Derek Jarman
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Derek Jarman (1942-1994) Leading avant-garde British filmmaker whose visually opulent and stylistically adventurous body of work stands in defiant opposition to the established literary and theatrical traditions of his sometimes staid national cinema. With influences ranging from the eccentric writing-directing team Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to seminal gay aesthetes Jean Cocteau and Kenneth Anger, Jarman advocated a personal cinema more dedicated to striking imagery and evocative sounds than to the imperatives of narrative and characterization. His comments on one of his strongest films are revealing: The Last of England works with image and sound, a language which is nearer to poetry than prose. It tells its story quite happily in silent images, in contrast to a word-bound cinema." Like the noted American underground filmmaker Anger, Jarman displayed a fascination with violence, homoeroticism, gay representation and mythopoeic imagery. Proudly and openly gay, Jarman shared news of his HIV infection with his public and incorporated his subsequent battles with AIDS into his work, particularly in The Garden (1990) and Blue (1993). Excavating and reclaiming suppressed gay history was an ongoing project that informed his several unconventional biopics: SEBASTIANE (1975), Jarman's sun-drenched directorial debut about the martyred Christian saint; the unusually accessible and slyly anachronistic Caravaggio (1986); the raw and angry modern dress version of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II (1991); and the stark and theatrical Wittgenstein (1993). Trained in the fine arts, Jarman began as (and remained) a designer of sets and costumes for ballet and opera. He made his first films (super-8 shorts) while working as a set designer on Ken Russell's THE DEVILS (1971) and SAVAGE MESSIAH (1972). He continued to paint and exhibit his work at London galleries while making his own films, which also reflected a painterly concern with composition. Jarman's features, shorts and music videos display an artist's lively interest in contemporary and historical English culture. In JUBILEE (1978), Queen Elizabeth I is conducted on a tour of a futuristic England in which violence and anarchy hold sway; the film became something of a beacon of the punk movement in the late 1970s. Jarman's take on THE TEMPEST (1979) was a typically irreverent and somewhat rambling reworking of Shakespeare's play. The WWI poems of Wilfred Owen, set to the music of Benjamin Britten, shaped War Requiem (1988), a powerful essay on the wastes of wars past while commenting on the modern ravages of AIDS. Jarman's feature about the painter Caravaggio was perhaps his most popular film. This stylishly rendered biopic dramatized the conflicts between the artist's need for patronage, his religious beliefs and his sexuality. Noting that Caravaggio consistently painted Saint John as muscle-bound, Jarman suggested that the painter found sexual as well as aesthetic elation with the street thug he used as a model. The director also had fun creating filmic facsimiles of some of the painter's best known works. Curiously, although it undercuts narrative conventions by using heavy-handed anachronisms—typewriters, motorbikes—the film nevertheless reiterated one of the hoariest clichés of Hollywood biopics such as LUST FOR LIFE: i.e., that art is little more than immediately recorded experience, "life" thrown directly onto the canvas; the process of artistic creation is completely glossed over. Like the celebrated American underground filmmaker Stan Brakhage, Jarman was a compulsive film diarist. He chronicled much of his life on super-8 film and incorporated this footage, blown up to 35mm, into his more personal, non-linear narrative films. Jarman's super-8 movies of beautiful young men in dramatic landscapes featuring caves, rocks and water lent a lushly romantic mood to THE ANGELIC CONVERSATION (1985), a non-traditional rendering of Shakespeare's sonnets. Last of England, a raging, despairing, and emotionally overwhelming vision of Britain as an urban wasteland, intercut shots of Jarman writing in his room with excerpts from home movies shot by the director, his father, and his grandfather and surreal tableaux of violence and degradation. Pastoral sequences of Jarman's childhood evince a longing for simpler times for the filmmaker and the nation. Jarman described himself as one of the last generation to remember "the countryside before mechanization intervened and destroyed everything." Though much of Jarman's work is intensely personal, it was also supremely collaborative. He worked with many of the same people—in front of and behind the camera—on each of his projects. He welcomed and encouraged contributions; significant Liverpool sequences in THE LAST OF ENGLAND were shot by members of Jarman's crew without his direction. Composer-sound designer Simon Fisher Turner provided powerful scores and/or densely layered soundtracks for CARAVAGGIO, THE LAST OF ENGLAND, THE GARDEN, EDWARD II and BLUE. Distinguished actor Nigel Terry starred as the tortured Caravaggio, and his rich deep voice narrated THE LAST OF ENGLAND and parts of BLUE. Jarman's most important performer was the prodigiously talented Tilda Swinton, whose intensity and unusual beauty graced THE LAST OF ENGLAND, WAR REQUIEM, THE GARDEN, EDWARD II, WITTGENSTEIN, BLUE and Jarman's segment of Aria (1988). In his last years, Jarman was an outspoken advocate for the rights and dignity of gays and PWAs (Persons With AIDS), but art remained his primary cause. A champion of film art and a dedicated experimentalist, he was a critic of, and at odds with, what he saw as the stifling, repressive commercialism of mainstream cinema. Always struggling for funds, Jarman produced his first seven features for a combined cost of only $3 million. His final film, Blue, was his most unconventional—an unchanging field of blue over which we hear voices and sounds. Blind and mortally ill, Jarman remained a visionary film maverick. He authored a number of books, including a 1984 autobiography, Dancing Ledge. Jarman succumbed to AIDS complications at age 52. |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Derek Jarman (January 31, 1942 – February 19, 1994) was an English film director, stage designer, artist, and writer.
