Creating your own online ‘pathway’, use the SP-ARK multi-media archive to reflect upon and illustrate the intertextual nature of Orlando (1928 and 1992).
Looking at Sally Potter\'s film version of Virginia Woolf\'s novel, \'Orlando,\' specifically regarding it\'s intertextual nature. When Tilda Swinton and Sally Potter were being interviewed at the BFI, they both talked about how passionate they were about creating Orlando the film, and they hoped that they could replicate the way the novel made them feel and succesfully represent this on film. As discussed in a seminar, one person's 'feelings' about a novel can vastly differentiate from another's (usually hindering the audience's enjoyment because they did not feel the same), so, when translating a medium from novel to film, which idea will resonate with all? Potter has chosen the ideas 'death' and 're-birth.' What is also interesting, is that a screenwriter will usually begin a script perhaps not totally aware of their controlling idea. Therefore, is the key to succesfully adapting a novel to film finding the 'controlling idea' of a novel and reproducing it cinematically?
Examination through archive materials of how Sally Potter takes the artistic description of scenes from the novel and translates that into a visual form through cinematography and set design.
Some explanations for Potter's decision on certain locations, set and costume design, and focusing on cinematography.
The intertextual relationship between Woolf and Potter's imagining of Orlando through the location of Hatfield House.
Orlando is searching for the light at the end of the maze throughout the entire movie; the maze parallels to her life as she's constantly struggling with love, gender, sexuality, etc. However, at the end of the movie, after she's moved through time, she finds clarity with the angel who reveals herself between two branches, as if Orlando is finally emerging out the maze and into the light.
In writing Orlando, Virginia Woolf had to her disposal the infinite power of the English language. Using her imaginative flair for writing, Woolf was able to vividly describe and create the world in which Orlando lives; we are transported through time, and to incredible landscapes all across the globe with ease. Sally Potter then, had the largely more difficult task of physically recreating this diegetic world. Through this pathway I will explore the real life locations Potter used to create Orlando's world, and the reasons behind these choices.
Copyright ©2021 Adventure Pictures. Some rights reserved. Non-commercial use of text and images in which Adventure Pictures holds the copyright is permitted, with attribution, under the terms and conditions of a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND License.