Independent View; 207

He wants to be a rock star. Kids don't want to be Jim Morrison anymore. I want to be Spike Lee or Penelope Spears filmmakers or the new rock star. Filmmakers are not the new rock star because cameras are not that tight sweaty leather sexy. I'm a musician. What am I supposed to go to film school. We offer remedial directing classes for musicians. When I look out into the classroom and see the looks of excitement on their faces and makes it all worthwhile. All this talk about independent filmmakers meant to say one thing to an independent filmmaker Guy did I don't have much. More time to make it a better. Mayor. Have the money to do this to. You know make it seem like Courtney Love. The following is a KQED television production. Tonight on

independent view we visit with two of the Great Britain's most accomplished and versatile actresses. Tilda Swinton is best known to American audiences for her gender bending title role in the film Orlando but she's played a number of eccentric and offbeat characters in a string of independent films and the many faces of Brenda Blethyn. Since her award winning performance in my queen secrets and lies she starred in more than a dozen films in roles that explore the humor and pay those in the everyday lives of ordinary women. Funding for independent view is provided by the members of KQED and the campaign for the Future program venture fund investing in the development production and acquisition of quality programs. Hello I'm Alexis pleasant welcome to independent view. Tonight we'll visit with two of Great Britain's most accomplished and versatile actresses and we begin with Tilda Swinton. Swinton is probably best known to American

audiences for her gender bending title role in the film Orlando but she has a history of taking on complex and challenging roles in films that defy easy description. Orlando was both a man and a woman one who magically lives through four centuries of British history. You are legally dead and therefore cannot own any property whatsoever. Oh fine. You are now a female witch about just much the same thing. Once a political science major at Cambridge it's not surprising that Tilda Swinton has chosen to explore broad societal themes in her films portraying women who defy traditional feminine roles. I adore you and this means that I belong to you. Refusing me. I have I'm sorry. Tilda Swinton began her film career with British director Derek Jarman providing a recurring female presence in an otherwise homoerotic landscape.

They made eight films together and for audiences a Derek Jarman film came also to mean a Tilda Swinton film. So he's moved. The life of his about. Being God persuaded that one of the willow. Swinton worked side by side with German him till his death from AIDS in 1994. Since then she's begun to seek new projects and new collaborators. It's not. Sweet and continues to avoid easy characters and welcomes the opportunity to play troubled women. Most recently in love is the devil a film based on the life of Francis Bacon coming. It can tell you that you know the self. Yeah. That's right. In a recent conversation with independent views be Ruby Rich Tilda

Swinton described her criteria for choosing projects. Well I think first of all I choose my people. I think that's probably how. I do asked myself same question I have to say and I've been very spoiled really because I started making films with one person with their job and I worked with him for eight years on about eight films. People often spoke of you in fact as being his muse. People always talk about women as muses I was find it such a pejorative and I try very hard not to wince when it's used. I mean for start I would say that Derek Jarman needed no muse other than himself he was his own muse and any artist worth their salt you know need to know. It's also a way of describing why gay man would work with a woman over and over again. Sort of you know they can't say that we were in some way romantically linked although there's always that very strange. Presumption in the word news as well. I don't know I

mean. It's a muse feel so passive that I was find it quite insulting. Quite true. My lady I am constantly reminded to treat me. The treachery. In the United States I suspect you're best known for Orlando and your extraordinary role in our film myself. Potter when I first met you you were in the early stages of working on that. Yeah absolutely like in the 13th century or some such or at least at least back in the 80s. Well Sally Potter came to me. With this idea. And the book of Orlando which I knew already. And. For a while it was just her and me and the book. And there was no script and we had no producer and we had no money.

