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Edited on Fri Aug-22-08 12:23 AM by swimmernsecretsea
At that time, she was very young, her skin clear as quartz, that Botticelli face moving subtly from impishness to an exposed, terrified agony. She was the heart of the film, mercurial and lovely, the strong center of an avant-garde art film that when she was on screen was incredibly hard not to look at. There's a scene she plays in a ruined, bombed-out building, where she sits forlornly, idly braiding her hair. She seems to stare at nothing, in shock from some terrible event we'll never know about. The camera stays on her for minutes. Her face cracks and what seems like a gravity of pain emerges. I've never forgotten her in that film, and at that moment became a fervent fan of Ms. Swinton.
She appeared in Derek Jarman's films often, his apparent muse. He was right to feature her so often. He was a great talent of course, but having her in his films grounded them. She was the pillar that held up his stories.
I loved that she had such unconventional looks. Those blonde, almost invisible lashes, that firm, set mouth that sometimes looked mean, her forward-jutting chin that could make her look masculine, and that fount of hair that went from bitter orange to spun glass to haystraws. It made her go from delicate and pretty to ugly, and she wasn't afraid of going to "ugly." In "Orlando," she tossed her short red hair into her eyes and looked schoolboy; in the second half of the movie, her discomfiture when she wore the grand pompadour in her life as a woman was hilarious, but then she grew into her natural beauty. I wonder if transgendered people thought of her when they felt themselves change under the pull of hormones introduced into their bodies, and their looks soften or roughen with their attitudes. I understood the emotions that trans people feel better through Tilda.
Her hair was a handful of tentrils in "Constantine" where she played an angel. To me, it was the most remarkable portrayal of an angel I'd seen, and the most interesting and "real." Angels are in in our imaginations. The rules are up to us. Swinton's angel differed from the past movies because being a blank, we could put our feelings about angels on her and see if they fit. Angels aren't usually androgynous, or filled with delight after causing havoc. They're not usually seen as fierce and complex, and maybe not even good. It's a different point of view on the concept, but it moved the story better.
One of my favorite roles, that of the mother in "The Deep End," the mother who hides and protects, is someone anybody who has cared for another person, especially that of a child, could relate to. She was resourceful in a way that we hope we'd be if we ever were confronted with our family in danger. I loved that about her. She was so like a metal knife through the film that when she finally cracks in the end, it is devastating. We've been alongside her while she fought like the proverbial mother bear, and it hurt to see her give in to her own agony. It's similar to her role in "Michael Clayton" in that she his a fiercely strong woman, able to do what is necessary without a moment to think, but whose moral center is tilted off the page.
"Derek," a paean to Derek Jarman, was featured in the Frameline LGBT film festival this year. She introduces the film, briefly discusses her work with Jarman, replays his sources and influences, wanders through places he filmed and lived. Clips of her being candid and frolicing while Jarman filmed her, when she was just a young girl, are heartbreaking when she is seen today and her grief for her friend marks her face. How often does the muse love you back? Swinton improved Jarman's films, and Jarman brought out her wild talent.
What I love about Swinton; androgynous, brave, watchable, gender-neutral, a mirror, a painting, strength, pain, vulnerability, inventiveness....a master of acting. I have no idea how to define a great actress or a great performance. It's difficult to pin down. But I think when you forget you're looking through a frame at someone doing a performance, when your hands inadvertently move forward because you wished you could put a hand on her arm to comfort her, when you feel your back arch in surprise or anger at her work, or just get amazed at what you saw because nobody ever moved you like that, then I say she is great.
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