💭 Tilda Swinton for VOGUE Japan
This article first appeared in the VOGUE JAPAN January 2019 Issue No. 233.
TILDA SWINTON
VOGUE Japan January 2019.
“Fun”. That was how the Oscar winning actress Tilda Swinton described working on her latest film, Suspiria. Now this is not really the first word most people would think of in relation to a very dark supernatural horror film, that takes place at a world-renowned dance academy and deals with witches, the occult and the immortal soul. But Swinton has never, ever, been someone to see the world, her work or the roles she takes on in a traditional way.
She said that “comradeship and fun” helped her to deal with the day to day filming in an unheated and abandoned hotel on the top of an Italian mountain in the dead of winter. That these two things were “the best talisman combo possible” to protect the actress from the dark subject matter of the script.
She went on to say that she was initially drawn to the role of Madame Blanc because of how the character’s commitment to her art came above all else. [She is] “the artist amongst the witches, deeply compromised by the deal she had made with the supernatural for the sake of the survival of her art, is a compelling one for me,” explained Swinton. “I thought a lot about Mary Wigman, the pioneer of New Expressionist Dance, who kept her company afloat throughout the occupation of Germany by the Third Reich and was psychologically delicate and troubled. And I also thought about the character of Lermontov - played by the great Anton Walbrook in Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes - who exerts himself to persuade the red-haired dancer, Vicky Page, to choose art above life. I also borrowed certain aspects of her look from the extraordinary Pina Bausch, whose ever-present cigarette seemed appropriate in this fable about breath.” added the actress about how she prepared for the demanding role.
Swinton is a woman that holds a very particular place in most people’s consciousness. She has acted in almost 80 films so far in her career and her characters, in movies as diverse as The Grand Budapest Hotel, Doctor Strange, Orlando, We Need to Talk About Kevin and Okja, make her an actress that is hard to pin down. In fact, that seems to be the one common thread in the roles she takes on. She disappears into each part, often via transformative costumes and make up (and in a few cases some impressive dental prosthetics) becoming a true storytelling vessel.
Peter Lindbergh Cover Story for VOGUE Japan, Tilda Swinton Paris 2018.
“Sometimes, a person’s mouth is the principal focus of a portrait: their words, their attachment to the truth or their version of it, needs a little heightening... so it was with Minister Mason and the dreadful Mirando twins in the films I have made with Bong Joon Ho - Snowpiercer and Okja,” explained Swinton. “But, in general, it is always fun to put together a unique disguise for a performance, with an enjoyment in detail and a spirit of playfulness. For me, filmmaking, as life, is always part rock and roll, part kindergarten playtime, with a big dash of family vacation adventure holding it all together,” she added.
If this has been her goal, then she has more than succeeded. For some of the most common adjectives to describe Swinton include; eccentric, chameleon, unique, muse, statuesque, iconic and gifted. One attribute however, that is perhaps less well known is what a stalwart friend she can be. And it is a friendship that brought her to Suspiria in the first place.
For this film she once again teamed up with director Luca Guadagnino, who has been one of her closest friends for nearly 25 years. And apparently over those years, while they worked on such memorable movies like I Am Love and A Bigger Splash, they often discussed doing a remake (or as Swinton likes to call it “a cover”) of Suspiria together. “Working with my friends is one of the greatest blessings in my life: it means a deep trust, a playful atmosphere and a sense of freedom to explore territories and subjects that take real comradeship to approach,” said Swinton.
She felt that Guadagnino could bring unique and new perspective to the story. “Luca is an extremely cinematic filmmaker,” she said. “His passion for a kind of ‘sensational’ cinema - meaning a cinema of the senses, one that sets up a particular and unique atmosphere into which we might be absorbed and by which we might find ourselves affected and transformed - is developing all the time. I love our lifelong work very dearly.”
Besides getting to once again team up with Guadagnino, Swinton was drawn to the subject matter for other reasons as well. Both the focus on the world of dance, and the opportunity to work with a cast of over 40 women on this film had its appeal. Each of these aspects are rarities in the film world today and the actress relished the beautiful atmosphere on the set and how the dedication, focus, stamina and skill of the dancers assembled by Damien Jalet for the film played the vital role of giving the narrative a rigor and texture.
Many of the women who started alongside Swinton, including Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jessica Harper and Alek Wek, joined her at the film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, where it got an eight-minute standing ovation after the screening. For the big event Swinton sported a high necked scarlet red column dress from one of her favorite designers, Haider Ackerman.
Just like with the directors she works with, Swinton is also a faithful fashion friend. Returning over and over again to designers she has built long lasting relationships with, like Ackerman, Alber Elbaz, John Galliano for Martin Margiela, Bertrand Guyon for Schiaparelli and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. “I am, naturally, someone who is pretty shy about being the center of attention and if I can stand up in a creation by someone I love, with whom I have developed the look, I feel less alone in that brightly-lit moment and I have the company of my accomplice by my side and their hand in mine,” she explained.
Peter Lindbergh Cover Story for VOGUE Japan, Tilda Swinton Paris 2018.
Coincidentally it was another film screening that Swinton also attended at the Venice Film Festival, the remastered version of the iconic film Last Year at Marienbad (which was supported financially by Chanel) that inspired the photo shoot that accompanies this article. Recounted Swinton, “Peter Greenway deployed his legendary response to shadow and magic in movement to create a story closer to a set of film stills than a traditional fashion study. There are unspoken depths to each image, as if each represents a scene, an individual drama. It was a dream to shoot and we were aiming for a dreamy essence: a very sweet memory.”
Mission accomplished.
