Montage Art, books, diverse creations

14 Chapter and Verse 15 Storytelling with Sondheim 16 A Story Curled Inside 17 American Ratification 21 Off the Shelf 23 Telegraph Avenue Troubadour

Natalie Portman dances as the Dark Beauty White Swan in (far left), and the sensuous Black Swan (left). Above: a scene with A tense thriller, with ballerinas actor Vincent Cassel, who plays the company’s artistic director. by Craig Lambert dience home with unresolved Lily (Mila Kunis), another beautiful questions to ponder. n the new film Black Swan, Natalie dancer who becomes Nina’s friend and Aronofsky began to consider this story Portman ’03 plays Nina, a prima bal- rival, catalyzes this metamorphosis. In 15 years ago. In fact, “It all started with my lerina in New York who dances the the hands of tenebrous film director Dar- sister, who was a ballet dancer when I was Swan Queen in Tchaikovsky’s Swan ren Aronofsky ’91 (The Wrestler, Requiem for a kid,” he says; he witnessed her gruel- Lake as her first starring role. That a Dream), the story becomes one of almost ox S e a rchlight P ictures ver n ise / F ox ing training regime. When he completed Ta Imeans portraying both a White Swan who unrelieved tension, a thriller that probes his M.F.A. at the American Film Insti- radiates innocence, sweetness, and light, psychological, artistic, and even spiri- tute Conservatory, he was already think- and a darker Black Swan—seductive, dan- tual allegories as Nina finds herself in the ing about making two companion films, gerous, and evil. An overprotected, driven midst of what is tantamount to a ner- one set in the world of pro wrestling, perfectionist, Nina readily takes to the vous breakdown. Black Swan’s most char- one in that of professional ballet. “Some white swan, but must endure a kind of acteristic shot is a close-up of Portman’s call wrestling the lowest of art forms, personal purgatory to claim the dark side captivating face, her eyes flickering with and some call ballet the highest of art phs courtesy of Niko of Niko a phs courtesy All photogr of both the ballet role and her personality. anxiety. Even the final scene sends the au- forms, yet there is something elementally

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Left: Fox Music president Robert Kraft, at the piano, works with film director . Above: Aronofsky directing Cas- sel on the ballet-studio set.

it at the elite level. Every small gesture has to be so specific and so full of lightness

cy Alle n N an cy and grace.” ox S e a rchlight P ictures ver n ise / F ox At the start of the film, Nina is a “bun- Ta Nina must endure a personal purgatory to claim head”—dancers’ unflattering term for a Niko ballerina so obsessively devoted to her the dark side of the role and of her personality. art that she has no life outside it. A Signet Society member and psychology concen- the same,” Aronofsky explains. “Mickey she danced 90 percent of the film’s ballet trator at Harvard, Portman saw Nina as Rourke as a wrestler was going through scenes herself. (American Ballet Theatre “being caught in a cycle of obsession and something very similar to soloist Sarah Lane performed some exact- compulsion. The positive side of that for as a ballerina. They’re both artists who ing point work and turns as Portman’s artists and dancers is that by focusing so use their bodies to express themselves double.) “It’s incredibly challenging, try- hard you can become a virtuoso, but then and they’re both threatened by physical ing to pick up ballet at 28,” Portman says. there’s a much darker side, an unhealthy injury, because their bodies are the only “Even if you’ve taken dance lessons before, side, in which you can become completely tools they have for expression. What was you just don’t realize how much goes into lost. That’s where I had to take Nina.” interesting for me was to find these two connected stories in what might appear to be unconnected worlds.” In Black Swan, c hapter & verse “We wanted to be tense, and to make a thriller,” he explains. “To have the horrific Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words elements contrasting with the beauty and sexuality of ballet made for an interesting construction.” J.P. Akins requests the complete text “…easier to imagine the weather put- Long before the screenplay was ready, of a poem he remembers from his youth ting something off because of Miss ….” Aronofsky had decided that Portman was about the Harvard-Yale game and the way “…like one of the seven deadly sins the right actress for the lead. The two had it “releases us, changed and changeless, wrapped up in the cloak of the other six.” met for coffee in Times Square more than into the November evening. ” He thinks “Alas, we would no longer be able to 10 years ago to talk about the idea. Port- it may be the work of the late David Mc- listen to the music of Mozart.” man studied ballet as a child and has con- Cord ’21, L.H.D. ’56. “Cynicism is the fruit of disappointed tinued to dance to stay in shape; she told hopes that were never well justified to the director that she had always wanted From our archives, here are more as- begin with.” to play a dancer. To prepare for the film, yet-unsourced phrases and aphorisms, in “Lust is the lamp that lifts the gloom./ she undertook 10 months of intense physi- hopes that a reappearance, in print and Lust is the light that fills the room.” cal training that consumed five hours a online, will yield identifications. day, including swimming, weight lifting, “Whereas the music of Beethoven as­ Send inquiries and answers to Chap- and other cross-training, as well as in- pires to heaven, the music of Mozart was ter and Verse, Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware tensive dance work with choreographer written from there.” Street, Cambridge 02138, or via e-mail to , a principal dancer “…and rain, that graybeard sing….” [email protected]. with the New York City Ballet; in the end,

