Today this movie was screened in my film class and I thought it was the weirdest movie I had ever seen. Made no sense, creeped me out. Why did she turn into a man? Was she actually woman the whole time? Why the heck didn't she age, because a dude playing the Queen told her so?! Why did everyone just accept her sex change? Someone explain to me how this can be a good movie. Yes, I am a woman so don't pull the femenist thing on me.
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Thanks for the help! Did you major in not getting dates in college?? Because I'm already grossed out by you and I haven't even heard your voice!!
shareHow exactly is a person 'grossed out' by a post like that? Was it the blatent intellectualism? The forboding truth of things to come? His single spelling error? His use of big words?
ARE you in college? 'Cause if you are, I'd like to ask why. If you're grossed out by polite, intellectual answers to questions then you'd better carry a bottle of gravol to class with you.
How rude. What is the point of going to 'college' if you don't actually want to learn anything?
Orlando is a fantasy, based on a fantasy novel meditating on the nature of the contrast and comparison of male/female, mortal/immortal, youth/age, creativity/sterility.
And I managed all that without a single class in "media studies". It's called thinking, and I recommend it.
in not getting the point, eh?
You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you. - Alex
pft hahah you're basically the dumbest person in the world, arent you
shareDidn'you get that Orlando was deep down the same person when he was a man as well as a woman. The author(Virginia Woolf) was trying to say that women and men should have the same rights and be treated the same because of this. I'm probably around your age(23)and I am a woman also, but I had a totally different reaction to this film. I love this movie! and find it very empowering. The last scene is so powerful, Tilda Swinton(sp?) has such an incredible face and I like how she looks like she has found peace within herself.
Maybe you should try re watching it with a more open mind.
I agree that is what the author is trying to say but that has nothing to do with the film. I thought the film was a mess and didn't do justice to Virginia Woolf's work. Also the technique of talking aside to the camera was horrible.
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I think a lot of people thought her change of sex was absolutely uncalled for or unexplained. That is where they misinterpret the film and call it quits. If you rewatch it, it is explained very well - actually quite concisely and short -slipped right in there so subtlely- in Orlando's scene with Shelmerdine (sp?) where they talk about their gender. Orlando gave up being a man because he couldn't find himself 'man' enough or brave enough to fight to the death for a cause of freedom or an ideal. That is why 'he is not an man, he is an enemy' was resonating in Orlando and prompted the overnight transformation into femaleness. In return, Shelmerdine talks about the nature of woman and what it means to be a man.
This film requires countless rewatching because every line does not go wasted alluding to time before and time after. You have to note that this nonlinear story because it doesn't conform to constraints of time-mortality. You have to play along.
I'm studying it at the moment in extension english as an example of postmodern film. That should explain everything:
Postmodernism? Simply, you're not supposed to know what's going on.
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"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." ~ Oscar Wilde
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icUndone, I thought the film made sense. Let's break down your questions. Orlando turned into a woman because he felt he was up to the task of being a true man, a man willing to fight for ideas. Remember, Orlando, upon order of the Queen, became immortal. Orlando is just following orders to become a better person. Orlando the person does not change, but does lose his male sexual organs to be replaced by female ones overnight.
Not everyone accepted her sex change. Remember, Orlando lost all her property and rights once became a woman.
Finally, the movie was based on a novel from the second feminist wave. Understanding that (which gives the theme away), I would say it was a ho-hum movie in that it did not do the splashy Hollywood thing. Ho-hum in my case means an enjoyable movie, but I have actually forgot I had watched this movie a decade ago. It is a simple tale filmed in a simple way. Character driven. Which brings up the actor, Tilda Swinton. She was amazing, which makes up for the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
I just watched this movie for the first time and while I think your answers to the previous questions are right on I have another, less theme-oriented question. She seems to skip from time period to time period, especially going from the 1750's to the 1850's. Does she exist and live during the time in between or does she just travel to that time. She begins the 1850's by asking a question that would only be pertinent to a century before. If she did live during the time in between, why was the issue of her estate not cleared up in the entire century in between?
sharePersonally, I think that Orlando lives through the whole period of 1580(?) to 1750, since he seems well-informed as to current events and does not appear distressed by everything changing all the time. The 1750-1850 jump is the only really noticeable exception to this and I don't know why it was portrayed the way it was.
shareSomething that points to the contrary was her lack of knowing what a train was.
