FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2010
KLMNO
EZ SU ‘Black Swan’ soars from the depths of ambition hornaday from C1
sion of the ballet demands that she also portray the Black Queen. She’s a sinuous, primal persona he doesn’t thinkNina can pull off. It’s difficult to disagree: With her
breathywhisper of a voice, cossetedhome life with overprotective mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) and wide-eyed sexual naivete, Nina remains a child-woman swaddled in feathery scarves and downy pinkshrugs.What’smore,atattooedinge- nue named Lily (Mila Kunis, in a smash- ingbreakoutperformance)hasjust joined the company, presenting a loose-limbed, smoky-eyed threat to Nina’s tightly woundrectitude. Aronofsky, working from a script by
Mark Heyman, takes all of the classic tropes of ballet films — the lushness and lyricism, the determination and competi- tion—andruthlessly twists their classical lines, contorting themwith gothic horror that only grows more brutal as Nina’s interior life becomesmoreunhinged. As he did with “TheWrestler,” Aronof-
skyoftenfilmsPortmanfrombehindwith ahandheld camera, anelaborationonthe entire film’s immersive point of view. (That oblique style is particularly well suitedhere,wherePortman’s carriageand posture express somuch, not tomention an impressively sculpted trapezius.)With imageandsound—especiallythosefamil- iar booming strains of Tchaikovsky — “Black Swan” wraps filmgoers in a world where some of the toughest athletes on the planet push and pummel themselves into making the most strenuous feats seemeffortless. It’s also a world of nearly incurable
narcissism, a theme Aronofsky and pro- duction designer Therese DePrez elabo- rateinthecountlessmirrors that,withthe black-and-white color scheme, make up the film’s chief
visualmotifs.Ninamay be entranced by her own reflection but inca- pable of loving herself; early in “Black Swan,” Leroy posits that she’ll never be a truly great dancer until she frees herself sexually. Aronofsky, like Nina herself, la- bors too obviously to drive that point
JOE ANDERSON/IFC FILMS
MOREPSYCHODRAMA:David Call and Lena Dunham in “Tiny Furniture.”
NIKO TAVERNISE/FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES
PRIMA POISE: WinonaRyder as Beth, an aging ballerina in Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” a psychological thriller on female ambition within the ballet world.
home, and in a few scenes allows literal- ism to get in the way of what could have beenleft tantalizingly ambiguous. These fewmisfiresdo little to break the
spell cast by “Black Swan,” which despite its flaws delivers the most sensitive and observant portrayals of female ambiva- lence in recentmemory.Of all the raptur- ous, haunting and outright frightening scenes in “Black Swan,” by far the most memorable iswhenNina callshermother froma bathroomstall to share a piece of important news. Before that episode and after, Portman delivers an uncompromis- ing performance, whether she’s called on to be fragile or recklessly bold. But that moment onthephone bespeaks complete emotional transparency, conveying vul- nerability, terror and surpassing joy all at once. The episode also makes utterly palpa-
ble Nina’s tortured relationship to her own incipient power. And that troubled dynamic plays out most mythically
Relentlessly charging on the Fox News hunt
brock from C1
read another. “REPORT: Fox donates at least $40
million in airtime to potentialGOP presi- dential candidates,” read a third on a posting that cited Media Matters’ esti- mate of the value of airtime soaked up by Fox commentators/would-be presiden- tial candidates Palin, Mike Huckabee, John Bolton, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. The dogged pursuit of Fox, saysMedia
Matters’ founder David Brock, reflects not just the cable network’s popularity among conservatives but its power to set, and perhaps distort, the political agenda. Brock and his staff say they regard Fox as something more than just the televised equivalent of talk radio; they describe it as a de facto political operation, with a leading role in disseminating conserva- tive messages, supporting conservative candidates andmobilizing voters. “I don’t consider it a media institu-
tion,” Brock says. “It’s a political institu- tion that [FoxNews Chief Executive Rog- er] Ailes created after Obama came into office. . . .We’re here to counter their lies andmisinformation.” Brock is a story unto himself. A former
journalist-turned-political operative, he made his name in the 1990s as a self-de- scribed conservative “hit man,” with scathing exposes of Anita Hill (his book was titled, “The Real Anita Hill”) and of Bill Clinton and his accuser, Paula Jones. In the latter part of the decade, howev-
er, he disavowed his conservative convic- tions and became a liberal. His conver- sion was recounted in a confessional book, “Blinded by theRight.” Fox’s hosts haven’t been shy about
firing back atMediaMatters—apparent- ly to Media Matters’ delight. The group keeps an archive of Fox’s periodic attacks on the organization on the front page of its Web site. One is a clip of “Fox and Friends” morning host Steve Doocy dis- missingMediaMatters as “a blog nobody reads.”O’Reilly, a frequentMediaMatters target, has called the organization “a vile propaganda outfit.” (Fox did not respond to repeated requests for comment.) As colorful as the tit-for-tat battle is, it
may be just the foreground noise of a larger war between rival billionaires. In one corner: Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive and principal shareholder of News Corp., Fox’s parent company. In the other:GeorgeSoros, thewildly successful investor whose philanthropic organiza- tion, theOpenSociety Institute,has fund- ed many of the organizations that Fox’s personalities like to attack, includingMe- diaMatters. Both elderly (Murdoch is 79, Soros is
80),bothimmigrants (Murdochwasborn in Australia, Soros in Hungary), the two men nevertheless are separated by a vast ideological chasm. Soros is an avowed liberal who has used his wealth to fight totalitarian regimes in Europe and fund progressivegroups
athome.Murdochis a nearly lifelong conservative who has spent decades building a media empire, often clashing with establishment rivals such as the BBC and America’s leading broadcast networks.
