“So Black Swan is Grand Guignol with pretensions to class, and audiences are eating it up. Which wouldn’t matter if it weren’t recapitulating all the old, ugly misrepresentations about ballet. Dance is about suffering. Art is inevitably linked to madness. (Nina’s predecessor, forced to retire, is another self-slasher.) You have to become a monster to succeed—or sleep with the boss. And to be an artist you have to feel … to live; talent and hard work aren’t enough. Get out there, Nina, and have a drink, have some pills, have some sex. Throw those stuffed animals out of your bedroom. Then get up on that stage for one perfect performance and … curtains!

What did ballet ever do to deserve this?”

NY OBSERVER: Dancing in the Dark: Ballet Is Reduced to Campy Clichés in ‘Black Swan’