Orlando
![Orlando](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/orlando1992.85884.jpg)
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Sally Potter
Tilda Swinton
Billy Zane
Quentin Crisp
Lothaire Bluteau
John Wood
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
The ageless Orlando is born as a boy into an aristocratic family in Elizabethan England. As a young man, he becomes the English ambassador to Constantinople, during which time war breaks out and Orlando magically metamorphises into a woman. From there, her adventures take her back to Victorian England and forward to the present day.
Director
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/SallyPotter.534708.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Sally Potter
Cast
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/TildaSwinton.187782.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Tilda Swinton
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/BillyZane.211954.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Billy Zane
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/QuentinCrisp.41168.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Quentin Crisp
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/LothaireBluteau.744376.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Lothaire Bluteau
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/JohnWood.1594351.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
John Wood
Charlotte Valandrey
Heathcote Williams
Peter Eyre
Thom Hoffman
Kathryn Hunter
Ned Sherrin
Jimmy Somerville
Dudley Sutton
Elaine Banham
John Bott
Lol Coxhill
Sarah Crowden
Robert Demeger
Anna Farnworth
John Grillo
Roger Hammond
Peter Hayward
Anna Healy
Barbara Hicks
Toby Jones
Olivia Lancelot
Cyril Lecomte
Mary Macleod
Sara Mair-thomas
Hugh Munro
Thom Osborn
Oleg Pogodin
Simon Russell Beale
Matthew Sim
Terence Soall
Victor Stepanov
Toby Stephens
Jessica Swinton
Giles Taylor
Andrew Watts
Jermome Willis
Martin Wimbush
George Yiasoumi
Alexandre Medvedev
Crew
Rikhsivoj Abduvakhidov
Rikhsivoj Abduvakhidov
Abduvakhid Akhmedkhanov
Sergei Andreyev
Jan Archibald
Bahodiz Atbasarov
Masha Averbach
Mikhail Azhishev
Joshua Meath Baker
Renny Bartlett
Mark Bauman
Miri Ben-shlomo
Pauline Bennion
Alla Blochina
Joost Bongers
Laurie Borg
Nikolaj Borisov
Yuri Borovkov
Victoria Boydell
Irina Braninova
Grant Branton
Stephen Brimson
Lucy Bristow
Richard Broome
Doreen Brown
Linda Bruce
Michael Buchanan
Guurtje Buddenberg
Deborah Bulleid
Irina Bylinskaya
Steve Challenor
Roberto Cicutto
Tony Clarkson
Samuel Cohen
Brian Collings
Keith Collins
Paul Corbould
Simon Costin
Steve Dent
Constance Devos
Julian Dickens
Aziz Djakhangirov
Walter Donohue
Pam Downe
Jean-louis Ducarme
Rob Duiker
Paula Dumont
Harriet Earle
Nigel Egerton
Eljo Embregts
Martin Evans
Penny Eyles
Jonathan Finn
Simon Fraser
Tamara Frid
Tamara Fried
Boris Galper
Diane Gelon
Yuri Glotov
Bob Gomme
Jean Gontier
Natalia Gorina
Vadim Grammaaatikov
Diane Greaves
Vladimir Grieshnikov
Sian Grigg
Igor Gulyenko
Tim Guthrie
Lynn Hanke
Gordon Harmer
Annemieke Heep
Christopher Hobbs
Fred Homan
Michael Howells
Helen Huisman
Caroline Hume
Rollins Burdick Hunter
Marat Husainov
Richard Hyland
Stella Hyland
Elmer Jacobs
Marie Therese Jacobse
Jskander Jsmatov
Mikhail Junusov
Lidewij Kapteijn
Valera Katsuba
Carmel Kelly
Martine Kelly
Vera Kostovatova
Irina Kotova
Walter Krakovtsev
John Krausa
Vladimir Kudriatsev
Anatoly Kuharchik
Jacky Lansley
Tomaz Lasica
Sergei Lateshevsky
Marina Lebedva
Dominic Lester
Vera Levitskaya
Colin Yair Lewis
Peter Lewis
Stephen Brimson Lewis
Han Ing Lim
Annie Livings
Maria Llyjfors
Liam Longman
Dennis Los
Tom Lowen
Marina Maidanuk
R Majsoyutov
Vladimir Malkin
Anatoly Mannanikov
Anna Masimova
Sergei Maslikov
Dmitri Masloboyev
Alfie Mchugh
Christian Mcwilliams
Alan Meacham
Drogo Michie
Nikita Mikhailov
Paul Minter
Otkham Mizzaev
Juliette Monro
Vanessa Monro
Nick Moore
Roanne Moore
Tatiana Morozova
Simon Moseley
Radjabov Muhamedjan
Clare Muller
Inna Musina
Luigi Musini
Zibo Nassirovo
Chris Newman
Katya Nikolayeva
James C Norton
Robin O'donoghue
Viktor Okovitey
Jeffrey Oldman