It is a significant task getting that film made. And when we first started it to try and raise money for it people were saying to us. Costumes you know. No one is interested in costume dramas. What's it about anyway this film was the story what's the love interest you know. Stay with me. Don't ever go. But. Why. Because when I break through my school which we're linked. Destinies are linked. People talk about colorblind casting but they never really talk about gender blind things the key to that particular task was to play similarity was to find the similarity because Orlando is. Is the same spirit. And. The changes are exterior changes I mean

either they're changes by costume. By by and by by other people's projections and then by politics and society. But actually the spirit of Orlando is the same thing. Have you met your characters ever as you heard as you wander through life. I don't even know where they are characters. I mean I'm beginning to think I'm quite seriously mentally ill because I don't. Dream them up and then try and I'm kind of imitating humans all the time that's how I feel. To do. It. She drew me. Well that is parenthood. You should try it. My friends. In. The War Zone was was a curious project for me because. I had I was on the verge of having twins when Tim Roth was not somebody I knew I knew. I came to be and asked me to be in to play the mother in this film. And the mother

was going to be just about to have a baby and was going to have just had a new newborn. Baby. But. It occurred to me that here was a heaven sent opportunity to provide something that I had never seen which was an authentic woman's body having just given given birth and because I was in the throes of it myself in the throes of this extraordinary transformation. I was looking for myself I was thinking Is this really what happens. I've always seen people in films go darling here's the baby and they're like this son. Where is it where is the evidence that I am not a complete freak. And I realized of course that this is what women go through every second of every day of every week of every month of every year. But it was something we hadn't seen I mean this is not Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair. Very nerdy and pregnant. This was a much harsher kind of you and make it show your body just as I was. I would say that the characters that

you've created and the kinds of presences that you've inscribed in film have been very bald. They've been very courageous. I would challenge that I mean maybe it's just again another way of coming at it but I honestly don't see I'm not being coy. I don't see what's bold about that. It just seems to me to be the best thing you can do at that point is actually bear witness to what really happens. And I think this is maybe a link with with with. My choices it has to be authentic. I have to be able to provide something authentic. My mother always told me I had a devil or an angel watching me which are you know either I'm a friend. Where are you sure you want to be. I'm talking to you from the future on the film conceiving Ada. You were there interacting with furniture and people who were not in fact visible and were not there in the work of Linda Hirshman.

To me it's just a dream because she's a true artist and a visionary I do believe and she works with the science of film in a way that that I can just. Total in her footsteps I am clueless and I love that. And this film we're working on now which is called Techno lost in which I play a genetic engineering cleanser cell three times is being shot with the first ever 3D camera with a laser camera that can see through walls. What was that about what would we revolve the thinking through playing these people within people within people. Well I do think it's a prevailing interest of mine people in hiding in some way or another and this is what I think what I'm interested in Phil

implements because I can actually remember the moment at which I. Forged my interest and I was very very young I was about. 10 and I was going back to school and they're kind of tragic story. And I was so I was very very very very deeply unhappy because I was going back to school but I was aware that nobody in the carriage would be able to see how unhappy I was. Because I was taught intents and purposes just this 10 year old child. Not crying not distortion anyway just sitting looking out of the window and I can remember thinking how interesting that was. That no one would be able to tell my feelings out and I think that as a performer that's why I mentioned cinema because I'm interested in that kind of scale and the way in which the face can betray so delicately or not at all.

Or maybe by the fact that it it withholds. Its truth. No difference it's. Just a. Tilda Swinton's latest film the deep band was a big hit at the Sundance Film Festival and with any luck will be coming to a theater near you in the coming months. So be sure to check your listings. Well Tilda Swinton is clearly drawn to roles that are exotic and outrageous. Her fellow British actress Brenda Blethyn has gravitated toward the other end of the spectrum. Most of the roles she's played could be characterized as ordinary women but she's turned the ordinary into something special onscreen creating a string of performances that are riveting and unforgettable. Since the mid 1970s Brenda Blethyn has been one of the U.K.'s

best known actors Blethyn made her big screen debut in 1990 in the witches. As a mother whose son is turned into a mouse at a witches convention. Writing room in 1992 Robert Redford capitalized on another facet of blessings ability by casting her as the gentle and nurturing Mrs McLean in a river runs through it. I don't understand you to. Write a few of. These these Blethyn got a chance to show off her great range of an actor in 1996 in Mike Leigh's film Secrets and Lies playing Cynthia a middle aged woman who is rediscovered by the daughter she gave up at birth. The performance garnered her a multitude of international honors including a Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination and the Khan Film Festival Award. The right. Lesson was again recognized by the academy in

