Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

TILDA GOES 'DEEP'
by Gregg Shapiro
2001-08-15

This article shared 1056 times since Wed Aug 15, 2001
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


In her new movie, The Deep End, Tilda Swinton plays the kind of character that would have made even Alfred Hitchcock smile. Trapped, yet still resourceful. Beaten down, yet surprisingly resilient. Matriarchal, yet maniacal, when necessary. As the protective mother of three children, Swinton's Margaret Hall is pushed to the limit when a blackmail plot, involving her gay teenaged son and his dead lover, arises. The lengths to which Margaret goes says something about a mother's love for her children and a woman's ability to withstand the kind of pressure that would probably make the average man snap. Swinton's performance has an Oscar ring to it and is the main reason to see The Deep End.

Tilda Swinton in The Deep End.

Gregg Shapiro: The Deep End is a movie in which water figures prominently...metaphorically and physically. How did you feel about playing a character who was surrounded by water ( Lake Tahoe ) and who spends a great deal of time in the water?

Tilda Swinton: I like water. I'm made of it. It seems to me that she is suspended as a character, in so many ways. She's the one who's closeted and she's the one who's being brought to the surface by this crisis. There is a lot about water in the film, but there is also quite a lot about air, as well, and breathing. She'd told at one point to take a breath. All the characters who die in the film actually die because they are suffocated in some way. They have an anchor in the chest or they have their lungs crushed.

GS: Or strangulation.

TS: I think that the weight of that metaphor was very present.

GS: You see her swimming, and the whole idea of someone who smokes swimming and how that compromises her breathing.

TS: But she's a closeted smoker. She keeps her cigarettes in a drawer. He ( Alek Spera, played by Goran Visnjic ) sees it. He says, "I took you for a smoker." He's right. She's not out, and in that sense she's somehow not at ease with her breath. It's very easy for people to describe the story as being about a mother's sacrifice, for example. My suggestion there is that if one wants to look at that, then maybe to think about her sacrifice as having been made a long time before. The crisis brings the fact and the nature and the costs of the sacrifices to the surface.

GS: That's another water metaphor...bringing something to the surface.

TS: Absolutely, absolutely.

GS: What kind of personality traits do you think that the mother of a gay child needs to have that are different from those of a mother whose children are all heterosexual?

TS: Do you know, honestly, I can't think of a thing. The mother of any child at all is asked by nature to have and to find a way of having unconditional love. That's what nature sets down in the cards. A very strange thing happens when you become a mother, and I can tell you this because I have children myself. When you become a mother, it's as if another identity springs up, which is you as mother. The danger is this, and it must be there for every mother, that there is a danger of you lopping bits off yourself...which you have to do for a certain amount of time anyway...you have to lop certain bits off yourself or to say to one of your selves, the individuated, self-sufficient individual who is not the leader of a pack...you have to say "I'm just going to have to leave you for a bit and I will get back to you." The danger is that it's very easy with sleep deprivation and everything else, to not get back and forget where you left that part of yourself. For example, you get Margaret Hall, who has forgotten for 17 years where she left this part of herself. ... What happens with that is that a mother can forget so much about what it is to be an individual; to have an emergent sexuality; to need to forge connections with people; to have a sense of loneliness.

GS: There's a person inside.

TS: Yeah, really. She's a mother, not a moron, as they say in the film. Speaking as a mother and a sentient being, I can't think of what the mother of a gay child would need. She may require less in the sense that she requires to be clear of certain assumptions and attachments that the mother of heterosexual children might have. She needs to be clear of a kind of slightly inattentive assumption that her children will necessarily follow a certain pattern.

GS: As a parent, how would you react if, as teenagers, your son or daughter came out to you as gay or lesbian?

TS: If they came to me and said, "I'm really, really unhappy because I'm in love with a bit of a bastard ( laughs ) ." Then I would react in a certain way based on that.

GS: So the gender wouldn't matter?

TS: My mind is a blank on this subject.

GS: Perhaps if you hadn't the experience that you had with the gay culture...

TS: But the gay culture is in me too. I'm not a tourist here. I believe in sexuality. I've never been particularly comfortable...ever ...with these prefixes that we are constantly asked to deal in. I still don't understand why people feel the need to even make a word called "bisexual," because I don't see what's wrong with "sexual," and I never have. I think that's my answer ( laughs ) .

GS: You will be appearing in some films that signal a move for you from independent to mainstream cinema.

TS: The funny thing that I realized is that the real answer to that is that the move is not on my part, it's on the part of the people who have asked me to do the films ( laughs ) . Because that's the move. Mohammed is not going to the mountain, put it that way ( laughs ) .

GS: The mountain came to you.