Foxhasbeenamerciless criticofSoros,
with Beck in the lead. Inmid-November, Beck devoted three episodes of his TV program and several of his syndicated radio programs to detailing how he be- lieves Soros is subverting American de- mocracy. (Beck’s false assertion that So- ros was a Nazi collaborator as an adoles- cent brought a denunciation from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League.) Beck has repeatedly fulminated against one of Soros’s favorite recipients, the Tides Foundation, a San Francisco-based non- profit involved in environmental and hu- man-rights projects. Fox also was quick to make a connec-
tionbetweenSoros’sdonationof$1.8mil- lion to NPR in the days before NPR fired commentator JuanWilliams for remarks that Williams made on O’Reilly’s pro- gram. In the wake of Williams’ firing, O’Reilly and other Fox hosts launched an extraordinarily ferocious seriesofdenun- ciations of NPR, repeatedly calling for Congress to eliminate its federal funding. InOctober,Sorosdonated$1millionto
Media Matters, saying that he hoped his money would be used to combat Fox’s “incendiary rhetoric” and “ tomorewide- ly publicize the challenge FoxNews poses to civil and informed discourse in our democracy.” In recent weeks, Media Matters has
gone from simply publicizing what it deems to be Fox’s misinformation to ac- tively campaigning against the network. The organization has posted aWeb page with an online petition that asks Fox’s advertisers to “Drop Fox,” that is, stop sponsoring the network. Brock says the campaign, which pre-
dates Soros’s contribution toMediaMat- ters, is justified by Fox’s refusal to rein in Beck. Brock and Media Matters blame Beck for inciting violent threats against the Tides Foundation, as well as a shoot- out in July between California police and a gunman who authorities said intended to attack Tides’ headquarters. Tides chief executive and founder, Drummond Pike, has endorsedMediaMatters’ campaign. “Every sponsor of every Fox show
should be put on notice that this insanity is being underwritten by [advertisers],” Brock says. He adds: “If Beck isn’t stopped, I thinkwe’ll have another Okla- homa City [bombing] in this country.” Media Matters used similar pressure
tactics last year in its campaign against another controversialTVpersonality, for- mer CNNhost LouDobbs. Joiningwith a coalition of Latino and liberal organiza- tions, it askedDobbs’s advertisers to stop supporting what the groups saw as his demonization of undocumentedworkers and his determination to keep alive ques- tionsaboutObama’sbirthcertificate long after the so-called “birther” movement had been discredited. The coalition
through her encounters with three wom- en: Lily; an embittered, aging ballerina named Beth (Winona Ryder); and espe- cially Erica, whose engulfing love and resentment of her daughter form “Black Swan’s” most potent psychological accel- erant. Erica, a former dancerwho gaveupher
career to have Nina, could be the direct descendant of ShirleyMacLaine’sDeedee in “The Turning Point.” As personified by Hershey inadeliciouslymenacingperfor- mance, Erica takes mixed feelings to a new level ofmenace and enmeshment. In a movie where boundaries have a way of slipping and sliding into one another, the cozy,crampedapartmentwhereEricaand Ninahashout theirOedipalbattlesbegins to resemble less a haven than a toxic cocoon. Like just about everything in “Black
Swan,” Aronofsky executes this familiar butdistorteddomestictableauwithpreci- sion, skill and feeling that would please
even Nina’smost severe inner critic. Like his heroine, Aronofsky teeters on the brink of greatness; unlike her, he doesn’t hesitate to swing for the rafters to achieve it.
