Orlando (film)

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Movie
German title Orlando
Original title Orlando
Country of production Great Britain , France , Italy , Netherlands , Russia
original language English
Publishing year 1992
length 94 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Sally Potter
script Sally Potter
production Christopher Sheppard
music David Motion
Sally Potter
camera Aleksei Rodionov
cut Hervé Schneid
occupation

Orlando is a film drama from 1992. This European co-production was directed by Sally Potter , who co-composed the music and wrote the screenplay based on the novel Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928).

action

Orlando, a young androgynous nobleman and poet, lives in the time of Queen Elizabeth I , whose favor he wins. Shortly before her death in 1603, she calls him to her deathbed. It promises him a large country estate that will always remain in the possession of his heirs, as well as a generous sum of money, and it makes the following condition: “Don't die. Don't wilt away. Don't get old. ”Orlando accepts the gift, lives alone in his castle for a long time and deals with poetry and art. An attempt to get in contact with a famous poet fails after he ridiculed Orlando's verses. He receives a position as ambassador and travels to Constantinople , the capital of the Osoman Empire , gets caught in an uproar, is almost killed and passed out. A week later he regains consciousness and realizes that he has become a woman. He / she calls himself Lady Orlando from now on .

In England, their rights to the country estate are being challenged as Orlando, the man, is considered to be the legal owner. Orlando loses her property, the years go by, she is unlucky in love, and then begins a relationship with Captain Shelmerdine. The plot ends in the 20th century. Orlando now has a daughter who films the world around her while Orlando watches. She is sitting under the oak tree that the poem is about, which she worked on all her life. The book is finished and she is now looking for a publisher to publish it.

The Great Hall at Hatfield House

shape

The film is interrupted by seven subtitles: 1600-death; 1610-love; 1650-poetry; 1700-politics; 1750 society; 1850 sex; birth . Orlando breaks through the Fourth Wall a total of four times ; H. he / she addresses the audience directly: we look at Orlando, and he looks and speaks to us.

production

Financing the film turned out to be difficult, as the filming of Virginia Woolf's book was generally not considered possible. Thereupon Potter put Tilda Swinton in historical costumes, had them photographed at historical locations and sent a storyboard lavishly furnished with these pictures , edition of 100, to potential donors. The necessary money was collected through this “crowdfounding”. Christopher Sheppard produced the film. Sheppard was the owner of the Adventure Pictures production company , which primarily produced documentaries, specialized in low-budget films, and in which Sally Potter had been involved since 1990. The company's first feature film was Orlando.

The production cost was £ 6.5 million. The film grossed $ 5,319,445 internationally.

script

Sally Potter, who had read the novel as a teenager, had already written the first treatment for a film in 1987 . Sally Potter and Tilda Swinton began their joint project of filming the novel before a finished script for the film was even available. Their collaboration lasted five years before they started making the film.

Casting

The title role played Tilda Swinton, who was instrumental in the making of the film. The role of King Elizabeth was cast with 84-year-old Quentin Crisp, an icon of the London and New York gay scene at the time. The role of Desdemona in the theater scene is - as was customary in the Elizabethan theater - also occupied by a man.

For Toby Stephens, who made his theatrical debut in London's West End in Molières Tartuffe , directed by Peter Hall , in 1992, “Orlando” was also the debut as a film actor. It plays a short excerpt from the last scene of Act 5 of the tragedy Othello by William Shakespeare. For Toby Jones , who plays a servant, "Orlando" was the film debut. Orlando's daughter is played by Tilda Swinton's niece, Jessica Swinton.

Rod

The set designers Ben van Os and Jan Roelfs , as well as the costume designer Sandy Powell, were responsible for the opulent equipment of the film - despite the tight budget . Powell, who received her first Oscar nomination with Orlando , which was to be followed by three Oscar wins in addition to 14 other nominations, put, as the film critic of the NZZ writes, "with her exaggerated historical costumes the director's ideas masterfully". The characteristic of the fashion of the respective epoch is ironically quoted, or playfully and subtly parodied. Even Ben van Os and January Roelfs who worked together as a set designer for the cinema since 1983, received an Oscar nomination.

Sally Potter first worked with Russian cinematographer Alexey Rodionov (* 1947) in Orlando , and it was Rodionov's first ever feature film with a Western director. In 2004 Potter and Rodionov made two more movies with Yes and in 2017 with The Party .

The French editor Hervé Schneid was responsible for the film editing , with whom Potter worked closely for several weeks and she expressly praised “his great sensitivity to the goals of the script and the director”. Schneid was also editor in Potter's films Tango Fever (1997) and In Stormy Times (2000).

Locations

The film was shot in various locations in England (Hatfield House, Hampton Court ), in Saint Petersburg and in Uzbekistan .

Film music

Potter developed the film music in the studio together with David Motion. Their joint compositions were performed by a chamber ensemble consisting of strings, trumpet, flugelhorn, woodwinds and harpsichord. Fred Frith played the guitar and guitar improvisations .

"Eliza is the Fairest Queen" is a ballad by Edward Johnson , who worked from 1572 to 1601 in England. It is sung by Jimmy Somerville ( falsetto ) when Orlando first meets Queen Elizabeth. Somerville also sings “I am coming! I am coming! ”, A ballad by David Motion and Sally Potter. Countertenor Andrew Watts (* 1967) sings the aria "Where 'ere you Walk" from the opera " Semele " by Georg Friedrich Handel , accompanied by Peter Hayward on the harpsichord.

