FRI-AWWW DAY
St. Tilda Swinton Rocks Eberfest’s ‘Spiritual Service’
By Elizabeth C.
IN A SEPTEMBER 2011 COLUMN HEADLINED “THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ST. TILDA,” revered film critic Roger Ebert penned a gushing love letter to the Oscar-winning British actress Tilda Swinton.
If more people were like Tilda Swinton, what a better world this would be,” Ebert swooned. “She looks people straight in the eye. She levels. She notices and cares about them-not just the big shots, but everyone. She still corresponds with Hilde Back, the 83-year-old Swedish woman who was the heroine of the great documentary “A Small Act” at Ebertfest 2011. She personally helps haul a trailer across the north of Scotland so that movies can be exhibited in towns without cinemas. She is formidably intelligent and forthright. She has a good heart. She freshens my faith in the cinema.
That’s effusive praise from a man beloved for his own genuine humanity — and that was just the first paragraph.
But Ebert’s love was clearly requited as the actress turned up at the 2013 Ebertfest in Champaign, Ill., to lead a dance in celebrating the film critic’s life. Ebert passed away
Calling her a woman of her word, Ebert’s widow Roger Ebert’s widow Chaz introduced Swinton who then busts some moves through the Virginia Theatre crowd to Barry White’s You Are the First, My Last, My Everything. “No lump observers allowed,” she warned the crowd. “Participants only. Everyone’s going to stand…this is a spiritual service.”
Turn the music up, and let the party commence.