Alexandr Pantushin
Rihsivoj Parpier
Cath Pater-lancucki
Andrei Peshehodov
Maartten Piersma
Ira Pleshakova
Lubava Popova
Sally Potter
Sandy Powell
John Rawsthorn
Barry Read
Steve Read
Ted Read
Yevgeni Reshetnikov
Vasily Reva
Kelly Richdale
Sam Riley
Martin Robinson
Mike Robinson
Alexei Rodionov
Jan Roelfs
Ludmila Romanovskaya
Stanislav Romanovsky
Morag Ross
Ludmila Sadovskaya
Richard Salmon
Mathilde Sandberg
Herve Schneid
Gabrielle Scott
Rashid Sharafutdinov
Asror Sharipov
Christopher Sheppard
Larisa Sherbina
Viktor Shevyakov
Igor Shishko
Feodor Shoakhmedov
Kate Slee
Gajrat Sobirov
Vitaly Sobolev
Clare Spragge
Jack Stew
Annie Symons
Piotr Tabus
Linda Termars
Natalia Tokarskikh
Yuri Tomachayev
Michael Trent
Sergei Tribunski
Valentina Tugova
Feodor Tumenev
Asror Umarov
Khasan Usmanov
Wilbert Van Dorp
Matthijs Van Heijningen
Todd Van Hulzen
Dory Van Noort
Ben Van Os
Ank Van Straalen
Dien Van Straalen
Esther Van Wijk
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Nominations
Best Art Direction
Best Costume Design
Articles
Orlando
Orlando is just the kind of adventurous project that appealed to the actress, the story of an androgynously beautiful young aristocrat named Orlando who is lover to Queen Elizabeth I. "Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old," commands the Queen, and he obeys, remaining unchanged over four centuries. Or almost unchanged. One morning some hundred years later, the lad looks into the mirror while dressing and realizes he has transformed into a woman. "Same person, no difference at all," she muses. "Just a different sex."
British filmmaker Sally Potter, who came from experimental films and documentaries, had made only one feature before tackling this project. She wrote her first treatment in the 1980s, initially setting it aside when she was told that it would be too difficult to realize, then returning to tackle that challenge head on. Orlando became a true multinational production. Five producers from five different countries came together to make the film, which was still small by studio standards (the final budget was about $5 million); the preparations, from raising money to scouting locations, went on for four years before production could begin. After long negotiations, a deal was made to shoot the film in Russia, where their production dollar would stretch farther. The production was able to recreate centuries of cultural history, from Orlando's lavish manor to the frozen Thames of 17th century London to 18th century Constantinople, on location in Leningrad and, later, in Uzbekistan. Very little was shot in the studio, and most of that involved special effects sequences.
To find the cinematic counterpart to Virginia Woolf's prose, and remain true to the slippery story that spans four hundred years and the transformation of its main character from a man to a woman, Potter combined the experimental tools and feminist approach of her earlier films with the lush imagery of art-house period pieces. A century or decades may pass over the course of a single fluid sequence or suddenly in a cut and Orlando speaks to the audience in brief, often witty asides to the camera, Potter's cinematic solution to the direct address sequences from the novel. According to Potter, the original screenplay was full of such moments, including a few long speeches, but she pared them back through the shooting and the editing until there are only a few, very brief addresses, and in some cases as little as a conspiratorial glance, to achieve "a sort of complicity with the camera."
Androgyny and sexual confusion abounds. Swinton plays a young man through much of the film and Potter craftily cast queer icon Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth, a man playing a woman opposite a woman playing a man, to help foreground the complicated swirl of gender and sexual identity in the film. "He is the true queen of England, he's my idea of royalty," is how Potter explained his casting in a 2008 interview. And she cast singer Jimmy Somerville, a male soprano with an ethereal, girlish voice, as an angel in Orlando's visions.
