“having lived a most bizarre existence, yet having found a tranquil niche within it”
Orlando (Tilda Swinton) in the film Orlando, originally uploaded by sallypotter.com.
Tilda Swinton played a genderbending character in the film Orlando. Title from the Wikipedia entry on the film.
Posted by Erica on October 29th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Category: faces 2 comments »
October 29th, 2009 at 5:23 pm |
read dah book
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November 3rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm |
Orlando does not just bender gender, but both exalts and defies it. When he is masculine, he is the very body of it, he is heroic. He travels the world for love and for duty but not without tenderness, not without grace, humility, generosity. He is poetic in action and deed, if not penmanship. When she is feminine, the same person with no difference at all but the sex, her heroism is only cast in a different context. It is not the shift to womanhood that provides an authorial talent. It is just life and love. Shelmerdine and Sasha are both her mirror, the same creature, a reflection that still reads right to left.
Orlando is an indictment that despairs of either sex in equal measure, and then erases them. It is a love letter that decries love, and then raises it to the highest power. It is the most important thing by my bedside.
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