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Orlando is a 1992
1992 in film

The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. ...
 film, based on Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an England novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literature literature figures of the twentieth century....
's novel Orlando: A Biography
Orlando: A Biography

Orlando: A Biography is an influential novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 11 October 1928. A semi-biographical novel based in part on the life of Woolf's intimate friend Vita Sackville-West, it is generally considered one of Woolf's most accessible novels....
, starring Tilda Swinton
Tilda Swinton

Katherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton is an Academy Award, BAFTA, and Coppa Volpi award-winning United Kingdom actor known for both art film and Mainstream#In film....
 as Orlando, Billy Zane
Billy Zane

William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor and film director. He is best recognized for his role as List_of_characters_in_Titanic_#Fictional_characters in the 1997 Blockbuster film Titanic , as the deranged psychopath Hughie Warriner in Dead Calm , John Justice Wheeler in Twin Peaks, as The Phantom in the 1996 The Pha...
 as Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, and Quentin Crisp
Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp , born Denis Charles Pratt, was an England writer and raconteur. He became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, brought to the attention of the general public his defiant exhibitionism and longstanding refusal to remain in the closet....
 as Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was List of English monarchs and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the House of Tudor....
. It was directed by Sally Potter
Sally Potter

Sally Potter is an England film director and screenwriter. Her films include Orlando , The Man Who Cried, The Tango Lesson, and more recently, Yes ....
. Actor Toby Stephens
Toby Stephens

Toby Stephens is an England theatre, television and film actor, best known for playing supervillain Gustav Graves in the James Bond film Die Another Day and Edward Fairfax Rochester in the BBC television adaptation of Jane Eyre ....
, son of Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith

Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, Order of the British Empire , better known as Maggie Smith, is a pre-eminent English film, Stage , and television actor who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 56 years....
, appears as an Elizabethan actor playing the role of Othello
Othello

Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian language short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio first published in 1565....
. Gay
Gay

The term gay was originally used, until well into the mid-20th century, primarily to refer to feelings of being "carefree," "happy," or "bright and showy"; it had also come to acquire some connotations of "immorality" as early as 1637....
 icon Jimmy Somerville
Jimmy Somerville

Jimmy Somerville is a Scotland pop music singer, born and raised in Glasgow. He had considerable success in the 1980s with the pop groups Bronski Beat and Communards , and has also had a successful solo career....
 provides some of the music and appears in a cameo as an angel.

It was particularly acclaimed for its visual treatment of the settings of Woolf's
Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an England novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literature literature figures of the twentieth century....
 1928 novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
.






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Orlando is a 1992
1992 in film

The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. ...
 film, based on Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an England novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literature literature figures of the twentieth century....
's novel Orlando: A Biography
Orlando: A Biography

Orlando: A Biography is an influential novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 11 October 1928. A semi-biographical novel based in part on the life of Woolf's intimate friend Vita Sackville-West, it is generally considered one of Woolf's most accessible novels....
, starring Tilda Swinton
Tilda Swinton

Katherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton is an Academy Award, BAFTA, and Coppa Volpi award-winning United Kingdom actor known for both art film and Mainstream#In film....
 as Orlando, Billy Zane
Billy Zane

William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor and film director. He is best recognized for his role as List_of_characters_in_Titanic_#Fictional_characters in the 1997 Blockbuster film Titanic , as the deranged psychopath Hughie Warriner in Dead Calm , John Justice Wheeler in Twin Peaks, as The Phantom in the 1996 The Pha...
 as Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, and Quentin Crisp
Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp , born Denis Charles Pratt, was an England writer and raconteur. He became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, brought to the attention of the general public his defiant exhibitionism and longstanding refusal to remain in the closet....
 as Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was List of English monarchs and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the House of Tudor....
. It was directed by Sally Potter
Sally Potter

Sally Potter is an England film director and screenwriter. Her films include Orlando , The Man Who Cried, The Tango Lesson, and more recently, Yes ....
. Actor Toby Stephens
Toby Stephens

