Re: "Rip-off" vs. "homage"

These universal themes are serving a brisk plot, which quickly multiplies the wrong tracks, paying homage to the album by Michael Haneke (“The Pianist”), Krzysztof Kieslowski (“The Double Life of Veronique”) and Satoshi Kon ( mainly “Perfect Blue”).

Review review: Black Swan
(As ever, beware - heavy spoilers lie ahead.)...Bullshit, you obsequious hack. I know with unremitting precision what hit me, and I knew almost as soon as the movie started. What hit me was Satoshi Kon's classic psychological thriller Perfect Blue - and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

"...now that we have Black Swan, we no longer need a live action remake of Perfect Blue."
As much as I credit Meredith Borders for her astuteness in noticing that the two movies are more or less actually the same movie, she (perhaps doing her best Peter Travers impersonation) is dead wrong about almost everything in her review. While Travers should be roundly chastised for failing to even mention the wholly obvious influence of Kon's work, Borders's response is hardly better. "This isn’t really a debate of whether Perfect Blue is a direct inspiration for Black Swan," she says. "Aronofsky has already categorically denied that claim, and who am I to argue?" Yeah, Meredith - and Vanilla Ice was right about how the track for "Ice Ice Baby" was totally different than the hook from "Under Pressure." If any of you readers can watch both movies without feeling that the earlier was a heavy influence on the later, I'll be very impressed. For my part, my first time watching Black Swan felt like it was my second time watching it, and that sure as hell isn't because I developed ESP during the trailers.

Here, though, is the bigger problem with Aronofsky's rendering of Perfect Blue: considered as a whole movie, it makes almost no sense. Rather than having "take[n] the best parts of Perfect Blue and turn[ed] them into something more," as Borders alleges, Aronofsky simply added more to the best parts of the anime. Take the use of ballet as a central theme, for example: the events in Black Swan are structured to mirror both the plot and musical progression of Swan Lake, sure, but so what? It would be a neat trick, except (a) any basic modern reinterpretation of Swan Lake would've accomplished the exact same thing and (b) it ruins the plot twists by beating you over the head with foreshadowing (unless, of course, you're as dim as Peter Travers is). Similarly, Aronofsky's characters are more human than Kon's but in a way that detracts from rather than adds to the overall experience; the gestalt here is working in the wrong direction...The problem with this is that, on Black Swan's own terms, the black swan persona is only a manifestation of psychological distress (and not, as in Perfect Blue, another actual person)...Aronofsky succeeds in getting a few jump-scares out of the audience and does manage to impress on us both the beauty and minor lunacy of ballet, but Perfect Blue succeeds because it doesn't compromise its atmosphere or break its concentration for anything. Black Swan, in stark contrast, simply layers scares on top of its basic structure like icing on a cake. That said, even cake wrecks can taste good; go see Black Swan for the dancing and the music - in short, for the ballet - but know that this is a movie that's been done, and done better, already.

I was gonna see Harry Potter. I was. But my timing just wasn’t right, so I went to see Black Swan instead. Everything I had seen suggested that this was the ultimate conclusion of what began as Aronofsky’s desire to remake Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue. I still believe that this film may be the one he ultimately decided to make instead of a direct remake. Several of Kon’s elements are there: the imaginary doppelganger, the obsessed mother figure, the lecherous business that calls for her to lose her innocence. But it wasn’t anywhere near as satisfying as Perfect Blue, for reasons of artistic sensibility, storytelling, and philosophy....

Then we have some storytelling problems. My biggest complaint is with the Mother. During the rising action, we see that the Mother is obsessive, overbearing, and oppressive of Natalie Portman. And the Mother used to be a dancer before giving birth to Portman. The character has a clear parallel in Perfect Blue....Then there is a problem of philosophy. I won’t give away the ending of Perfect Blue, but suffice to say, that film got the philosophy right. Black Swan got it wrong. Natalie Portman sees a doppelganger dressed in black. This is of course in her imagination. Believe me, I have no trouble with the psychological games. I’ve been over hazy, difficult-to-decipher ground a hundred times with Perfect Blue. I know that Natalie Portman scratches her shoulder blade unconsciously. I know that when the word “whore” appeared on the bathroom mirror in red lipstick, she unconsciously wrote it there herself. The problem is that Aronofsky tried to make the story mirror Swan Lake too closely. His characters simply aren’t as archetypal as the ones in the ballet, so the good/evil dichotomy feels forced. It’s like he tried to have it both ways — both Swan Lake and Perfect Blue — and it failed. What Aronofsky should have done was go with Perfect Blue‘s philosophy.