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[edit] Life
Jarman was born Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman in Northwood, Middlesex, boarded at Canford School in Dorset and from 1960 studied at King's College London. This was followed by four years at the Slade School of Art, University College London, starting in 1963. He had a studio at Butler's Wharf, London, and was part of the Andrew Logan social scene in the 1970s.
On December 22, 1986 he was diagnosed HIV positive, and was notable for later discussing his condition in public. His illness prompted him to move to Prospect Cottage, Dungeness in Kent, near to the nuclear power station. In 1994 he died of an AIDS related illness. He is buried in the graveyard at Old Romney Church, Kent. Chumbawamba subsequently released Song for Derek Jarman in his honour. Andi Sexgang, another music artist released the CD Last of England as a tribute.
[edit] Films
Jarman's first films were experimental super 8 mm shorts, a form he never entirely abandoned, and later developed further (in his films Imagining October (1984), The Angelic Conversation (1985), The Last of England (1987) and The Garden (1990)) as a parallel to his narrative work.
Jarman first became known as a stage designer getting a break into the film industry as production designer for Ken Russell's The Devils (1970), and later made his debut in "overground" narrative filmmaking with the groundbreaking Sebastiane (1976), arguably the first British film to feature positive images of gay sexuality, and the first film entirely in Latin.
He followed this with the film many regard as his first masterpiece, Jubilee (shot 1977, released 1978), in which Queen Elizabeth I of England is transported forward in time to a desolate and brutal wasteland ruled by her twentieth century namesake. Jubilee was arguably the first UK punk movie, and among its cast featured punk groups and figures such as Wayne County of Wayne County & the Electric Chairs, Jordan, Toyah Willcox, and Adam and the Ants.
After making the unconventional Shakespeare adaptation The Tempest in 1979 (a film praised by several Shakespeare scholars, but dismissed by some traditionalist critics), Jarman spent seven years making experimental super 8 mm films and attempting to raise money for Caravaggio (he later claimed to have rewritten the script seventeen times during this period). Finally released in 1986, the film attracted a comparatively wide audience (and is still, barring the cult hit Jubilee, probably his most widely-known work), partly due to the involvement, for the first time, of the British television company Channel 4 in funding and distribution. This marked the beginning of a new phase in Jarman's filmmaking career: from now on all his films would be partly funded by television companies, often receiving their most prominent exhibition in TV screenings. Caravaggio also saw Jarman work with actress Tilda Swinton for the first time.
The conclusion of Caravaggio also marked the beginning of a temporary abandonment of traditional narrative in Jarman's work. Frustrated by the formality of 35 mm film production, and the institutional dependence and resultant prolonged inactivity associated with it (which had already cost him seven years with Caravaggio, as well as derailing several long-term projects), Jarman returned to and expanded the super 8 mm-based form he had previously worked in on Imagining October and The Angelic Conversation.
