Genre deconstruction: Black Swan (2010)

Black Swan is a psychological horror. The opening clip completely subverts to the common conventions of this type of film.

It begins with a black background, and a white serif font fades slowly in and out with the title 'Black Swan' in a large sized, bold and centralised font. This is a plain, slow, calm opening title sequence, which subverts to the conventions of psychological horror films. Over the top of this, slow, classical music is being played which includes lots of strings, which again subverts to the common conventions of this genre - the audience would expect scary, haunting music, where this is calm and gentle. This music also seems non-diegetic, until the next shot of a long shot of a woman in the centre of a stage lit by a spotlight, still with a black backdrop. This introduces her as a primary character.

She begins ballet dancing, which then makes it obvious that she is dancing to this music and that the sound is diegetic and fits in with the scene. Next there is an extreme close up tracking shot of her feet dancing, which shows her grace and elegance as a ballet dancer. It also makes it clear that this character is a ballet dancer.

This then turns into a long shot of her as she sits gracefully down on the stage, whilst the music gets slightly quieter. It then switches to a two tracking shot of a man walking into the space towards the woman. The camera then begins circling round the two dancers whilst they begin to dance together, with the music beginning to sound slightly more menacing but still classical.

At 2:01, there is some more diegetic sound introduced of a rushing sound, representing the transformation of the newly introduced male character into some kind of beast. The music then gets a lot more fast paced and represents action happening in the dance. There are high fast trumpets alongside strings and drums, whilst the dance represents more of a chase between the two characters now. The music gradually gets faster and higher whilst the dance gradually gets more intense and action filled.

At 2.29 the strings and trumpets stop completely, leaving just a drum roll whilst the beast is spinning the woman round. Then, at 2.31, there is a sudden loud rush of all the instruments joining together again  which gradually gets quieter and slower again after about 9 seconds, and her dancing becomes more slow and emotional. As the woman moves past and away from the camera, the music and picture begin to fade out, with the screen being completely black again by 3.13. This opening scene makes her seem like a victim, which conforms to the genre of horror as a whole as there is often a 'victim' character and by having the victim as a woman it conforms to common representations of victims as they are usually vulnerable women who are in danger/need help.

Overall, the opening to this film is very unexpected of the genre, and this makes it more intriguing for the audience due to the conventions being completely subverted.