What a felicitous accident that not one
but two fine films open today in which mother-daughter psychodrama plays out in a stylishNew York apartment—in this case, the snowy expanse of a white-on- white loft. “Tiny Furniture,” Lena Dun- ham’s sharply observed semi-autobio- graphicalmovie about growing upwith a famous artist,mines that dynamic for all the wry comedy that “Black Swan” es- chews for sadistichorror. Dunham plays Aura, a recent college
graduatewhomoves back into the down- townManhattan apartment of her child- hood; there, she battles for turf, attention and approval fromhermother Siri (Dun- ham’s real-life mother Laurie Simmons) and her overachieving teenage sister Na- dine (Dunham’s sister Grace). The title of the film refers to Simmons’s signature photographs of carefully staged vignettes withdollhouse furniture. Filmed entirely on a consumer-grade
still/videocamera, “TinyFurniture” earns points for resourcefulness, even when it succumbs to indie-cliche rants about “life” and self-conscious quirkiness.Dun- ham possesses a fresh, mordantly hip sense of humor (HBOhaswisely snagged her to co-produce a serieswith Judd Apa- tow)andusesit todefuseevenAura’smost sobering, self-destructive behavior. But nowhere are the filmmaker’s eye
and ear more finely attuned than in the fraught relationship between Aura and Siri, a volatile dyad constantly on the verge of collapsing from the weight of Siri’s fiercely defended ego and Aura’s unresolved craving for attention and ap- proval. “Did you ever have a job that wasn’t
takingpicturesof stupidtiny crap?!”Aura shouts during a hilarious, cringe-worthy argument in “Tiny Furniture.” It’s the direct mirror-image of Nina shouting, “I’mthe Swan Queen! You never even got out of the corps,” tohermother. Compared with the extravagance, pa-
thology and hysterical emotional pitch of Aronofsky’s fractured fairy tale, Dun- ham’s small-borewars for personal space and bouts of self-sabotage strike an au- thentic, bracingly quotidian chord. As a disarming testament to attachment, anxi- etyandambition, “TinyFurniture”proves that youdon’thave to be a swanto stretch out andsoar.
hornadaya@washpost.com
BlackSwan rrr½
(103minutes, at AMCGeorgetown, Landmark E Street and LandmarkBethesdaRow) is ratedR for strong sexual content, disturbing violent images, profanity and some drug use.
TinyFurniture rrr
(98minutes, atWest EndCinema) is not rated. It contains sexuality, profanity and some drug use.
6
ONWASHINGTONPOST.COMTowatch the trailer for “Black Swan,” go to
washingtonpost.com/style.
C5
campaign’s rapid-response operation. At the first sign of controversy, the group respondswithsourcedandverifiedinfor- mation quickly. Rabin-Havt, the 31-year-old head of
research, points proudly to Media Mat- ters’ response to news of Elena Kagan’s nomination to theU.S. Supreme Court in May.Within two hours of the news leak- ing, the grouphadposteda fulldossieron Kagan’s legal and personal history, in- cluding facts about her decision to bar military recruiters from Harvard Law School when she served as its dean. He believes that the quick turnaround “blunted the attacks” onKagan. Media Matters can mount such re-
KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST
BATTLE-READY: Ari Rabin-Havt,MediaMatters’ head of research, says his organization seeks to fight FoxNews’ fire with facts.
claimed victory last November when Dobbs resigned from CNN (he recently joined Fox Business Channel), but it’s unclear whether the “Drop Dobbs” effort was responsible. At the time, Dobbs’s ratings had been declining and the host was at oddswith the network over CNN’s attempts to tone down his program. Nevertheless, Media Matters has
shown that it can generate heat. The organizationwas instrumental instirring up themedia stormthat surrounded and eventually engulfed radio personalityDr. Laura Schlessinger in August, for exam- ple. Schlessinger, responding to an Afri- can American caller, repeatedly used the n-wordonthe airduring a segment ofher daily show. The incident might have es- caped notice hadMediaMatters not dug up audio of Schlessinger’s comments and posted it on its Web site (the group was tippedabout the comments by anAfrican American journalist who had taken of- fense, says Ari Rabin-Havt, Media Mat- ters’ head of research). A few days after the flap,Schlessinger announcedthat she would quit her syndicated show at year’s end. Media Matters’ other greatest hit was
its role in the controversy surrounding DonImus,whose infamous “nappy-head- ed hos” comment about the RutgersUni- versity women’s basketball team explod- ed in 2007. The remark might have passed, too, ifMediaMatters hadn’t post- ed an audio clip and called attention to it after complaints by a group of African American journalists. The avalanche of media coverage led MSNBC and CBS
“Every sponsor of every Fox show should be put on notice that this insanity is being underwritten by [advertisers].”