I hate Illinois Nazis
I thought all the same things when I saw the movie for the first too OP and thats why its one of my top all time favorite films that I've watched 1,000 times over and over again and it started my love affair w/ Tilda Swinton and Quinton Crisp
Down the rabbit-hole I GO…share
what I’ll find no one knows
I had to watch it for my university British History class. I found it to be confusing at best. I guess I could sum it up as life as a male vs life as a female? But women were queens way back when, as well as now. Seems in Britain women had it 'better' than women in many other countries (including USA). Am I far far off?
shareResponse to:
"...But women were queens way back when, as well as now. Seems in Britain women had it 'better' than women in many other countries (including USA). Am I far far off?"
Women were queens, but not often queens regnant: that is to say, they were most often the wife of a king, without a kingdom of their own, therefore dependent on their husbands for any power. The only reason Elizabeth I was a ruling queen was that there were no available males in the immediate Tudor family. Her father, Henry VIII had three legitimate children: Mary Tudor (aka "Bloody Mary"); Elizabeth; and Edward. Edward, though younger than his sisters, became king first because he was a male. However, he died at the age of 16. The only other candidates, including the "pretenders" like the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, were also female, so the English were painted into a corner (a fortunate one, in the end, as it turned out). So, after the defeat of Lady Jane Grey, Mary Tudor came to the throne, then Elizabeth. Elizabeth had no children, so her nephew, James I, son of Mary Queen of Scots, inherited both Scotland and England.
Some kingdoms, like France, actually forbade female rule entirely (excepting the occasional regency - Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, was the Regent of the Netherlands for many years and was extremely influential. There's little argument that she was probably brighter than her brother Philip the Handsome, who, in any case, died at the age of about 28; there was equally little argument that she would achieve, in her own name and hands, the titles and power Philip was, and would have been, entitled to claim or campaign for).
England, though, wasn't the only kingdom of around that time "saddled" with a queen regnant: down south, Spain was split into various kingdoms, due to the the extremely long Reconquest over the Moors by the Christians. One of these kingdoms, Castile, did allow for female rule, and that was how Isabel the Catholic was able to take the throne and actively (VERY actively!) wield power (after the deaths of her younger brother, and her ruling half-brother). In fact, Castile was so much more central to Iberia than Aragon, the kingdom ruled by her husband Fernando; and she was such a personal match for him; that, early on in their mutual career, they came up with a slogan, certainly unique for a husband and wife pairing at that time: "Tanto Monta, Monta Tanto, Isabel como Fernando".
By rights, their daughter Juana, would have ruled in Castile, at least, after the deaths of her brother, elder sister and the infant son of that elder sister, but very nasty politics and Juana's own inability to defeat both the politics, their effect on her, and the reputation loaded onto her, was unable to rule, and has come down to us under the name of Juana la Loca.
despite your lack of understanding it.
Not everything needs to be spelled out to a viewer.
If you think this one's weird, I'd warn you away from Jodorowsky films.
You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you. - Alex
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This thread looks a bit scattered in time, so I post to no one in particular. I really enjoyed the film, but there was always something I was missing and didn't know what. I knew who wrote it and found the gender issues to be well thought out, but that was the intellect of the piece, and not the reason. My brother actually pointed out the running theme of the film. For each period Orlando was portayed in, Orlando was the model protaganist for literature.
The Queen(snicker) told Orlando not to "fade or wither". The wither could be considered growing old, but what about fading? As Orlando continues to exist; he changes slightly to conform to what the literary public find most read-able. To begin with; he is a young lord, steeped with court politics. Later he is alone, love sick and poetry stricken. Then an ambassador to a foreign land....
The gender change came in to show the trend of literature and people's taste on protaganist change, as eveident to all the changes. She then goes on to fulfill the new female role of protaganist as a courtly lady, a hermitted spinster, and finally a heroin mother-to-be, beset by the injustices of life.
The end of the movie had to take some liberties, because the author finished to story long before the movie appeared. The remaining scenes are interpetations on the exisiting theme, as well as tying up loose ends.
Some one asked why she didn't go with her lover in one of the other posts, and it just wasn't what her character would do, given the tastes of the people reading about her a the time. Plus her reward for being the queen's(snicker) "mascot" was that her and her heirs would always have the manor as their home (even if they lost it for a time).
I believe thqat sums it up. Post to argue or correct.
I hadn't noticed this theme regarding her reflection of literature... Thanks for this insightful & enlightening post!
shareThanks. Trenchant post. I wonder if the limp dicks who posted merely to demean the OP came upon this interpretation inbetween their onanistic smuggeries.
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