question of the day: Does it make any difference to ‘Black Swan’ if Natalie Portman did not do most of the dancing herself?

Let’s assume that all entirely 100 percent true. Does it change the power of Portman’s performance? Is the impact of it in the dancing, or in the changes the character goes through that aren’t about dance but about competition and jealous and the drive for perfection and so on, things that are incidental to the dancing (and could easily be attached to another professional endeavor)? We can perhaps agree that it might be unfair if the makers of the film have downplayed an important contribution from one of the people who helped make the film, but is that a matter merely of offscreen gossip, or does it make you change your opinion of the film -- for better or for worse -- or of Portman’s performance?

Does it make any difference to Black Swan if Natalie Portman did not do most of the dancing herself?

For me, it doesn’t. I never thought Mark Hamill was really flying an X-wing. I never thought Ray Liotta was actually a gangster. But the collective power of the movie surrounding them created the illusion that they were. Some of that illusion is created by actors, some by special FX, some by other people talented in myriad ways. Surely what matters is the total illusion, not the breakdown of who created which part of it.

Or am I wrong? What do you think?

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