Toby Stephens is an England theatre, television and film actor, best known for playing supervillain Gustav Graves in the James Bond film Die Another Day and Edward Fairfax Rochester in the BBC television adaptation of Jane Eyre ....
, son of Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith

Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, Order of the British Empire , better known as Maggie Smith, is a pre-eminent English film, Stage , and television actor who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 56 years....
, appears as an Elizabethan actor playing the role of Othello
Othello

Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian language short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio first published in 1565....
. Gay
Gay

The term gay was originally used, until well into the mid-20th century, primarily to refer to feelings of being "carefree," "happy," or "bright and showy"; it had also come to acquire some connotations of "immorality" as early as 1637....
 icon Jimmy Somerville
Jimmy Somerville

Jimmy Somerville is a Scotland pop music singer, born and raised in Glasgow. He had considerable success in the 1980s with the pop groups Bronski Beat and Communards , and has also had a successful solo career....
 provides some of the music and appears in a cameo as an angel.

It was particularly acclaimed for its visual treatment of the settings of Woolf's
Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an England novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literature literature figures of the twentieth century....
 1928 novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
. Potter chose to film much of the Constantinople
Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
 portion of the book in the isolated city of Khiva
Khiva

Khiva ; Alternative or historical names include Khorasam, Khoresm, Khwarezm, Khwarizm, , Khwarazm, Chiwa, and Chorezm) is the former capital of Khwarezmia and the Khanate of Khiva and lies in the present-day Xorazm Province of Uzbekistan....
 in Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan , is a Landlocked_country#Doubly_landlocked_country country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union....
, and made use of the forest of carved columns in the city's 18th century Juma mosque.

The film goes beyond the novel in that it brings Orlando's life into the early 1990s.

Orlando was nominated for Academy Awards
Academy Awards

The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers....
 for art direction
Academy Award for Best Art Direction

The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in film. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art director#Film on a film....
 (Ben van Os and Jan Roelfs
Jan Roelfs

Jan Roelfs is a production designer of Dutch descent, famous with his collaboration with director Peter Greenaway. He has also worked with film directors Oliver Stone, Robert Redford, Joel Schumacher and Andrew Niccol, among others....
) and costume design
Academy Award for Costume Design

This Academy Awards was first given for films made in 1948 when separate awards were given for black-and-white and color movies....
 (Sandy Powell
Sandy Powell (costume designer)

Sandy Powell is a United Kingdom Fashion design who has been nominated for several Academy Awards in the 1990s and early 2000s. She won the Academy Award for Costume Design in 1999 for the film Shakespeare in Love , and again in 2005 for The Aviator ....
).

Plot


The story begins during the reign of the aging Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp). Queen Elizabeth takes a shine to the attractive young Orlando and seeks out his sexual favors. In return, Elizabeth grants him a large estate, commanding him, "Do not fade, do not wither, do not grow old." Orlando takes the queen at her word and doesn't. When Elizabeth dies, Orlando becomes attracted to Sasha (Charlotte Valandrey), the daughter of a Russian diplomat, but she rebuffs his advances. Crushed, Orlando accepts an ambassadorship to Constantinople. After witnessing the killing of a man in battle, Orlando undergoes a change of sex, becoming a woman and returning to England, where she hobnobs with 18th-century geniuses like Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and John Addison. Walking through a garden labyrinth, the time frame shifts to the 19th century, and Orlando falls in love with a handsome American (Billy Zane). Now in the 20th century, Orlando gives birth to a child and continues on.