Salut à tous! Ca fait bien longtemps que j'avais pas posté...

J'ai eu la chance de voir en avant première le film "Black Swan" de Darren Aronofsky (le réalisateur de Pi, Requiem for a dream, The Fountain, et The Wrestler). Le film sortira en février en France je crois.

Je pense que beaucoup d'entre vous savent déjà qu'Aronovsky aimait beaucoup le travail de Satoshi Kon. Il est assez dur de trouver des infos sur les sites des magazines de cinéma professionnels, mais il semblerait qu'il avait acquis les droits de Perfect blue en 1998, pour utiliser une séquence dans "Requiem for a dream" (quand l'héroïne crie sous l'eau dans sa baignoire, en effet les plans sont identiques). A l'époque, d'après des articles lus, Aronovsky parlait d'essayer d'adapter "Perfect Blue" en film.
Puis silence radio pendant plus de 10 ans.
Et voici "Black Swan", un thriller psychologique sur le monde de la danse, son stress, son excellence, ses rivalités. Le film est excellent. Bourré de trouvailles, stressant, beau, dérangeant... Un très bon film donc, et on en attendait pas moins de Darren Aronofsky.
Mais le film fait furieusement penser à "Perfect Blue" sur de nombreux points. La schizophrénie de l'héroine, son milieu artistique exigeant, l'impresario qui la couve, les visions de double, etc... Certaines scènes sont directement issues de "Perfect Blue", comme la scène du rouge à lèvre sur le miroir, ou les plans avec le double du miroir, etc...
Je me disais, excellent, c'est un hommage au film de Satoshi Kon, il va le marquer quelquepart. Mais au début ou à la fin du film, je ne vois rien, pas de remerciement, pas de mention, rien.
Ca tombe bien, Darren Aronovsky est dans la salle de cinéma et répond aux questions des spectateurs et journaliste. Je lève le bras, mais je me dis bien que quelqu'un d'autre va poser la question. Pas de chance, on ne me retient pas. Les autres parlent de Nathalie Portman nue, de Robocop, de Wolferine... Et la session se finit. Aucune référence à Perfect blue. Même chose durant la session de question suivante, dans le cinema MK2 où sont des amis à moi. Aucune référence à Satoshi Kon.

Alors voila, je me questionne. Alors qu'il aurait pu (du?) lui rendre hommage, sachant que Satoshi Kon nous a quitté prématurément cette année, aucune mention d'un quelconque rapport entre Black Swan et Perfect Blue. D'ailleurs aucune réaction de Aronovsky à la mort de Satoshi Kon. Seuls les journalistes qui dressent un parallèle.
J'ai trouvé cet article de "Palmarès Magazine" où pour le journaliste, il est évident que "Black Swan" est un hommage à Satoshi Kon.
Étrangement aucun article de journal de cinéma très connu ne parle du rapport entre Perfect Blue et Black Swan. Pourquoi? Je ne sais pas... Peut-être Darren Aronovsky pense que "Perfect Blue" n'a été qu'une influence. Et que dans le milieu légal du cinéma hollywoodien, mieux vaut ne pas marquer trop de choses, pour éviter de donner de l'argent à droite à gauche. De toute façon, il a déjà les droits du film...

Pour ceux qui se demandent, non, Black Swan n'est pas un remake de Perfect Blue. Les films sont comme 2 contes de pays différents, partis de la même légende. Des trames en commun, des situations semblables, voire des scènes identiques, mais un milieu différent, un message différent, une fin différente, une manière de filmer très différente. J'ai aimé les deux films. Mais l'année de la mort du réalisateur Satoshi Kon, j'aurais vraiment aimer que Darren Aronovsky lui fasse un hommage officiel.