Duality
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| The White Swan |
Tonight I watched Black Swan for the first time. It was an interesting film that delved into some fascinating topics and was beautifully and artistically done. Natalie Portman completely deserves her Oscar®. But as much as I love her, she’s not what I want to talk about.
This film is about a dancer who is cast as The Swan Queen in Swan Lake. For those of you who don’t know about the basic plot here it is: This beautiful and naïve virgin is trapped into the body of a swan. Only true love can free her. Unfortunately her prince is seduced by the Black Swan, a seductive twin played by the same dancer. In the end the White Swan only finds freedom in her own suicide.
Natalie’s character Nina, who very much typifies the character of the White Swan, finds herself in the demanding pressure of playing both parts all the while under the overbearing burdens given to her from her director, her mother, and her understudy. In an effort to achieve perfection, Nina loses her mind as she becomes the two characters she so desperately strives to portray – alternating between the innocence and fragility of the White Swan and the seduction and violence of the Black Swan throughout the film. Her schizophrenia causes her to lose herself and give the performance of a lifetime. Even her fading words, “I felt it. Perfect. I was perfect,” convey the completeness of her transformation.
I find the film a beautiful description of what actors and artists really strive to do, though parts of it clearly don’t fit my taste. But I think what is really interesting is the subject of duality that the film breaches. The Black and White Swans live within each of us. And we are acutely aware of the battles they wage inside. Here is why I love the film: Nina’s complete embrace of both the swans as absolute and complete opposites is the destruction of her. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde portrays a similar ruin as Dr. Jekyll releases his darker side out as Mr. Hyde.
King Benjamin taught, “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19)
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| The Black Swan |
It’s easy to see how the complexity of the internal wars that are waged inside of each of us makes its way into so many works of art. Even God has something to say about it. So how are we to deal with all of this? We are literally Children of God living in very real, very carnal bodies. Is there any way that such powerful opposition can be dealt with? Is there any harmony to our being? Thankfully yes. Most of our problems come when we deal solely with one aspect of our dual nature. As we do so we become slaves to passions or pass our lives as hermits in isolation. Neither is what God intended.
We have to remember that He also taught that “the spirit and the body are the soul of man” (D&C 88:15). This union is what makes us happy. The spirit and the body are enriched and taught by one another. There are times for the proper expression of physical desires and appetites. There are other times of spiritual transcendence. But it is the union of these two natures that brings fulfillment. This is why we were sent here to learn and this was one of the lessons our Father intends us to master.
Neither the ignorant naïvety of the White Swan nor the base sensuality of the Black Swan captures who we are. The dichotomy that spirit is good and body is evil is not true either. I hope we never forget that. Because while the embrace of either side or both sides of our duality as separate and extreme can lead to fantastic performances, it will ultimately be our destruction. It is the proper treatment and sanctity for their combination that brings enlightenment. “For the spirit and body are the soul of man.”
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