More on Tilda, finally.
Not that anyone cares [insert Luke Skywalker saying, "I care."], but since last week I have been meaning to post something about the Tilda Swinton visit, so here are some recollections.
Swinton was asked about her early acting experiences at the Royal Shakespeare Co. (She went to friggin Cambridge, and then to the RSC -- oh, and apparently she went to boarding school with Lady Diana.) At the RSC, she began working with an experimental filmmaker, Derek Jarman, who directed her first film, Caravaggio, and she went on to star in a bunch of his films, and apparently learned everything she knows about independent filmmaking from him (a director whose films dealt frankly with issues of sexuality, including his own losing battle with AIDS in the early 90s). Part of the reason for Swinton's visit is a documentary on Jarman that she's currently working on with a Pitt English/film professor (whom I had last spring for my adaptation seminar).
She talked about being very involved in getting Orlando made. Apparently it took about five years for Sally Potter and Swinton to write the adaptation of Woolf's novel and get funding -- they went all over the world trying to get funding and ended up with primarily Russian money, oddly enough -- and she said they basically made it up as they went along. She even bought some of her costumes, putting more money into the film than she ever made. This seemed to be a big theme for her -- if you want to get a film made, just get creative and find ways to get shit done. "Embrace chaos," were her exact words.
When she talked about making Narnia, she said it was exciting for her to get a chance to be "inside the machine"; meaning, inside a giant studio (Disney) production. And I thought that was an interesting way to look at it, for a primarily independent film actress/producer to want to understand how the big budget films work. She said the main difference with the big ones is that by the time shooting begins, "the creativity has happened months ago." In other words, if the script calls for a sunny day, the entire cast and crew must wait for the sun to come out, whereas with a small budget film, if it's supposed to be a sunny day in the script, but it happens to be raining on the day of shooting, you shoot in the rain and change the story on-the-fly. The creativity is happening now as opposed to months ago, which is what she meant by "embracing chaos."
She said the big budget production experience is sort of like "two really slow giants putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle" -- I love that image. But she also pointed to the spontaneity and on-the-fly creativity happening on the part of the visual effects people, and in some sense on the part of the director who was doing live action for the first time (he'd only done animated features). She said some of the visual effects people were inventing new programs every day -- esp. for creating the lion. (She referred them as brilliantly creative fourteen-year-olds who'd been doing this stuff since they were about three).
I thought she had a great attitude in general about being part of a Disney film (which is not usually synonymous with great artistry or complexity). She said if it can help her other, smaller films, then great; if she is now more sought-after because of playing the White Witch, the independent films she does might get more attention. And she also didn't want to pass up the opportunity to play the White Witch, because who would pass that up, and because her now-deceased mentor, Derek Jarman, had loved The Wizard of Oz and alluded to it in his films, and he loved Margaret Hamilton's iconic Wicked Witch. So taking the role was in some ways to honor him, to become another iconic Hollywood witch.
Anyway, the overall impression I got from her was her passion; when she becomes passionate about a director or a project, she helps make it happen, figuring things out as she goes along. This also seems to be her approach to motherhood, which I thought was sort of refreshing -- not annoyingly pretending to have the perfect life, but just sort of muddling though and doing what feels right in the moment.
And I think that's all I have to say on Tilda Swinton.
Swinton was asked about her early acting experiences at the Royal Shakespeare Co. (She went to friggin Cambridge, and then to the RSC -- oh, and apparently she went to boarding school with Lady Diana.) At the RSC, she began working with an experimental filmmaker, Derek Jarman, who directed her first film, Caravaggio, and she went on to star in a bunch of his films, and apparently learned everything she knows about independent filmmaking from him (a director whose films dealt frankly with issues of sexuality, including his own losing battle with AIDS in the early 90s). Part of the reason for Swinton's visit is a documentary on Jarman that she's currently working on with a Pitt English/film professor (whom I had last spring for my adaptation seminar).
She talked about being very involved in getting Orlando made. Apparently it took about five years for Sally Potter and Swinton to write the adaptation of Woolf's novel and get funding -- they went all over the world trying to get funding and ended up with primarily Russian money, oddly enough -- and she said they basically made it up as they went along. She even bought some of her costumes, putting more money into the film than she ever made. This seemed to be a big theme for her -- if you want to get a film made, just get creative and find ways to get shit done. "Embrace chaos," were her exact words.
When she talked about making Narnia, she said it was exciting for her to get a chance to be "inside the machine"; meaning, inside a giant studio (Disney) production. And I thought that was an interesting way to look at it, for a primarily independent film actress/producer to want to understand how the big budget films work. She said the main difference with the big ones is that by the time shooting begins, "the creativity has happened months ago." In other words, if the script calls for a sunny day, the entire cast and crew must wait for the sun to come out, whereas with a small budget film, if it's supposed to be a sunny day in the script, but it happens to be raining on the day of shooting, you shoot in the rain and change the story on-the-fly. The creativity is happening now as opposed to months ago, which is what she meant by "embracing chaos."
She said the big budget production experience is sort of like "two really slow giants putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle" -- I love that image. But she also pointed to the spontaneity and on-the-fly creativity happening on the part of the visual effects people, and in some sense on the part of the director who was doing live action for the first time (he'd only done animated features). She said some of the visual effects people were inventing new programs every day -- esp. for creating the lion. (She referred them as brilliantly creative fourteen-year-olds who'd been doing this stuff since they were about three).
I thought she had a great attitude in general about being part of a Disney film (which is not usually synonymous with great artistry or complexity). She said if it can help her other, smaller films, then great; if she is now more sought-after because of playing the White Witch, the independent films she does might get more attention. And she also didn't want to pass up the opportunity to play the White Witch, because who would pass that up, and because her now-deceased mentor, Derek Jarman, had loved The Wizard of Oz and alluded to it in his films, and he loved Margaret Hamilton's iconic Wicked Witch. So taking the role was in some ways to honor him, to become another iconic Hollywood witch.
Anyway, the overall impression I got from her was her passion; when she becomes passionate about a director or a project, she helps make it happen, figuring things out as she goes along. This also seems to be her approach to motherhood, which I thought was sort of refreshing -- not annoyingly pretending to have the perfect life, but just sort of muddling though and doing what feels right in the moment.
And I think that's all I have to say on Tilda Swinton.
posted by stephie @ Monday, March 20, 2006
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