Coordinates	30°19′10″N81°39′36″N
name	Sally Potter
birth date	September 19, 1949
birth place	London, England, United Kingdom
occupation	Film director & screenwriter
spouse	}}

Charlotte Sally Potter (born 19 September 1949, London) is an English film director and screenwriter.

Career

Having left school at sixteen to become a filmmaker, Potter joined the London Film-Makers' Co-op and started making experimental short films, including ''Jerk'' (1969) and ''Play'' (1970). She later trained as a dancer and choreographer at the London School of Contemporary Dance, making both film and dance pieces, including ''Combines'' (1972), before founding Limited Dance Company with Jacky Lansley.

Potter became an award-winning performance artist and theatre director, with shows including ''Mounting'', ''Death and the Maiden'' and ''Berlin''. In addition, she was a member of several music bands (including Feminist Improvising Group and The Film Music Orchestra) working as a lyricist and singer. She collaborated (as a singer-songwriter) with composer Lindsay Cooper on the song cycle ''Oh Moscow!'' which was performed throughout Europe, Russia and North America in the late 1980s and commercially released. (Potter’s music work continued later when she co-composed with David Motion the soundtrack to ''Orlando'', and produced the score for ''The Tango Lesson''. Her most recent music work is as producer and co-composer with Fred Frith of the original tracks for ''Yes'' and ''Rage''.)

Potter returned to filmmaking with her short film ''Thriller'' (1979) which was a hit on the international festival circuit. This was followed by her first feature film, ''The Gold Diggers'' (1983), starring Julie Christie; a short film, ''The London Story'' (1986); a documentary series for Channel 4, ''Tears'', ''Laughter'', ''Fear and Rage'' (1986); and ''I am an Ox'', ''I am a Horse'', ''I am a Man'', ''I am a Woman'' (1988), a film about women in Soviet cinema.

The internationally distributed ''Orlando'' (1992) brought Potter’s work to a wider audience. Starring Tilda Swinton, the film was based on Virginia Woolf’s novel and adapted for the screen by Potter. In addition to two Academy Award nominations, ''Orlando'' won more than 25 international awards, including the Felix awarded by the European Film Academy for the best Young European Film of 1993, and first prizes at St Petersburg, Thessaloniki and other festivals.

Her next film was ''The Tango Lesson'' (1996), in which she also performed, with renowned tango dancer Pablo Veron. First presented at the Venice Film Festival, the film was awarded the “Ombú de Oro” for Best Film at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, Argentina, the SADAIC Great Award from the Sociedad Argentina de Autores y Compositores de Música, as well as receiving Best Film nominations from BAFTA and the US National Board of Review.

''The Man Who Cried'' (starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchett and John Turturro), premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2000 and was followed by ''Yes'' (2004), with Joan Allen, Simon Abkarian and Sam Neill.

In 2007 Potter directed Bizet’s ''Carmen'' for English National Opera at the London Coliseum, starring Alice Coote and designed by Es Devlin.

''Rage'' (2009) was the first feature ever to premiere on cell-phones. The cast includes Judi Dench, Steve Buscemi, Lily Cole and Jude Law. ''Rage'' was in competition at the Berlin Film Festival in 2009 and nominated for a WEBBY for Best Drama in 2010.

Sally Potter had full career retrospectives of her film and video work at the BFI Southbank, London, and Filmoteca, Madrid, in 2009, and MoMA, New York, in 2010. She has a blog and message board at www.sallypotter.com.

Feature film credits

''Thriller'' (1979)

''London Story'' (1980)

''The Gold Diggers'' (1983)

''I Am an Ox, I Am a Horse, I Am a Man, I Am a Woman'' (1988)

''Orlando'' (1992)

''The Tango Lesson'' (1997)

''The Man Who Cried'' (2000)

''Yes'' (2004)

''Rage'' (2009)

Further reading

Catherine Fowler, SALLY POTTER Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, November 2008

Sophie Mayer, THE CINEMA OF SALLY POTTER ''A Politics of Love'', 224 pages´, Wallflower Press, Wallflower Publishing Ltd., July 2009

References

External links

Official site

Blog

''An interview with director Sally Potter'', ''guernicamag.com'', interview, October 2005, accessed 5 July 2009

''Who is Sally Potter'', ''youtube.com'', video, 17 April 2007, accessed 5 July 2009