1999 when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film Little Voice bless and played the bluesy and body Mari who's fallen for a two bit talent agent played by Michael Caine. You know it's the boss just wants despite her newfound fame and has resisted the lure of Hollywood and continues to work predominantly in independent films such as 2000s saving grace. What are you going to do. In the coming of drugs. A British comedy of manners that places Blethyn as a pot growing gardening club socialite to tell anybody. Independent views be really rich sat down with Brenda Blethyn to talk about her late blooming film career dating back to a BBC project she did with director Mike Leigh. Well I first work with Mike actually in 1980 on a film for the BBC called Grown ups and I had absolutely no idea what to expect in fact my agent

said to me at the time if you get this job it'll be the best job you've ever been off but I said oh great let's have a look at the script he said Open to come in with you there's no script he doesn't. There's never a script that was suddenly drunk so you draw a chunk I would say what you want me on. Frank it's funny right. So I'm going to meet Mike and he tested me by and we discussed certain characters and so on he said OK I want you to be that character and I'm going to go out of the room and I'll come back in and you just be that character. So a few minutes and I was like OK this person is just waiting for somebody in the other room. And she just sat there and waited and nothing happened I thought well that's what she'd do. Obviously he's not going to like that because I didn't do anything. And of course he loved it. And because I wasn't trying to be entertaining just be that and I got the job. Do you know what's funny. Well

it's I don't mean nothing. I mean no disrespect. I do. You know I remember being at the Cannes Film Festival that very exciting evening with secrets and lies. You know in the at the pile a and and being there when you won for Best Actress and when the film won I remember at the opening there at the end of the film it was you know it got a standing ovation. And we stood up to take the applause and it went on and on and on and I said tonight what do we do you know. He said just stand there and then when Coppola called my name out and if it was the most wondrous thing I've ever heard.

It was fantastic. After you got the Academy Award nomination given how Hollywood works with you must have had a lot of offers. What do you look for when figuring out which projects to do. It's just that if I'm curious about the character if I think if it's a challenge if it's a good story if it's well written and also there are many other ingredients who's directing it who else is going to be in it who's designing it. How long do we have to shoot it and can I do I think I can accomplish that. But first off after Secrets and Lies I was sent lots of scripts for unfortunate women who cried a lot. After playing little boys I was sent lots of scripts for a rather fierce women who shot at a loss you know and I'm not so proud that I have done that and I don't think I can top that really. You know that. 10. But I'm looking off to for you.

How much is it worth. I just. Wonder how much of it. All right thanks for the really good stuff what more than go saving grace. You play a widow who's left bankrupted and who then turns to marijuana cultivation to save the man or his but I think we take cuttings from the mother plant the cuttings and grow them under lights hydroponically go straight to batting we could have to first harvest in a matter of weeks. What made you decide to take this role and do this film. Well firstly because I thought it was a very well-written piece. Here's a woman who wakes up one morning and discovered her she no longer has a husband she no longer has any money she is very much in debt she's about to lose her home. She thinks she has no friends. Her marriage of 25 years she discovers is a piece of fiction because he had another woman in tow. How does anybody cope with that. And here is a woman who is fragrant

she's a good woman. She would never break the law she'd never park her car illegally. So it's not the characters that are eccentric rather than the situation. The law abiding citizen finds herself in. There's a subtle eroticism to a lot of the characters you've played and often that you only find that in sort of 20 year olds you know. Have you contributed to the shaping of those characters. If you are a rhotic I have to say sometimes I think so too. But I mean I'm not playing that. Certainly. I mean with Cynthia and secrets and lies is her. Obviously she has been a lusty woman but that is so lacking in her life she says to her newfound daughter at one point I give men a wide berth they've got me into enough trouble in the past and then goes off into some kind of hysteria. So true to her. That's not to say she doesn't dream at night and yearn for an