Within this slightly skewed perspective, the flouncy, flamboyant male fashions and long curly wigs donned for formal meetings and social occasions take on a whole new meaning in terms of social image, male friendship, romantic relationships, and companionship. While Orlando accepts his new life as a woman in a single comment, her social and legal identity becomes completely redefined in this transformation. Yet Potter insists that it is not necessarily a feminist film, but a portrait of the difficulty in being a human being. "One of the things we're saying here is that men and women have far more in common than we've imagined, that the differences between us have been grossly exaggerated and made the basis for huge pain, grief and misery. Women have difficult lives, but men have difficult lives, too," she explained in a 1993 interview.
Orlando had its world premiere at the 1992 Venice Film Festival, where it was greeted with largely positive reception, and opened in the United States in 1993. "This ravishing and witty spectacle invades the mind through eyes that are dazzled without ever being anesthetized," wrote Vincent Canby in The New York Times, who singled out Swinton's performance in his review. "With the firmest but lightest of touches, she has spun gossamer."
Producer: Christopher Sheppard
Director: Sally Potter
Screenplay: Sally Potter; Virginia Woolf (novel)
Cinematography: Aleksei Rodionov
Art Direction: Michael Buchanan, Michael Howells
Music: David Motion, Sally Potter
Film Editing: Hervé Schneid
Cast: Tilda Swinton (Orlando), Billy Zane (Shelmerdine), Quentin Crisp (Queen Elizabeth I), John Bott (Orlando's Father), Elaine Banham (Orlando's Mother), Anna Farnworth (Clorinda), Sara Mair-Thomas (Favilla), Anna Healy (Euphrosyne), Dudley Sutton (King James I), Simon Russell Beale (Earl of Moray).
C-94m. Letterboxed.
by Sean Axmaker
Sources:
Venice Film Festival Press Conference at the film's World Premier, 1992
Interview with Sally Potter, Venice Film Festival, 1992
"The Talk of Hollywood: How Orland Finds Her True Self," Bernard Weinraub. 1993, The New York Times.
Select Scene Commentary with Director Sally Potter. 2010, Sony Pictures DVD.
![Orlando](https://prod-images.tcm.com/img/film-participant-detail/Featured-Artilce_Placeholder.png)
Orlando
Quotes
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Nominated for a 1993 Spirit Award by the Independent Feature Project/West for best foreign film.
Winner of the Felix Award for Young European Film of the Year at the 1993 European Film Awards. In addition, Tilda Swinton was nominated for Actress of the Year.
Released in United States 1993
Released in United States 1999
Released in United States January 1993
Released in United States June 25, 1993
Released in United States November 1992
Released in United States on Video May 11, 1994
Released in United States September 1992
Released in United States September 1996
Released in United States Summer June 11, 1993
Shown at New Directors/New Films series in New York City March 19 - April 4, 1993.
Shown at Thessaloniki International Film Festival (in competition) November 6-15, 1992.
Shown at Toronto Festival of Festivals (Contemporary World Cinema) September 10-19, 1992.
Shown at Venice Film Festival (in competition) September 1-12, 1992.
Shown in New York City (Anthology Film Archives) as part of program "Best of the Indies" September 5-15, 1996.
Shown in New York City (BAM Rose Cinema) as part of program "The Feminine Eye: Twenty Years of Women's Cinema" January 28 - February 7, 1999.
Costume designer Sandy Powell received an Evening Standard Award for technical achievement (1993).
Began shooting February 17, 1992.
Completed shooting April 28, 1992.
Filmmaker Sally Potter formed her film production company, the London-based Adventure Pictures, with producer Christopher Sheppard in 1989.
"The Feminine Eye" program celebrates New York Women in Film & Television's 20th anniversary.
Released in United States 1993 (Shown at New Directors/New Films series in New York City March 19 - April 4, 1993.)
Released in United States 1999 (Shown in New York City (BAM Rose Cinema) as part of program "The Feminine Eye: Twenty Years of Women's Cinema" January 28 - February 7, 1999.)
Released in United States January 1993 (Shown at Sundance Film Festival January 21-31, 1993.)
Released in United States Summer June 11, 1993
Released in United States June 25, 1993 (Los Angeles)
Released in United States on Video May 11, 1994
Released in United States September 1992 (Shown at Venice Film Festival (in competition) September 1-12, 1992.)
Released in United States September 1996 (Shown in New York City (Anthology Film Archives) as part of program "Best of the Indies" September 5-15, 1996.)
Released in United States November 1992 (Shown at Thessaloniki International Film Festival (in competition) November 6-15, 1992.)
Released in United States September 1992 (Shown at Toronto Festival of Festivals (Contemporary World Cinema) September 10-19, 1992.)