Sitting in a coffee shop I heard a man say:
“I saw Black Swan the other night. It was trash. Elevated trash, but trash.”
When you see a good movie, a very good movie, it’s difficult to remember that the film is not objectively extraordinary.
“Black Swan was great.”
You say to yourself and aloud.
You are certain the world agrees. Summer is hot, winter is cold, and Black Swan is a great film. Now this isn’t exactly evidence you are feeling superior. Superiority means knowing there exists another lesser point of view over which yours rises supreme. If you cannot even fathom an opposing view it is beyond arrogance. It is pure solipsism.
So, if you are sitting in a coffee shop and you hear a man say:
“I mean it was just awful. Natalie Portman was sweating beads, and blood and just really straining for an Oscar. I don’t like it when actors strain. When you have to strain to do it, when it’s not natural, it’s just fake to me.”
The world will crack in two.
Of course this thinking reveals that I am often deep in my own world with its own rules and definitions for things.
Which brings us neatly to the issue of Nina and her many identities, a split shown most clearly in the bathroom: the Western world’s last vestige of privacy in an increasingly transparent society.