embrace and the feeling of thinking about the poor woman. Sorry Mr. As far as Mari it is a cautionary tale I think it's quite obvious that she is sort of craving an embrace and goes to find it wherever she can. Sting Ray they got me very real really really good. Oh I'm just breakin into me in thought. Grace in saving grace. Is a woman who has sexual thoughts and she says to the visitor. At one point when she says he she didn't think your husband her husband thought she was uninterested said he was wrong. It's very poignant. Yeah and I think that a touch or a nerve and a lot of women. I had to pretend not to get any rest at all it was his ship. I think you thought you weren't interested. He was real.

Is there an ideal role that you would love to play that you haven't yet. Oh there are a lot I think. I mean I wouldn't mind if I carried on playing ordinary women because they are just so many most of us are ordinary women and characterize it as so very good for the rest of my life I I wouldn't mind that because it would be a constant challenge. You cannot kind of link two women together in love as people often say you play that type of character. What type of character. What do you mean they're totally different. What would be quite interesting is to put them all in a room together so that the LRA and Grayson see what came out of that will be found. So what would happen at that point. Yeah I think. Which. Ever since Brenda Blethyn appeared in Secrets and Lies in

1996 she's taken advantage of her newfound star status appearing in 16 feature films four of them scheduled for release in the year 2001 alone. And now in keeping with the British flavor of tonight's program. Let's hear from video clerk Dale Shah will give us some of his favorites from his native land. We could be looking at some British cinema classics starting with Stairway to Heaven my favorite have a British feel unabashedly romantic fable about David Niven falling in love. But unfortunately he's dead but he doesn't go to heaven for some reason and that's what the film is about directed by Michael Pollan the ghost of the micas. What did you do. What happened there now I just don't know. I had fears about. The dazzled recently remade in a horrible fashion by Hollywood to Brendan Fraser. Check out the original with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore crazy alcoholic author.

It's a fabulous story about the devil trying to buy somebody's soul. Good evening I couldn't help noticing that you were making an unsuccessful suicide. See the original not the remake. Same goes for Get Carter. Sylvester Stallone remake. Not a very good film but the original fabulous you can in the same way they try to remake it. Michael Caine a terrific performance about a London gangster goes to the north of England to avenge the death of his brother directed by Mike Hodges recently made the croupier. Smell trouble. Place successfully. Since when was that good enough. Another great Mike Mike Lee. Known for his sort of late dramas which is sort of bleak this is one of his earlier comedies Nuts in May made him video for the BBC. A terrific film mainly improvised starring his wife Alison Steadman. But two very dull people who go on a camping holiday which is

ruined by a group of thugs who turned up at their campsite. You get you not be tried. So orphans. Is more like this later era of British film. It's rather dark very dark comedy in fact about seven Scotland in Glasgow. It's about four siblings coping with the death of their mother with a poll that has Please come for. You. You'll need some help so I said I'll take. Some of this off. I think the French used to. Have a long while. To find out more about films and filmmakers on our show. You can check out our website at this address. Also on our website. You'll find listings of independent films playing here you and resources for filmmakers. Next week on our show. You know. One of the granddaddies of documentary

filmmaking Albert Mays ols talks about 45 years behind the camera. Reflecting on a career that's taken him from Bible selling salesman to the stone. And Director Lee Sam Schuyler on making the transition from documentaries to narrative filmmaking with a feature based on stories by Joyce Carol Oates. That's all for tonight. I'm Alexis pleasant. And this has been independent. Funding for independent view is provided by the members of KQED and the campaign for the Future program venture fund investing in the development production and acquisition of quality programs. OK Kuwaiti television production.