Selected cast


  • Tilda Swinton
    Tilda Swinton

    Katherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton is an Academy Award, BAFTA, and Coppa Volpi award-winning United Kingdom actor known for both art film and Mainstream#In film....
     as Orlando
  • Quentin Crisp
    Quentin Crisp

    Quentin Crisp , born Denis Charles Pratt, was an England writer and raconteur. He became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, brought to the attention of the general public his defiant exhibitionism and longstanding refusal to remain in the closet....
     as Elizabeth I
  • Jimmy Somerville
    Jimmy Somerville

    Jimmy Somerville is a Scotland pop music singer, born and raised in Glasgow. He had considerable success in the 1980s with the pop groups Bronski Beat and Communards , and has also had a successful solo career....
     as Falsetto/Angel
  • John Wood
    John Wood (English actor)

    John Wood, Order of the British Empire, is an England actor....
     as Archduke Harry
  • John Bott as Orlando's father
  • Elaine Banham as Orlando's mother
  • Anna Farnworth as Clorinda
  • Sara Mair-Thomas as Favilla
  • Anna Healy as Euphrosyne
  • Dudley Sutton
    Dudley Sutton

    Dudley Sutton is an England actor....
     as James I
    James I of England

    James VI and I was List of monarchs of Scotland as James VI, and List of English monarchs and King of Ireland as James I. He ruled in Kingdom of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567, when he was only one year old, succeeding his mother Mary I of Scotland....
  • Simon Russell Beale
    Simon Russell Beale

    Simon Russell Beale Commander of the British Empire is a English actor. He has been described as "the greatest stage actor of his generation."...
     as Earl of Moray
    Earl of Moray

    The title Earl of Moray has been created several times in the Peerage of Scotland.Prior to the formal establishment of the peerage, Earl of Moray, numerous individuals ruled the kingdom of Moray or Mormaer of Moray until 1130 when the kingdom was destroyed by David I of Scotland....
  • Matthew Sim as Lord Francis Vere
    Francis Vere

    Francis Vere , England soldier, was the son of Geoffrey Vere of Crepping Hall, Essex, and nephew of John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford.He first went on active service under Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester in 1585, and was soon in the thick of the war raging in the Low Countries....
  • Charlotte Valandrey
    Charlotte Valandrey

    Charlotte Valandrey is a French actress. She grew up in Britain in an affluent family.In 1985, Anne-Charlotte Pascal took the pseudonym Charlotte Valandrey in tribute to the village of Val-Andr?, where she lived since the age of six....
     as Princess Sasha
  • Toby Stephens
    Toby Stephens

    Toby Stephens is an England theatre, television and film actor, best known for playing supervillain Gustav Graves in the James Bond film Die Another Day and Edward Fairfax Rochester in the BBC television adaptation of Jane Eyre ....
     as Othello
    Othello

    Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian language short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio first published in 1565....
  • Oleg Pogodin as Desdemona
    Desdemona

    Desdemona, as a name, may refer to:* Desdemona, a fictional character in a tale found in the Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi ...
  • Heathcote Williams
    Heathcote Williams

    John Henley Jasper Heathcote-Williams is an England poet, actor and playwright. He is also an intermittent painter, sculptor and long-time conjuror....
     as Nick Greene
  • Thom Hoffman
    Thom Hoffman

    Thomas Antonius Cornelis Ancion, known by the pseudonym Thom Hoffman, is a Netherlands actor and photographer.Hoffman acts mainly in serious roles, especially those of complicated characters, this may be partially explainable by one of his quotes: "I take a dim view of human motives." His film debut was Luger under director The...
     as William III
    William III of England

    William III was a Prince of Orange by birth. From 1672 onwards, he governed as List_of_stadtholders_for_the_Low_Countries_provinces William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic....
  • Sarah Crowden as Queen Mary
    Mary II of England

    Mary II reigned as List of English monarchs, List of Scottish monarchs, and King of Ireland from 1689 until her death. Mary, a Protestantism, came to the thrones following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the deposition of her Roman Catholic father, James II of England....
  • Billy Zane
    Billy Zane

    William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor and film director. He is best recognized for his role as List_of_characters_in_Titanic_#Fictional_characters in the 1997 Blockbuster film Titanic , as the deranged psychopath Hughie Warriner in Dead Calm , John Justice Wheeler in Twin Peaks, as The Phantom in the 1996 The Pha...
     as Shelmerdine


External links