"Sometimes I let him do the wide shots..."

"Looks like you're seeing double." -- Lucas Lee, "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World"

I just came across this article on IMDB.com. It discusses the recent controversy amongst the media world that Natalie Portman didn't do the bulk of the ballet scenes in "Black Swan" herself. Apparently Portman's body double, Sarah Lane, says the majority of what you see in the movie is not Portman dancing, and that people are making Portman out to be some sort of "prodigy" for having completed a year and a half of ballet training, which is 20 and a half years less than how long Lane's been dancing.

My opinion? The gifted double is jealous of the star. It's a tale as old as time. Sarah Lane is proud of her work, and she doesn't fancy being overshadowed by her Oscar-winning colleague. That makes sense, right?

My question: what's the big deal? So Natalie Portman didn't do all her own dancing in the movie she won an Oscar for. Who cares? This is nothing new - actors portraying exceptional performers have traditionally had doubles, most of the time. It's not a matter of laziness on the part of the actor, it's a matter of safety. If your actor sustains an injury performing something they haven't been trained throughout their lives to do, you may be S.O.L. during filming. Just ask Adrian Lyne, Brian Gibson, or Gary Ross. Does the fact that she didn't do all the stunts mean that her Oscar was any less deserved? She still had me convinced she was a dedicated dancer... she also gave the best performance of all the actresses I saw last year, and she deserved all the awards she won. In my humble opinion, anyway...

Who cares if our favorite actors don't do their own stunts? What matters is that their performances affect us on an undeniable, visceral level, and isn't that what movies are all about? Truthfully, I'm excited Portman won the Oscar for playing such an unconventional Hollywood character, in a normally-too-trippy-for-Hollywood movie. I think that's a pretty big step forward for Hollywood, and I hope the trend keeps up.

What do you guys think?


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[Picture: http://www.filmsavior.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/BlackSwan-Portman-Mirror.jpg]