Q&A with Tilda Swinton
PAGE 4
RB: Julia goes through a real transformation during the film. Though she's an alcoholic from beginning to end, she seems to pull herself together once she has Tom. What do you think was the catalyst there?
TS: My sense is that people's unconscious does really interesting stuff to allow them to play scenarios out. There's something about her decision to engage with this child, admittedly through the auspices of a kidnapping, and isolate herself with him. At the beginning, she's an addict who is hellbent on destroying herself and being her own worst enemy. But when she puts herself into the frame with Tom, even though she treats him like a bag of oats, it becomes evident against her will that he needs looking after. She doesn't know anything about feeding a child or keeping a child warm. She has no idea how important it might be to not frighten a child. But in some way, her unconscious arranges it so that she is forced to start to look after him, and if she can start to look after him, maybe she can start to look after herself. It's very much an open-ended question, and I don't know the answer. It may very well be that after the last scene in the film she just goes into a bar and starts drinking again and gets him run over. None of us will ever know. But there is at least a crack of a possibility that she has seen something new, which is the possibility of preserving something and acknowledging how vulnerable that thing might be. That, to me, feels very profound in her, that she has chosen this. Nobody forced her into this relationship with the child. She went after him against all the odds, even though it was the most crackpot scheme anybody had ever heard.
What's your favorite Tilda Swinton performance? Comment below!
TS: My sense is that people's unconscious does really interesting stuff to allow them to play scenarios out. There's something about her decision to engage with this child, admittedly through the auspices of a kidnapping, and isolate herself with him. At the beginning, she's an addict who is hellbent on destroying herself and being her own worst enemy. But when she puts herself into the frame with Tom, even though she treats him like a bag of oats, it becomes evident against her will that he needs looking after. She doesn't know anything about feeding a child or keeping a child warm. She has no idea how important it might be to not frighten a child. But in some way, her unconscious arranges it so that she is forced to start to look after him, and if she can start to look after him, maybe she can start to look after herself. It's very much an open-ended question, and I don't know the answer. It may very well be that after the last scene in the film she just goes into a bar and starts drinking again and gets him run over. None of us will ever know. But there is at least a crack of a possibility that she has seen something new, which is the possibility of preserving something and acknowledging how vulnerable that thing might be. That, to me, feels very profound in her, that she has chosen this. Nobody forced her into this relationship with the child. She went after him against all the odds, even though it was the most crackpot scheme anybody had ever heard.
What's your favorite Tilda Swinton performance? Comment below!
NEXT STORY
