Heritage Films Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Heritage Films - Essay Example The film Orlando is based on the novel by Virginia Woolf of the same name written in 1928 and Brideshead Revisited is based on a novel by Evelyn Waugh written in 1945. Both were influential books in their time by respected authors. Of the two, Woolf is the more radical in terms of structure, exploring techniques like stream of consciousness. Writing in an aristocratic circle of writers and artists in the Bloomsbury area of London, Woolf and her circle of friends represented a rather radical upper class social group which experimented with socialism and liberal views on marriage and sexuality. Although writing well before the liberalisation of laws against homosexuality and the permissive society, Woolf anticipated the freedoms that would come later in the century with her depiction of Orlando, who starts out a man and ends the book four hundred years later as a woman, breaking all usual limitations of a normal person’s lifespan and sexual identity. Turning such a quirky book i nto film is no easy task. The book is written in seven sections but Potter breaks the story up into the book into short episodes which are given one-word titles like â€Å"sex† or â€Å"birth† which crystallize life events and stress the unity of the persona, despite the changing historical periods and the shift from male to female. At various points in the film Orlando turns to the camera and addresses the viewer directly, which at first is somewhat disconcerting, but as the film develops, it becomes a pattern which invites the viewer to look again at the screen and re-evaluate the surface images to reflect particularly about how the gender and identity of the people in the film is being portrayed. The camera dwells on Tilda Swinton’s oval face, recording many impassive scenes where she/he lets the chatter of other characters wash over her, until she suddenly turns to the camera with an arch look. Ferris explains this technique: the film highlights instability of identity in its use of direct address, non-linear narrative, and parodic framing, reconstructing Woolf's novel as a postmodern text. (Ferris, p. 110) Other techniques are used to jolt the audience out of a surface reading of the film. In the scene where Orlando meets Queen Elizabeth the first, for example, there is interference from modern society because the elderly monarch is played by famously flamboyant male homosexual Quentin Crisp. Orlando approaches the throne and kneels and the wide angle of the camera captures the pale costumes but above all the striking red hair of both Orlando and the Queen. As Ferris notes â€Å"The scene highlights both the construction of the narrative and of sexuality, for the male Orlando is played by a female actress, Tilda Swinton, who addresses the female queen, played by a male homosexual.† (Ferris, p. 113) This playful treatment celebrates a diversity of genders, and sexual orientations, drawing parallels and contrasts which cross over the normal male/female and gay/straight divides. Modern feminist readings of the film appreciate the blurring of these binary divides and the exploration of how gender is culturally constructed. The persona and languid narrative voice of Orlando remain intact, whether in a male or