Pathway: Orlando- A film by Sally Potter based on the novel by Virginia Woolf by Lidia Buonaiuto

Reflect upon and illustrate the process of adapting Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel, Orlando, to film.

A4 pages, handwritten, Paper, Pre-draft handwritten notes on key scenes

Potter establishes what for her is the 'controlling idea' in the novel: death= re-birth, endings are beginnings. Cyclical notion

1 x A4 black photograph album; 34 vellum pages; 24 x colour prints, Mixed, Presentation book containing Sally Potter's notes on the film and colour photographs of Tilda Swinton at Hatfield House

This list of contents provides a clear overview of the themes and characters Potter intends to explore in the film adaptation, also illustrating the themes and characters which she leaves behind.

A4 pages, Paper, Typed notes on Virginia Woolf's ideas about the future for women

A4 pages, Paper, Typed notes on Virginia Woolf's ideas about the future for women

Potter engages with the process of adaptation: 'How can I adapt what Virginia Woolf might have written for Orlando the film'. Potter is concerned with not only fidelity to the novel, but fidelity to the author.

1x A4 Black card, 10x A4 Double side printed text and image document, Paper, Cannes Prospectus

The casting of Tilda Swinton as Orlando. Swinton has an androgynous 'look'. Potter has chosen a female actor to perform both male and female Orlando as opposed to the use of a male actor, or the use of two actors for Orlando's character, a male and female. Is this a comment on...? Potter decides not to use false facial hair or a change of voice for male Orlando which requires from the audience a suspension of belief in the sex of male Orlando. Return to Potter's 'controlling idea', the cyclical notion of the end being the beginning, death being birth. In the farewell to the male Orlando character, Swinton returns to acting as female Orlando which relates to her real life sex. Reminiscent of the on stage gender play in Shakespearean plays, boy actors, for example in As You Like It (in which there is a character called Orlando!)

Video file, Digital, Selected Scene Commentary by Sally Potter

1 x colour slide in transparent plastic hanging sheet, Digital, Film Stills - Scene 4 - Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp) in the film

Casting of Quentin Crisp, a gay icon of the 1970's as Queen Elizabeth I. Intertextuality. Gender play. Return to suspension of belief.

1 x colour slide in transparent plastic hanging sheet, Digital, Film Stills - Scene 65 - Angel (Jimmy Somerville) in the film

Jimmy Somerville here as an angel in the closing sequence. Also features as a castrato singer in 1610 Love and 1750 Society. Gender and sexuality play.

Omission of the novel's episode of Orlando's gender transmutation, which features Sisters Purity, Chastity, Modesty. The novel until this point exercises a comparable subtlety to the fantasy of the narrative, here we have starkly fantastical image reminiscent of Shakespeare's The Tempest... Potter instead ends the film with a similarly surreal, starkly fantastical Angel Jimmy Somerville singing in falsetto register, where the film has other wise been subtle in its fantasy.