''Carmen'', English National Opera (ENO) site, accessed 5 July 2009

''Official Rage Site'' ''Official Rage Website''

Literature on Sally Potter

Category:1949 births Category:English film directors Category:English screenwriters Category:English-language film directors Category:Female film directors Category:Living people

de:Sally Potter fr:Sally Potter it:Sally Potter ja:サリー・ポッター pl:Sally Potter ru:Поттер, Салли fi:Sally Potter sv:Sally Potter

Coordinates	30°19′10″N81°39′36″N
birth name	Katherine Mathilda Swinton
birth date	November 05, 1960
birth place	London, England
occupation	Actress
years active	1986–present
partner	John ByrneSandro Kopp (2004–present) }}

Katherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in ''Michael Clayton''.

Early life

Swinton was born in London, England. Her father, Major-General Sir John Swinton, KCVO, OBE, DL, who was Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire (1989–2000), is Scottish, and her mother, Judith Balfour, Lady Swinton (née Killen), was Australian. Her paternal great-grandfather was Scottish politician and officer-of-arms George Swinton, and her maternal great-great-grandfather was Scottish botanist John Hutton Balfour. The Swinton family is an ancient Anglo-Scots family that can trace its lineage to the High Middle Ages.

Swinton attended two independent schools, the West Heath Girls' School (the same class as Diana, Princess of Wales), and also Fettes College for a brief period. In 1983, she graduated from New Hall (now known as Murray Edwards College) at Cambridge University with a degree in Social and Political Sciences. While at Cambridge, she joined the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Career

Arthouse work

Swinton worked with the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, starring in ''Mann ist Mann'' by Manfred Karge, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, before embarking on a career in film in the mid-1980s. She appeared as Julia in the 1986 television mini-series ''Zastrozzi: A Romance'' based on the Gothic novel by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her early film work included several film roles for director Derek Jarman, notably ''War Requiem'' (1989) playing a nurse opposite Sir Laurence Olivier as an old soldier. In 1991, Swinton won the Volpi Cup Best Actress award for her role in the postmodern film ''Edward II''.

Swinton also played the title role in ''Orlando'', Sally Potter's film version of the novel by Virginia Woolf. The part allowed Swinton to explore matters of gender presentation onscreen which reflected her life-long interest in androgynous style. Swinton later reflected on the role in an interview accompanied by a striking photoshoot. “People talk about androgyny in all sorts of dull ways,” said Swinton, noting that the recent rerelease of Orlando had her thinking again about its pliancy. She referred to 1920s French artist and playful gender-bender Claude Cahun: “Cahun looked at the limitlessness of an androgynous gesture, which I’ve always been interested in.”

In 1995, with producer and friend Joanna Scanlan, Swinton developed a performance/installation live art piece in the Serpentine Gallery, London, where she was on display to the public for a week, asleep or apparently so, in a glass case, as a piece of performance art. The piece is sometimes credited to Cornelia Parker, whom Swinton invited to collaborate for the installation in London. The following year, the performance, entitled ''The Maybe'', was repeated at the Museo Barracco in Rome. She also appeared in the music video for Orbital's "The Box". She has collaborated with the fashion designers Viktor & Rolf. She was the focus of their 'One Woman Show' 2003, in which they made all the models look like copies of Swinton, and she read a poem (of her own) that included the line, ''"There is only one you. Only one"''.

Mainstream films

Recent years have seen Swinton move towards more mainstream projects, including the leading role in the American film ''The Deep End'' (2001), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. She appeared as a supporting character in films such as ''The Beach'' (2000), featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, ''Vanilla Sky'' (2001) with Tom Cruise and, as the archangel Gabriel in ''Constantine'' (2005) with Keanu Reeves. Swinton has also appeared in the British films ''The Statement'' (2003) and ''Young Adam'' (2003), and sat on the jury of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, Swinton performed as the White Witch Jadis, in the film version of ''The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'', and as Audrey Cobb in the Mike Mills film adaptation of the novel ''Thumbsucker''. Swinton later had cameos in ''Narnia'''s sequels,''The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian'' and ''The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader''.

