A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

TILDA: Last night, at long last, I saw Michael Clayton. Tilda Swinton does such an excellent job in this film that I was inspired to think about the other notable roles she has played.

I first became aware of her in 1993 in Sally Potter’s Orlando in which she played the title role, a person who lives four centuries of experiences through the eyes of both genders. Born as a man during the reign of Elizabeth I, Orlando becomes a woman midway through the film.

In 1997 Swinton played an attorney in Female Perversions. Interestingly, in both that film and in Michael Clayton, the role is that of a fiercely ambitious warrior on the verge of a key promotion. Also, in both of these movies, she portrays her character in a manner that makes us keenly aware of her gender.

Perhaps her breakthrough role was in The Deep End in 2001, when Swinton starred as a mother of three who lives in a beautiful house on Lake Tahoe. She gets in way over her head (no pun intended) when she believes her son is in danger. As in Michael Clayton, significant aspects of the plot in The Deep End revolve around keeping secrets and failing to communicate in an honest and forthright manner.

Swinton had a small role as Nicholas Cage’s impatient producer in Spike Jonze's film Adaptation in 2002. She also had a small role in Broken Flowers in 2005, where she played one of Bill Murray’s ex-lovers (she’s the one who has a front yard full of motorcycles and a menacing partner).

Finally, in a role that echoed aspects of her character in Michael Clayton, Swinton played the (evil) White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which was released late in 2005. All told, she has been in over 50 films, but the vast majority of them are not well known.