They blinded me with cinema

Tilda Swinton blinded me with her shoe.

Every great movie or book has a strong opening line. That'll probably be the best one I ever write. But I digress.

The occasion was the TimesTalks conversation with Ralph Fiennes, Swinton and writer/director Luca Guadagnino at Florence Gould Hall. And as I was the ninth person on line, I wound up in the front row. The two men behind me apparently didn't queue up and wormed their way into the second row. They were pretending to chat with Swinton in a most overwrought and pretentious way, with high inflection and a born-to-the-manor air -- "Oh, Tilda, you're so right."

As they hadn't been on line, they didn't get the index cards for writing down a question for the panel, so they kept on practicing what they would say to her when a microphone came down into the audience. They were aghast when a voice from above told everyone to pass their questions to the right. And when the program didn't start on time, they kept "talking" with her ... and then started blaming Ralph Fiennes for being a  diva who was making them wait for Swinton. Stop right there, buddies. If they had been paying any kind of attention, they might have noticed that people weren't in the reserved seats yet -- and thusly were probably doing some kind of preshow meet-and-greet with the trio.

I've loved and respected both these actors for a long, long time. Fiennes, of course, goes back to Schindler's List and Quiz Show and Oscar and Lucinda and The English Patient. Swinton was a force never to be forgotten in the gender-changing opus Orlando and thank the heavens she didn't just disappear or fade away after that. She rightfully took home a supporting actor Oscar for her dynamic role in Michael Clayton.

Backtracking again... When you're in line in New York City, you're invariable asked what the line is for. I enunciated very clearly -- as "Rafe Fines" -- and the gentleman inquirer retorted, "Oh, I love Ralph Fines." I'm still bemused how one can get pronunciation of the first name wrong if you're getting the second half correct.

With the reserved patrons in their seats and a clear vantage point of the statuesque Swinton standing in the wings, the panel was finally introduced. I'll never be able to know for sure, because the TimesTalks video starts with them already in their seats, but I think Ralph took note of my The Grand Budapest Hotel shirt of the infamous "Boy with Apple" painting.

Guadagnino did one of the coolest things. He sat down and noticed the flowers perched on the table next to him. He touched one of the petals on one flower, as many of us might, but then he touched another flower and another and another. That's so directorial.

What brought the three of them together was the upcoming movie A Bigger Splash, loosely adapted from the 1969 flick La Piscine. And when I say loose, I mean loose. The team of Guadagnino and Swinton really reworked the premise. Tilda plays Marianne, a huge rock star who has undergone one of those operations that prevent her from speaking. That affords Swinton a lot of time and space to speak volumes without actual words, a talent she excels at.

Meanwhile, Fiennes gets to be big and bombastic as Harry, filling in all the verbal spaces. When New York Times writer and moderator Cara Buckley pointed out that the role is a radical change for him and the character "unfettered," Ralph quickly quipped that he had previously been known "for being fettered."

But in a more serious vein, he added that for years he had longed to have been offered the kind of parts that Luca -- and Wes Anderson with GBH -- brought to him.

"I think somewhere inside me, there was an inner Harry waiting to be released," he said. "I was always asked to be angst-ridden, troubled people. I feel very lucky that Luca and Wes saw the light."

Swinton loves to take roles that delve into the difficulties of communications. And she's found a cinematic soulmate in Guadagnino, after she lost that kind of relationship with the passing of writer/director Derek Jarman. In regards to this particular film, since she was still dealing with the passing of her mother, she found she really didn't want to speak that much and thus discovered something authentic in not having to verbalize every single word or intention.

Somewhere along the line, the buckle of Tilda's finely crafted shoe caught a spotlight and totally blinded me. I looked away, but I was seeing flashes and bubbles for a few minutes. I hope she was aiming for the Swintonites behind me.

We saw four clips of the film, filmed on the lush but highly charged Italian island of Pantelleria. I found myself watching Tilda and Ralph watching themselves and interacting with each other more than what was on the screen. Luca, meanwhile, wasn't looking at the little monitor in front of him, he was viewing on the big screen behind them. Even if you had no idea who this man was, just from seeing him on the stage, you would peg him as a director.

Swinton was aghast at giving spoilers as the panelists talked more and more about the details of the film. Dakota Johnson plays Fiennes' newly found daughter, and her motives -- and Harry's possibly reactions to her -- are a bit nebulous. Luca was thrilled to have found her late in the process, he had seen a lot of actresses but no one who could really fit into the part.

Then there's another fly in the ointment -- Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts). Not only is he Marianne's lover, but Harry brought them together in the first place. Now, years later, he's apparently kind of changed his mind about that.

The audience question portion was left off the TimesTalks video, and mine was not posed (although since there were quite a few references to GBH, I think the moderator may have decided Wes Anderson was well covered territory at that point.)

But Ralph did address his future on Broadway. It doesn't look like his highly touted The Master Builder will make it to the Great White Way after a successful run in England. Richard III, one of his dream roles and definitely one that I won't miss, seems like it will come to pass but hasn't been firmed up yet.

Tilda seemed thoroughly embarrassed when she had to read one of the audience's question, "What's an extraterrestrial goddess like you doing on a planet like this?" Her response was perfect -- just existing like everyone else.

Still, no matter what, I always seem to get back to extraterrestrials.