I first saw Tilda Swinton 15 years ago. Sitting in a dark lecture hall that doubled as an independent film theater, I watched the surreal cross-dressing dream that was “Orlando” unfurl before my eyes. It was strange and beautiful and fascinating and confusing. Just like Tilda. In fact, that role typifies Tilda’s avant-garde, gender-bending, defiantly-unconventional career. From her lesbian turn in “Female Perversions” to her raw physicality of “Young Adam,” her movies aren’t always easy to watch. Yet it is nearly impossible to take your eyes off her. Perhaps a recent headline from the U.K. paper The Times put it best: “Why Tilda Swinton is pale and interesting.” She has a strikingly intense beauty that quashes the easy accessibility of prettiness. Her angular, avian features belie a ferociousness that simmers just underneath the surface. It made her the perfect White Witch. And while that role introduced her to a lager mainstream audience, those who first saw her 15 years ago, like me, have known all along. She is strange and beautiful and fascinating and confusing. And just try to take your eyes off her. Happy weekend, all.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
My Weekend Crush
I first saw Tilda Swinton 15 years ago. Sitting in a dark lecture hall that doubled as an independent film theater, I watched the surreal cross-dressing dream that was “Orlando” unfurl before my eyes. It was strange and beautiful and fascinating and confusing. Just like Tilda. In fact, that role typifies Tilda’s avant-garde, gender-bending, defiantly-unconventional career. From her lesbian turn in “Female Perversions” to her raw physicality of “Young Adam,” her movies aren’t always easy to watch. Yet it is nearly impossible to take your eyes off her. Perhaps a recent headline from the U.K. paper The Times put it best: “Why Tilda Swinton is pale and interesting.” She has a strikingly intense beauty that quashes the easy accessibility of prettiness. Her angular, avian features belie a ferociousness that simmers just underneath the surface. It made her the perfect White Witch. And while that role introduced her to a lager mainstream audience, those who first saw her 15 years ago, like me, have known all along. She is strange and beautiful and fascinating and confusing. And just try to take your eyes off her. Happy weekend, all.
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7 comments:
Yes, she's fascinating and I find her fantastic to watch - however, Young Adam to me, was a little pretentious - but good weekend crush choice all the same
First to comment, Yay!
intense.
She carried that pale quasi-androngeny into 'Constantine'.
I can't watch anyone else when she's on screen. Orlando was my first contact with her - I was unnerved and hooked! I can't count how many dreadful films I've watched just because she's in them. Dreadful but never dull.
Tilda's not what Hollywood considers (conventionally) beautiful, but I think she's hot. It's the androgyny, and the fact that there's something smoldering just beneath the surface.
In an phase9.tv interview she even said:
[...] p9.tv: Gabriel is portrayed as rather androgynous. Would you say Gabriel is more of a he or a she?
TS: Well the angel Gabriel, as the Book of Daniel said, is in the shape of a man. It doesn’t say he is a man, just says looks like one and I quite often get given a male frisk when I go through the X-ray at airports so I was up for that. And anyway it’s not my idea that I’m impersonating Gabriel, it’s entirely Francis Lawrence’s so you’ll have to blame him for that.
[...]
*sigh*
I love this woman... What is it about English women that attracts me? (yes, and New Englanders too!)...
But explain what Tilda Swinton, Nigella Lawson, Glenn Close and Marcia Cross have in common? I can't seem to put my finger on it...
And yes, I too succumbed to the charms of the delicate but willful Orlando... The final shot with her under the tree with her daughter in that Amelia Earheart outfit... Sigh.
I absolutely love this actress. Loved her in Orlando. Very mesmerizing looks on that one.
Wish she'd be in movies more.
I believe she has blue blood running through her veins.
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