In 2007, Swinton's performance as Karen Crowder in ''Michael Clayton'' earned her both a BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress as well as the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role at the 2008 80th Academy Awards, the film's sole win. Swinton next appeared in the 2008 Coen Brothers film, ''Burn After Reading''. Swinton said of the film, in which she plays opposite George Clooney (with whom she also shared the screen in ''Clayton''), "I don’t know if it will make anybody else laugh, but it really made us laugh while making it." She was cast for the role of Elizabeth Abbott in ''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'', alongside ''Burn After Reading'' co-star Brad Pitt. She had a starring role as the irresponsible eponymous character in Erick Zonca's ''Julia'', which premiered at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival and later saw a limited U.S. release in May 2009. Several critics praised her performance and some claimed it should have won her an Academy Award.

She stars in the new film adaptation of ''We Need to Talk About Kevin'' due for release in September 2011. She has joined the cast of Jim Jarmusch's untitled vampire film which will shoot in early 2012.

Other projects

In 1988, she was a member of the jury at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival.

In August 2006, she opened the new Screen Academy Scotland production centre in Edinburgh.

In July 2008, she founded the film festival Ballerina Ballroom Cinema Of Dreams. The event took place in a ballroom in Nairn in the Scottish Highlands in August.

Swinton has collaborated with artist Patrick Wolf on his 2009 album ''The Bachelor'', contributing four spoken word pieces.

Swinton appeared at the 2009 81st Academy Awards helping to present the 2009 Best Supporting Actress Awards.

In 2009, Swinton and Mark Cousins embarked on a project where they would mount a 33.5-tonne portable cinema on a large truck, hauling it manually through the Scottish Highlands, creating a travelling independent film festival. The festival was repeated again in 2011.

Personal life

Swinton lives in Nairn, in the Highland region of Scotland, near Scottish painter John Byrne and their twin children: a son, Xavier, and a daughter, Honor. She travels with her partner Sandro Kopp, a German/New Zealand painter. She has been with Kopp since 2004 and the relationship has Byrne's blessing. In an interview, Swinton commented on her domestic situation: "It’s the way we have been for nearly four years. I’m very fortunate. It takes some extraordinary men to make a situation like that work."

Filmography

! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1986	''Egomania – Insel ohne Hoffnung''	Sally
1986	''Zastrozzi: A Romance''	Julia	Mini TV series
1986		Lena
1987		Young Girl
1987	''Friendship's Death''	Friendship
1988	''''
1988	''Das Andere Ende der Welt''
1988	''Degrees of Blindness''
1988	''L' Ispirazione''
1989	''Play Me Something''	Hairdresser	TV
1989		Nurse
1990	''Your Cheatin' Heart''	Cissie Crouch	TV series
1990	''''	Madonna
1991		Isabella	Volpi Cup
1991	''''	Queenie
1992	''Shakespeare: The Animated Tales''	Ophelia	Mini TV series; voice
1992		Orlando	Seattle International Film Festival Award for Best ActressThessaloniki Film Festival Award for Best ActressNominated–European Film Award for Best Actress
1992	''Man to Man''	Ella/Max Gericke
1993			Voice
1993	''Das Offene Universum''	Carla	TV
1993		Lady Ottoline Morrell
1994	''Remembrance of Things Fast: True Stories Visual Lies''
1994	''Visions of Heaven and Hell''	Narrator	TV
1996	''Female Perversions''	Eve Stephens
1997	''Conceiving Ada''	Ada Augusta Byron King
1998	''Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon''	Muriel Belcher
1998	''''
1999	''''	Mum
2000		Joyce	Nominated–Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
2000	''''	Sal
2001	''Vanilla Sky''	Rebecca Dearborn
2001	''''	Margaret Hall
2002		Valerie Thomas	Nominated–Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best CastNominated–Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2002	''Teknolust''	Rosetta/Ruby/Marinne/Olive
2003	''''	Annemarie Livi
2003		Ella Gault	BAFTA Scotland for Best Actress in a Scottish FilmNominated–British Independent Film Award for Best ActressNominated–London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the Year
2005
2005	''''	Jadis, the White Witch
2005	''Broken Flowers''	Penny
2005		Audrey Cobb
2006	''Stephanie Daley''	Lydie Crane	Nominated–Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
2006		Narrator	BBC Documentary
2007	''Sleepwalkers''	Violinist
2007	''Strange Culture''	Hope Kurtz
2007	''''	Camélia
2007		Karen Crowder	Academy Award for Best Supporting ActressBAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting RoleDallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress[[Detroit Film Critics Society Awards 2007
2008		Julia	Evening Standard British Film Award for Best ActressInternational Cinephile Society Award for Best ActressVillage Voice Film Poll - Best ActressNominated–César Award for Best ActressNominated–London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the YearNominated–Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
2008	''''	Jadis, the White Witch	Cameo
2008	''Burn After Reading''	Katie Cox	Nominated–BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
2008	''''	Elizabeth Abbott
2009	''''	Blonde
2009		Emma Recchi	Dublin Film Critics Award for Best Female PerformanceEuropean Silver RibbonNominated–London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the YearNominated–San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated–Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
2010	''''	Jadis, the White Witch	Cameo
2011		Eva
2011		Elizabeth Báthory	In Post-production
2012	''Moonrise Kingdom''	TBA

