Last week a small degree of controversy was ignited surrounding
Natalie Portman's dancing in her much lauded picture
Black Swan. Or, according to her very bitter sounding ballerina body-double
Sarah Lane, her lack thereof. In case you've missed all the excitement, Lane told
Entertainment Weekly that choreographer (and Portman's fiancé)
Benjamin Millepied's statement that '85 per cent of is Natalie' was misleading, as she made the astonishing claim that only 5% of the full body shots were the Oscar-winning actress. "I've been doing this for 22 years" she conceded, "can you become a concert pianist in a year and a half, even if youre a movie star?" Um... we're not sure. Over to Black Swan director
Darren Aronofsky who took the time to find out for sure;
Here is the reality. I had my editor count shots. There are 139 dance shots in the film. 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane. If you do the math thats 80% Natalie Portman. What about duration? The shots that feature the double are wide shots and rarely play for longer than one second. There are two complicated longer dance sequences that we used face replacement. Even so, if we were judging by time over 90% would be Natalie Portman. And to be clear Natalie did dance on pointe in pointe shoes. If you look at the final shot of the opening prologue, which lasts 85 seconds, and was danced completely by Natalie, she exits the scene on pointe. That is completely her without any digital magic. I am responding to this to put this to rest and to defend my actor. Natalie sweated long and hard to deliver a great physical and emotional performance. And I dont want anyone to think thats not her they are watching. It is.
So what does all this mean? Absolutely nothing, of course, as Portman's Oscar was for her performance as an
actress, not for her ability to correctly wear a pair of shoes. If that's all it takes to win an Oscar then the Academy would've been knocking on my door this morning, a brass band providing musical accompaniment as I gracefully tied the laces of my new winkle pickers. I double-knotted them and everything. Beat that, Portman.