Teknolust: Four Tildas is better than One

by Cláudio Alves

We live in a time when what was once conjecture is becoming a perilous reality, dreams of advanced tech crashing into the nightmare of actual artificial intelligence. Facing these newborn terrors of our digital age, the Criterion Channel looks back. Spanning fifty years of film history, a collection of 17 titles investigates how cineastes have approached the topic of AI, from decades when it was just narrative device or metaphor, to our present state of sci-fi as a direct response to concrete real-world anxieties.

This cinematic tasting menu of techno-cinema offers many gustative possibilities, though none more surprising than Lynn Hershman-Leeson's Teknolust. Criminally underseen upon its 2002/2003 release, the unorthodox comedy posits a scenario where Tilda Swinton plays four roles, mad scientist Rosetta Stone and her three cybernetic creations cum clones – Ruby, Marinne, and Olive…

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Queering the Oscars: The Costumes of "Orlando"

by Cláudio Alves

Sandy Powell's career has been closely tied to queer artistry since its genesis. After completing her education, the costume designer soon started collaborating with multi-hyphenated gay icon Lindsay Kemp whose stage work she had long admired, and, later, her jump from theater to film would be predicated on another queer genius, Derek Jarman. They'd work on four projects – Caravaggio, The Last of England, Edward II, and Wittgenstein – and the costumer would continue, keeping his memory alive after the director's death in 1994. Since then, even as her profile grew into the mainstream, Powell remained faithful to the idea and ideals of queerness in cinema, often joining forces with artists under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, Todd Haynes most of all.

As Pride Month 2023 reaches its end, let's remember this Academy darlings' first brush with Oscar. It was in 1993 when Sally Potter's adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando earned Sandy Powell a Best Costume Design nomination…

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Venice Gowns '22, Round 4

Ooops. We've been neglecting the fashion-watching duties so this is an abridged version of the gowns from the past few days before the closing ceremony (very soon). So who gets your vote for Best Dressed?

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Venice at Home – Day 7: Between Reverie and Realism

by Cláudio Alves

In 1986, Joanna Hogg presented her thesis film at the National Film and Television School. Unlike the Sunderland photographs and experimental super-8 footage that had won her a place to study, Caprice feels like a repudiation of reality altogether. The short considers the Alice in Wonderland-esque journey of a mousy young woman through the pages of her favorite fashion magazine, all rendered in stylized staging and haute-couture. That work marked another's cinematic debut besides Hogg – Caprice was Tilda Swinton's first appearance on film. The schoolmates turned longtime friends turned artistic collaborators present their latest project at this year's Venice Film Festival – The Eternal Daughter, where the actress plays a double role.

Our Venice at Home program takes us back to one of the Italian director's first international hits and the second chapter in Hogg's multi-film memory play...

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Venice Diary #6 - Banshees of Inisherin, Don't Worry Darling, and Tilda Swinton (twice)

by Elisa Giudici

Are Hollywood stars saving Venice as we enter the home stretch? The answer is yes, but not always willingly. Traditionally the back half of the Venice Film Festival is less glamorous, less exciting, and sometimes even a little dull. Toronto starts, a good portion of the international press leaves, and the most hideous filler of the competition fills the daily program. Not this year, though! Suddenly there's a movie that's even better than The Whale, so don’t worry darlings, today we have some real treats and gallons of drama...

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