References

External links

Tilda Swinton: ITV Anglia video interview at the 2008 Cambridge Film Festival

BFI: Tilda Swinton

TildaSwinton.Net

Tilda Swinton: A Life in Pictures, BAFTA webcast, 27 November 2007

From ''The Guardian''

From ''BBC'' (2004)

From ''NarniaWeb'' (2005)

From ''Dark Horizons'' (2005)

Category:1960 births Category:Actors from London Category:Alumni of New Hall, Cambridge Category:Anglo-Scots Category:BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress Category:Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners Category:Communist Party of Great Britain members Category:English actors Category:English film actors Category:English people of Scottish descent Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Living people Category:Old Fettesians Category:People from London Category:Polyamory Category:Royal Shakespeare Company members

ar:تيلدا سوينتون ca:Tilda Swinton cs:Tilda Swinton cy:Tilda Swinton da:Tilda Swinton de:Tilda Swinton es:Tilda Swinton fa:تیلدا سوئینتن fr:Tilda Swinton ga:Tilda Swinton ko:틸다 스윈튼 hr:Tilda Swinton id:Tilda Swinton it:Tilda Swinton he:טילדה סווינטון hu:Tilda Swinton nl:Tilda Swinton ja:ティルダ・スウィントン no:Tilda Swinton pl:Tilda Swinton pt:Tilda Swinton ru:Суинтон, Тильда sr:Тилда Свинтон fi:Tilda Swinton sv:Tilda Swinton tl:Tilda Swinton th:ทิลดา สวินตัน tr:Tilda Swinton uk:Тільда Свінтон yo:Tilda Swinton zh:蒂達·史雲頓

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.

History

The term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to the late 19th Century. In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

It was also used as a term for a drug dealer in the 1950s and 1960s and can be seen in such media as Curtis Mayfield's "No Thing On Me", William Burroughs's novel ''Naked Lunch'', and in the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting for the Man", in which Lou Reed sings about going to Uptown Manhattan, specifically Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, to buy heroin.

The use of this term was expanded to counterculture groups and their battles against authority, such as the Yippies, which, according to a May 19, 1969 article in ''U.S. News and World Report'', had the "avowed aim ... to destroy 'The Man', their term for the present system of government". The term eventually found its way into humorous usage, such as in a December 1979 motorcycle ad from the magazine ''Easyriders'' which featured the tagline, "California residents: Add 6% sales tax for The Man."

In present day, the phrase has been popularized in commercials and cinema.

Use as praise

The term has also been used as an approbation or form of praise. This may refer to the recipient's status as the leader or authority within a particular context, or it might be assumed to be a shortened form of a phrase like "He is the man (who is in charge)." One example of this usage dates to 1879 when Otto von Bismarck commented, referring to Benjamin Disraeli's pre-eminent position at the Congress of Berlin, "The old Jew, he is the man."

In more modern usage, it can be a superlative compliment ("you da man!") indicating that the subject is currently standing out amongst his peers even though they have no special designation or rank, such as a basketball player who is performing better than the other players on the court. It can also be used as a genuine compliment with an implied, slightly exaggerated or sarcastic tone, usually indicating that the person has indeed impressed the speaker but by doing something relatively trivial.

See also

Absentee landlord

Big Brother (''Nineteen Eighty-Four'')

New World Order (conspiracy theory)

Ruling class

The Establishment

Power elite

Corrections officer

YTMND

Notes

References

Lighter, J.E. (Ed.). (1997). ''Random House Dictionary of American Slang''. New York: Random House.

Category:Slang expressions Category:Stock characters Category:English idioms Category:Pejorative terms for people Category:Military-industrial complex