Where do I start with my homage to Katherine Mathilda Swinton? Is it that beautiful elongated thin frame, or the flaming mane on top of that otherworldly white skin, or those penetrating green eyes? The quirky fashion statements she makes (the all-white suit in Cannes, where she couldn't help but stand out next to a bunch of ravishing men, including George Clooney, all clad in blacks and blues, that bee-like contraption at the Baftas, the black velvet sheath at the Oscars). Or maybe it is simply her arresting presence?
Tilda Swinton had me captivated as the young Orlando in Sally Potter's eponymous movie, based on the book by Virginia Woolf, composing a poem under a tree. Le sigh. What a tale, what an actress.
Then she went on to become a live piece of sleeping art, in a display case in a London gallery, as the epitome of stillness, barely breathing behind a sheet of glass.
She also made several films with Derek Jarman, whose house stands in lonely Dungeness.
And what about her incarnation of that white, evil witch Jadis, in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (coincidentally, also my favourite childhood book)? So you see, I have a very long-standing love affair with Ms. Swinton.
Among the trivia of her life are such interesting facts as her classmate, Princess Diana, or the fact that she is living with the father of her twins, while maintaining a relationship with a New Zealand artist, somewhere in remote Scotland. And now she can even take an Oscar home, even though she has already said that she will be giving it to her hard-working agent.
At any rate, to me she will always be Orlando.
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