In 1993 Varese Sarabande Records released a CD with the original score from Potter and Motion, but the CD misses "Where 'ere you Walk" and "Eliza is the Fairest Queen".

publication

The world premiere, which took place on September 1, 1992 at the Venice International Film Festival , was followed on September 16, 1992 by a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival . In 2005 Arthaus produced a German dubbed version. In 2010 Sony Pictures released a DVD of the film with extensive bonus material. It contains selected scenes with commentaries by Sally Potter, documentaries of the scenes shot in Russia and Uzbekistan, excerpts from the press conference in Venice and an interview with Sally Potter on the occasion of the 1992 premiere in Toronto.

Awards

The film won 15 film awards and was nominated for 11 more. In 1994 he was nominated for an Oscar in the categories of Best Production Design and Best Costume Design .

Sally Potter received two prizes at the Venice International Film Festival in 1992 and three prizes (including the FIPRESCI Prize ) from the Thessaloniki Film Festival , where Tilda Swinton was also awarded for her performance. Potter won the Best Picture Award at the 1993 Sitges Festival Internacional de Cinema de Catalunya and the Golden Space Needle Award of the Seattle International Film Festival, as well as the European Film Prize , for which Tilda Swinton was also nominated, and the 1993 Donatello won.

The film itself was nominated for the Political Film Society Award for Human Rights in 1994. Sally Potter received a 1994 Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Foreign Film. Sandy Powell , who was responsible for the costumes, received the Evening Standard British Film Award in 1994 and was nominated for the BAFTA Award , which Morag Ross was awarded for the make-up.

reception

Reviews

Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times on July 9, 1993 that Orlando was one of those films one would want to talk about after seeing them. It does not show an act, but a "vision of human existence". The direction shows "calm elegance".

The lexicon of international film believes that the film is a "film adaptation of a novel designed with aesthetic compositions and great acting skills" and offers an "ironic-critical reflection of the social domination of men and the growing emancipatory consciousness of women". He was "more successful in illustrating Woolf's man-woman dialectics than in adopting the poetic time interleaving technique."

On Rotten Tomatoes , the film scored 84% based on 58 film reviews.

Exhibitions

In 2012, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London showed Hollywood Costume in its exhibition curated by Deborah Nadoolman , which was worn by Quentin Crisp in his role as Queen Elisabeth. In 2014 the exhibition was shown a second time at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

In May 2019, the New York Aperture Gallery presented a photo exhibition curated by Tilda Swinton with the title Orlando , with around 60 photographs by a total of 11 artists. The photographs, some of which were specially commissioned for this show, vary the themes of identity and metamorphosis in the context of Virginia Woolf's novel and Sally Potter's film. In the exhibition were u. a. Works by Lynn Hershman-Leeson , Mickalene Thomas (* 1971), Elle Pérez (* 1989), Walter Pfeiffer and Viviane Sassen are shown. The photo series by Collier Schorr (* 1963) documents the transformation of the model Casil McArthur from a feminine-looking young man into a young girl.

In 2019/20 the Literaturhaus München took over the exhibition in a slightly modified form.

literature

  • Virginia Woolf : Orlando, A Biography (Original title: Orlando) . German by Brigitte Walitzek. Edited and commented by Klaus Reichert (special edition). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007. ISBN 978-3-596-17363-1 or ISBN 3-596-17363-9
  • Nadine Milde: It (doesn't) play a role. "Orlando" revisited , in: Feminism Revisited. Issue 25. 2010. pp. 251-267. (Freiburg journal for gender studies.)
  • Christina Lane: The compromised sexual positioning of Orlando. Postmodern play in gender and filmic conventions. In: Australian Screen Education. No. 31. 2003.
  • Earl G. Ingersoll: Screening Woolf. Virginia Woolf on / and / in film . Madison, Teaneck: Farleigh Dickinson Univ. Press. 2017. ISBN 978-1-61147-970-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Laurynas Navidauskas: Cinematic Prosthesis. History, Memory and Sally Potter's Orlando cinephile.ca, accessed August 25, 2020
  2. ↑ Evelyn Vogel: XY ungelöst , Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 7, 2019, accessed on August 4, 2020
  3. ^ British Film Institute
  4. ↑ box office mojo
  5. ↑ a b Marisa Buovolo: Man is man. And suddenly a woman. Sally Potter's cinema is blurring boundaries everywhere Neue Zürcher Zeitung, September 18, 2019, accessed on August 18, 2020
  6. ↑ IMDb
  7. ↑ Orlando - Dir. Sally Potter, starring Tilda Swinton - Part 1: Summary and interpretation; Culture Vulture Reviews image gallery , accessed on August 22, 2020
  8. ↑ Orlando - Costume design by Sandy Powell and Dien van Straalen, Image Gallery , Culture Vulture Reviews, accessed August 22, 2020
  9. ↑ Hervé Schneid , The Tango Lesson, Sony Picture Classics, accessed August 20, 2020
  10. ^ Filming locations for Orlando , accessed August 16, 2020
  11. ↑ a b Clare Nina Norelli: Scores on Screen. The Soundscapes of "Orlando" MUBI.com., April 25, 2018, accessed August 1, 2020
  12. ↑ IMDb
  13. ↑ Original Motion Picture Soundtrack , accessed August 3, 2020
  14. ↑ Orlando , DVDtalk.com, accessed August 6, 2020
  15. ^ Film review by Roger Ebert , accessed June 16, 2008
  16. ↑ Orlando. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  17. ↑ Orlando at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
  18. ↑ Rebecca Keegan: The costumes are the stars of film academy exhibit Los Angeles Times, September 26, 2014, accessed August 22, 2020
  19. ↑ Ted Loos: Inspired by Virginia Woolf, Curated by Tilda Swinton The New York Times, June 26, 2019, accessed August 22, 2020
  20. ↑ Evelyn Vogel: xy unresolved Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 7, 2019, accessed on August 22, 2020