Cultural Review Compare and Contrast Oedipus Rex and Black Swan

¶ … 1960s Italian film Oedipus Rex and the 2010 film Black Swan how each has familiar neuroses and self-mutilations that affect the main characters. In Oedipus Rex, obviously, there is Oedipus who is the only son born to the Queen of Thebes, who gets kidnapped by the order of his own father, and is rescued by the King of Corinth, where he grows into a handsome young man. In Black Swan, there is Nina who has just won the coveted role of the Swan Queen in the up-and-coming ballet Swan Lake, who is grappling with herself to occupy both sides of the Swan Queen as the Black Swan, and the White Swan.

In each film, there are characters who contribute to the neuroses, and sometimes even the self-mutilations, that the characters go through, surround the main characters. For example, in Oedipus Rex, he faces opposition from his father at a young age, who is inexplicably jealous of his son, and hires someone to kidnap Oedipus with the express purpose of killing him. When Oedipus survives from that in childhood and is adopted by another royal family, he decides as a young adult to seek advice from a priestess of Apollo for an explanation of a recurring dream. It is here that he receives a shocking prophecy that influences Oedipus greatly in his actions and mental illness for the rest of the film. For Nina in Black Swan, her main opposition is herself and her fears of letting go into order to embody completely the Black Swan, but she also faces the difficult task of letting go of the unhealthy relationship she has with her mother. Although many of Nina's neuroses are located within her mind, and the audience is never sure if what she sees is real or imaginary, the Director of the company she works for puts tremendous pressure on her to live the role, thus bringing out Nina's self-mutilations, which she does absentmindedly when she is stressed. Also, the main rival to her, Lily, increases Nina's beliefs that someone keeps following her, trying to steal her role as Swan Queen, making her even more desperate to be perfect.

Each film does an excellent job highlighting the innocence or evil in each main character by the use of costume color. In Oedipus Rex, he starts out the film wearing white robes, and after he has wedded his mother and has taken the crown as King, he wears exclusively black robes for the rest of the story. In Black Swan, Nina begins the film wearing various shades of white or pale pastels when she is still comfortable being bland and safe Nina, but once she has totally embraced her Black side, she begins to wear a mix of whites and blacks, cumulating in her Black Swan costume for the stage.