It seemed that the controversy was going to fade as time passed and the applause that Natalie Portman achieved with the Oscar receded, but far from subsiding, it grew worse.
The dancer Sarah Lane continues to insist that part of the merit of the award achieved by Portman in 'Black Swan' is hers and that in most dance shots it is her body that the viewers see.
Congratulations Lane, you dance wonderfully, your work is very commendable. You have a beautiful body and surely at The American Ballet Theater they are very satisfied with you, but, leave it now, please. Trying to detract from Portman's work is ludicrous. Her interpretation goes far beyond dancing (something anecdotal, despite being a ballet film).
Portman shines for having known how to transform her face and her gestures as the film progresses; she for having known how to convey the mixture of sweetness, anguish and desperation that she described in the script. No one believes that she has been awarded a prize for dancing like Maya Plisetskaya, although they will surely have appreciated the effort that she has tried. However, seeing how the Hollywood machinery and her awards work, she probably had more to do with her triumph than the money invested by her producers in promoting the film.
However, there is part of Lane's speech that I share. I understand her criticism about how the producers have 'sold' that Portman is some kind of dance talent, that she has achieved in a year and a half what it has taken her a lifetime to achieve. Lane says that she is unfair and offensive to professional dancers. It is, but it's pure propaganda, marketing that helps create movie magic and turns actors into gifted stars. She is part of the same 'deception' in which the specialists who take the risks of the action scenes instead of the actors participate; it's the same illusion that makeup artists and special effects experts help create. We are talking about the cinema.
In the same line of acting/movie marketing, I would include this increasingly brazen custom of glossing over the superhuman feats of the actors during filming. How many times have we heard that so-and-so, who is cooler than a figure eight and passes for extras, was about to be drowned, electrocuted, poisoned or devoured by the mob, etc. …while shooting the key scene of the megahit of the day? And what about little guy, who lost a ton and a half to get into the role? And that other one who infiltrated a month and a half in the Medellin cartel to absorb ideas and document herself for a role? Cinema, cinema, cinema... To criticize the obvious (lies, exaggeration... others would call it magic) is to question the very essence of cinema.
