky’s trainer. And, of course, famous and recognizable athletes playing themselves in such films – be they serious dramas or comedies or biopics or whatever – is pretty common, like when Brett Favre showed up at the end of There’s Something About Mary.

Did I Mention That the Swan Was Black?

“I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.”
“The what?”
“The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir.”
“Whose side are you on, son?”

        - Full Metal Jacket

At a couple of points in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, we see brief glimpses of Natalie Portman’s character working with some kind of dance trainer, and the scenes feel like they could be documentary footage: The actors are mumbling, natural; the moments serene, almost humdrum. (Interestingly, they feel a bit like one of those backstage, locker-room bits from The Wrestler.) But within the hyper-melodramatic context of the film itself, where everything else goes to 11, these scenes feel like transmissions from a distant galaxy; they are so out-of-place that I’m positive they’re meant to be intentionally jarring. Which begs the question: Why? The scenes obviously draw attention to the histrionic nature of the rest of the film. And I’m not sure said histrionic nature need draw any more attention to itself.