—David Brock, head of Media Matters, discussing the group’s campaign to get advertisers to “Drop Fox,” and stop sponsoring the network
Radio to drop Imus’s program. Formany years, themost vigorous and
forceful media criticism has tended to come fromthe right rather than the left. Liberal critics were overshadowed by conservative organizations, such as the lateReed Irvine’sAccuracy inMedia, that saw liberal favoritism in much of the mainstreammedia’s reporting. The right is still active,of
course.These
days, the best-known and best-funded conservativewatchdogmay be theMedia Research Center of Alexandria. TheMRC has been tracking alleged instances of left-wing bias since 1987, and publishes a feisty blog,
Newsbusters.org, which re- ports on and comments about the news media,much asMediaMatters does. Suffice to say there isn’tmuch love lost
between the two nonprofit groups. Brent Bozell, theMRC’s founder and president, declined to be interviewed for this story, but issued a statement through a spokes- personreading, “MediaMattershasprov- en itself to be nothing more than a disreputable extension of the radical lib- eral megaphone, as evidenced by their outright lies, fabrications and character assassinations. TheMediaResearch Cen- ter will have nothing to do with this group.” Bozell did not cite specific in- stancesof fabricationsor characterassas- sination byMediaMatters. Thanks to constant and effective fund-
raising appeals, Media Matters has sur- passed the MRC to become the largest organization of its kind. It fields a staff of 80 (and has 20 unfilled positions, accord- ing to Brock), which includes dozens of analysts and researchers. A related but legally separateorganization,MediaMat- ters Action Network, tracks conservative political figures and advocacy organiza- tions. Working in shifts starting at 5 a.m. and
going until 1 a.m., Media Matters’ re- searchers churn out about 400 pieces of commentary and other content each day. The teams are organized like a political
sponsesbecausetheorganizationis flush. Brockreports that theumbrellaorganiza- tion raised $23 million this year, a huge leap from its initial funding of $3.5 mil- lion in 2004. In addition to Soros’s $1 million, Media Matters is underwritten by suchprominent liberaldonorsasPeter Lewis, the chairmanofProgressive Insur- ance; Susie Tompkins Buell, co-founder of the Esprit clothing company and a close allyofHillaryRodhamClinton;Rob Glaser, the founder ofRealNetworks; Ra- chel Pritzker Hunter, of themultibillion- aire Pritzker family; and Coloradomulti- millionaires Tim Gill and Pat Stryker. Other donors have not been publicly disclosed. Brock has been so adept at raising
money that he’s branching out. A new political actioncommittee, separate from MediaMatters,will raisemoney to create and run political advertising during the
2012campaign.Thenewgroup,knownas AmericanBridge, has about $4million in pledges. It will be chaired by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former lieuten- ant governor ofMaryland and the eldest ofRobert
F.Kennedy’s children. Despite Fox’s frequent caricature of
Media Matters as “far left,” Brock’s em- brace of such centrist Democrats sug- gests his group’s politics aren’t radical. Dan Kennedy, a liberal press critic and professor of journalism at Northeastern University, says Media Matters’ work tends to be “well researched,” and not nearly as ideologically driven as another left-leaningpresswatchdog,Fairnessand Accuracy in Media. “I read [Media Mat- ters] fairly frequently and the picture I get is that they aremore partisan Demo- crat than really liberal,”Kennedy says. Rabin-Havt, a former aide to a series of
prominent Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader HarryM. Reid (D-Nev.), doesn’t expect Fox tomoderate its rheto- ric anytime soon. But there’s not much Media Matters can do about that, nor is that the goal, he says. Instead, the idea is to fight Fox’s firewith facts, and to isolate itsperiodicbroadsideswithinthe conser- vative media. He describes a landscape richwith distortions, fromthe Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry’s Vietnam-era ser- vice in 2004 to the false notion that Obama is secretly aMuslim. “Misinformation is dangerous when it
metastasizes,” Rabin-Havt says. “Fox is going to lie with impunity. Rush Lim-
baughisgoingtolie.Theproblemiswhen a story jumps from Fox News to CNN or the New York Times or The Washington Post.Our jobis theheadthesethingsoffat the pass.”
farhip@washpost.com D
SEEMOREONLINE Towatch the several of the videos discussed in this story, go to
washingtonpost.com/style.
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