Posted on 05/07/2006 11:48:18 AM PDT by veronica
ONE OF Scotland's leading actresses has lashed out at Hollywood, demanding "more wise and courageous distributors" and "distributors with the kamikaze vision that spreads the broad and long view".
Tilda Swinton also took a fiercely political swipe at a "goose-stepping" Walt Disney, just months after she played a leading role in a highly successful Disney adaptation, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The Nairn-based actress delivered her opinions at the State of Cinema address as part of the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival.
In America, where there has been a shift away from big studios towards independent film-makers, Swinton has forged a successful career in both areas.
But she said: "If I'm posting any wish to my personal Cinema Santa this year, it is for more and more wise and courageous distributors, with more and more big and small and beautiful cinemas. Distributors with the kamikaze vision that spreads the broad and long view."
Swinton also spoke out about the right-wing religious influence still dominant in the film industry.
She told the audience: "Last year, in the process of promoting two fantasy films for different Hollywood studios, I was advised on the proper protocol for talking about religion in America today.
"In brief, the directive was, hold your hands high where all can see them, step away from the vehicle and enunciate clearly, nothing to declare."
Swinton followed these statements with an attack on the politics of many powerful figures in the film industry.
Speaking about The Chronicles of Narnia, which in the run-up to its release was given a huge push by the Church, Swinton said: "I love the idea of goose-stepping old Walt D making over $700m with the help of a Red Witch. He is more than welcome.
"At least we made her whiter than white, the ultimate white supremacist, and we managed to railroad the knee-jerk attempt to make her look like an Arab."
Swinton, who was born into a Scottish military family in London, began her acting career at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In her formative years, she also worked with the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, before embarking on a career in film in the mid-1980s.
Early film work included several parts in the projects of director Derek Jarman, and also the title role in Orlando, Sally Potter's film version of the novel by Virginia Woolf.
In recent years, she has moved into more mainstream projects, appearing in Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, and The Beach, which also starred Leonardo DiCaprio.
Swinton also starred in Young Adam alongside Ewan McGregor.
In 2005, she starred as the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia, and had two other high-profile roles, as Penny in the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers, and as Audrey Cobb in Mike Mills' film adaptation of the novel Thumbsucker.
Swinton, who lives in Nairn in the Highlands with her husband, artist and writer John Byrne, was unavailable for comment.
Look into her resentful eyes. She would do a Lorena Bobbit on you if you got anywhere near her.
When 'actors' and 'actresses' use their breathtakingly overpaid fame and the media megaphone that coees along with it to bleat incomprehensibly about subjects that they know nothing about, such as politics, history and reality; it makes me even less interested in paying for a theater ticket than I was before. Why should I give more money to these halfwits?
She made these comments (I'm sure well received) at the - where else ---49th San Francisco International Film Festival. A sample of offerings:
The House Of Himiko
At a seaside rest home for gay men, a young woman confronts the father who once abandoned her to become proprietor of a transvestite bar. An offbeat comedy that offers a rare look at Japan’s older gay community
This is the first time I've ever read "Hollywood" and "right wing" in the same sentence.
The actress in question should stick to topics she's knowlegable about.
Because as we all know, there is no evil force in the world except white supremacists (Sum of all Fears, anyone?).
I'm actually surprised Hollywood didn't try to make "Hotel Rwanda" into a story where the plucky black heroes fight off genocidal white supremacists.
If they ever make a movie about the Tiannanmen Square massacre, it will probably be white supremacists driving the tanks.
No kidding. What a Moon-Bat....
In L.A. we say that actresses in this kind of dither are "dehydrated and exhausted"
I would be willing to bet this Leftist thinks Michael Moore is just middle of the road type of person.
Sounds like Eleanor clift saying Hillary is like Reagan. What are they leaving out of the water in Hollywood?
My take on what the whack-job was trying to say (it would be far too bourgeois for her to simply SAY it): Disney was a right-winger (goose-stepping reference to Hitler-era Germany), and she finds it ironic that someone in the right-wing persuasion would make tons of money from an evil influence (witch). And most witches are portrayed darkly, which is done to make them look like Arabs. They went the other direction this time and made the witch white, which is really appropriate since it symbolizes all the evil of white domination of everybody else on Earth.
I think that's what she's trying to say. She must be a real joy to live with.
MM
why would anyone want to do that?
Give her a break, please. She is no doubt already "in character" for her upcoming role as drug-addicted Warhol ex-superstar Nico, an incomprehensible German of no obvious talent who the film will almost certainly portray as a tortured artiste undone by conventional bourgeois morality.
White supremacists with English accents.
May it always be so
"In 2005, she starred as the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia, ..."
Apparently this role WASN'T MUCH OF A STRETCH FOR HER.
Be Courageous then, send back the Check!
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
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