TS: When Cameron Crowe asked me to do this little thing for him in Vanilla Sky, it's sort of a good idea that I should do it for all sorts of funny little jokey reasons. There's also sort of something wry about me being in Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's film ( Adaptation ) , as well. Meanwhile, it's business as usual...I'm developing Medea.


This article shared 1056 times since Wed Aug 15, 2001
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

JP Karliak morphs into non-binary character for Disney+'s X-Men '97 2024-03-22
- series X-Men '97, a revival of the popular X-men: The Animated Series that's both continuing the ongoing mutant storyline and breaking new ground along the way. The character of Morph now looks more like the comic ...


Gay News

WORLD Uganda items, HIV report, Mandela, Liechtenstein, foreign minister weds 2024-03-21
- It turned out that U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam traveled to Uganda on Feb. 19-27, per The Washington Blade. He visited the capital of Kampala and the nearby city of ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Queer musicians, Marvel situation, Elliot Page, Nicole Kidman 2024-03-21
- Queer musician Joy Oladokun released the single "I Wished on the Moon," from Jack Antonoff's official soundtrack for the new Apple TV+ series The New Look, per a press release. The soundtrack, ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Lady Gaga, 'P-Valley,' Wendy Williams, Luke Evans, 'Queer Eye,' 'Transition' 2024-03-15
- Lady Gaga came to the defense of Dylan Mulvaney after a post with the trans influencer/activist for International Women's Day received hateful responses, People Magazine noted. On Instagram, Gaga stated, "It's appalling to me that a ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Jinkx Monsoon, Xavier Dolan, 'Frida,' Lena Waithe, out singer 2024-03-08
- Two-time RuPaul's Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon is headed back to the New York stage, joining off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors as Audrey beginning April 2, according to Playbill. The casting makes Monsoon the first drag ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Queer actors, icons duet, Hunter Schafer, Oscars, Elizabeth Taylor 2024-03-01
- Queer actor Kal Penn is set to star in Trust Me, I'm a Doctor—a film that chronicles the final days of actress/model Anna Nicole Smith, whose overdose death in 2007 at age 39 sparked a tabloid ...


Gay News

Dorian Film Awards: 'All of Us Strangers' takes top prizes 2024-02-27
- February 26, 2024 - Los Angeles, Ca. - For its 15th Dorian Film Awards, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics fully embraced All of Us Strangers, writer-director Andrew Haigh's fantastical and tear-inducing tale of two ...


Gay News

SAG Awards honor Streisand, few LGBTQ+ actors 2024-02-25
- Queer entertainers made their mark—although not a major one—at the 2024 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, held Feb. 24 in Los Angeles. The event was live-streamed on Netflix for the first time. Indigenous and Two-Spirit actor ...


Gay News

WORLD Caribbean ruling, Pussy Riot, Russian raid, Canadian warning, anti-trans bar 2024-02-23
- The top court in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines dismissed a challenge to colonial-era anti-gay laws, Reuters reported. Javin Johnson and Sean Macleish—two gay men who had pushed to decriminalize ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Kristen Stewart, Rock Hudson, Talia Keys, 'True Detective,' Marvel comic 2024-02-23
- At the Berlin Film Festival, Kristen Stewart defended her photo shoot for a Rolling Stone magazine cover that went viral and divided audiences on social-media platforms, per The Hollywood Reporter. "The existence of a female body ...


Gay News

Second Glance Productions hosts LGBTQupid Soiree 2024-02-16
- In celebration of Valentine's Day, Chicago based film and media production company Second Glance hosted The LBGTQupid Soiree. The event, which was focused on spinning attitudes on this particular day, was presented at The iO ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Elton John, Hannah Gadsby, video game, Jennifer Lopez, queer thriller 2024-02-16
Video below - Sir Elton John has sold his Atlanta home and is now auctioning off more than 900 of his personal items that were kept in the 13,500-square-foot condo, The Daily Mail noted. The massive collection includes rare ...


Gay News

GALECA announces nominees for the Dorian Film Awards 2024-02-07
--From a press release - Feb. 5, 2024 - GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, consisting of over 500 entertainment critics, journalists and media icons, today announced the group's democratically chosen nominees for its 15th Dorian Film Awards. All of ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ JoJo Siwa, Tom Holland, Bowen Yang, Pet Shop Boys, Mariah Carey 2024-02-02
- In the wake of Nigel Lythgoe exiting So You Think You Can Dance, queer personality JoJo Siwa is returning to the series, per Deadline. Siwa, who was a judge on season 17 of the Fox show, will replace Lythgoe, who left ...


Gay News

Leather Archives & Museum announces 2024 Fetish Film Forum 2024-01-27
--From a press release - CHICAGO, Illinois—After a wildly successful inaugural year, including a 10-film series at the Leather Archives & Museum and a 5-film series at FACETS, the Leather Archives & Museum is thrilled to announce the continuation of Fetish ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.