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Music figures heavily in establishing It was glorious. It sounded as beautiful as score infuses Black Black Swan’s atmosphere of foreboding. I had dreamed.” Mansell explains that he Swan with its magic. “It became clear that this was a tremen- wanted the Swan Lake music to haunt Nina Filled with themes of Visit harvardmag.com/ dously musical film,” says Robert Kraft during her stormy passage. “Tchaikovsky’s ego and alter ego, im- extras to see a clip from the filmBlack Swan. ’76, president of Fox Music, who was in- score is so wonderfully complex,” he says. ages of mirrors, and volved in the relevant decisions for the “It tells the story in every note. But mod- paradoxes of the psyche, Black Swan it- Fox Searchlight Pictures release. “You ern film scores are more subdued, more self explores aspects of the art that cre- have Tchaikovsky’s incredible ballet mu- minimalist if you will, so I had to almost ated it. “There are lots of ideas about the sic and a fantastic original underscore deconstruct the ballet.” Aronofsky adds, artistic process in the film,” Aronofsky written by [English composer] Clint “Clint took Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece says. “There’s a struggle between control Mansell. I was in London with Darren for and turned it into scary movie music.” and letting go. In any craft, you have to every minute of the orchestral recording. The dark beauty of the Russian master’s learn to do both.” Storytelling with Sondheim Librettist John Weidman writes books for the best.

ct I: John Weidman ’68 spends the first 13 years of his life A in Westport, Con- necticut, where he plays Little League baseball and dreams of turning pro. Then he realizes: “There are no major league play- ers from Westport.” His revised attitude about the future: “Wait and see.” Act II, Scene 1: Weidman (wide-man) at Harvard. His fa- ther is a writer (the novelist and

ges dramatist Jerome Weidman, au- thor of I Can Get It for You Whole- sale), so it’s only natural that he befriends Timothy Crouse ’68, the son of playwright Russel Crouse, who coauthored the book for The Sound of Music. In 1966, on a lark, they write the Hasty Pudding show A Hit and a Myth. (“Nothing seemed at stake. And we got to go to Bermuda.”) Act II, Scene 2: Weidman graduates. He extends his “Wait Composer Stephen Sondheim (left) and librettist John Weidman and see” credo by applying to in 2010. The copies of Playbill showcase two of their collaborations, law school. Facing the draft, he Pacific Overtures (1976) and Assassins (1990). ph by B e n H ider/ G etty I m a a ph by P hotogr Weidm an ; of Joh n courtesy ybills

P l a chooses not to attend Yale im- mediately, and instead teaches for a few postscript: “I have an Act II, Scene 3: Prince meets with years at a New York public school. Then idea for a play about the opening of Japan; Weidman for 15 minutes before giving him he heads to New Haven to join Clarence can we talk about it?”—goes to Broadway a contract (and $500) to write the play. In Thomas in the Yale Law class of 1974. producer-director Hal Prince. Weidman: the summer of 1973, Weidman completes Certain that the law is not for him, “At Harvard, I majored in East Asian his- a draft of Pacific Overtures. Prince decides Weidman writes two letters, seeking an tory—I thought I knew something no one it needs to be a musical—and convinces internship. The first goes to Bowie Kuhn, else did. I had no ambition to write a play. Stephen Sondheim to turn the play into commissioner of Major League Baseball, I had no training. I just thought: I can do one. Weidman: “It was so surreal I didn’t who blows him off. The second—with a this while I’m at Yale.” stop—at least not too often—to think

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