The first film to result from this new semi-narrative phase, The Last of England told the death of a country, ravaged by its own internal decay and Thatcher's economic restructuring. "Wrenchingly beautiful…the film is one of the few commanding works of personal cinema in the late 80's -- a call to open our eyes to a world violated by greed and repression, to see what irrevocable damage has been wrought on city, countryside and soul, how our skies, our bodies, have turned poisonous," wrote The Village Voice. During the 1980s Jarman was still one of the few openly gay public figures in Britain and so was a leading campaigner against "anti-gay" legislation and to raise awareness of AIDS.
During the making of The Garden, Jarman became seriously ill. Although he recovered sufficiently to complete the film, he never attempted anything on a comparable scale afterwards, returning to a more pared-down form for his concluding narrative films, Edward II (perhaps his most politically outspoken work, informed by his Queer activism) and the Brechtian Wittgenstein, a delicate tragicomedy based on the life of the eponymous philosopher. It was a later complaint of Jarman's that with the disappearance of the Independent Film sector it had become impossible for him to get finance. Jarman made a side income by directing music videos for various artists including Marianne Faithfull, The Smiths and the Pet Shop Boys.
In 1989 Jarman's film War Requiem brought out of retirement legendary actor Laurence Olivier (who had announced his retirement in 1987). It turned out to be Olivier's last performance.
At the time when he made the film Blue, he was blind and dying of AIDS-related complications. Blue consists of a single shot of saturated blue colour filling the screen, as background to a soundtrack composed by Simon Fisher Turner featuring original music by Coil and other artists, where Jarman describes his life and vision. When it was shown on British television, Channel 4 carried the image whilst the soundtrack was broadcast simultaneously on BBC Radio 3, a collaborative project unique for its time.
His final testament as a film-maker was the film Glitterbug made for the Arena slot on BBC Two, and broadcast shortly after Jarman's death. Compiled and edited from many hours of super 8 footage shot with friends and companions throughout his career it is a moving collage of memories, people and moments lost in time, accompanied by a specially commissioned soundtrack from Brian Eno.
[edit] Other works
Jarman's work broke new ground in creating and expanding the fledgling form of 'the pop video' in England, and as a forthright and prominent gay rights activist. Several volumes of his diaries have been published.
Jarman also directed the 1989 tour by the UK duo Pet Shop Boys. By pop concert standards this was a highly theatrical event with costume and specially shot films accompanying the individual songs.
He is also remembered for his famous shingle cottage-garden, created in the latter years of his life, in the shadow of the Dungeness power station. The house was built in tarred timber. Raised wooden text on the side of the cottage is the first stanza and the last five lines of the last stanza of John Donne's poem, The Sun Rising. The cottage's beach garden was made using local materials and has been the subject of several books. At this time, Jarman also began painting again (see the book: Evil Queen: The Last Paintings, 1994).
Jarman was the author of several books including his autobiography Dancing Ledge, a collection of poetry A Finger in the Fishes Mouth, two volumes of diaries Modern Nature and Smiling In Slow Motion and two treatises on his work in film and art The Last of England (also published as Kicking the Pricks) and Chroma. Other notable published works include film scripts (Up in the Air, Blue, War Requiem, Caravaggio, Queer Edward II and Wittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script/The Derek Jarman Film), a study of his infamous garden at Dungeness Derek Jarman's Garden, and At Your Own Risk, a defiant celebration of gay sexuality.
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Feature Films
- Sebastiane (1976)
- Jubilee (1977)
- The Tempest (1979)
- The Angelic Conversation (1985)
- Caravaggio (1986)
- The Last of England (1988)
- War Requiem (1989)
- The Garden (1990)
- Edward II (1991)
- Wittgenstein (1993)
- Blue (1993)
[edit] Short Films
- Electric Fairy (1971, nonextant)
- Studio Bankside (1971)
- Garden of Luxor (aka Burning the Pyramids, 1972)
- Miss Gaby (1972)
- A Journey to Avebury (1971)
- Andrew Logan Kisses the Glitterati (1972)
- Tarot (aka Magician, 1972)
- Art of Mirrors (aka Sulphur, 1973)
- Stolen Apples for Karen Blixen (1973)
- Miss World (1973)
- The Devils at the Elgin (aka Reworking the Devils, 1974)
- Fire Island (1974)
- Duggie Fields (1974)
- Ula's Fete (aka Ula's Chandelier, 1975)
- Picnic at Ray's (1975)
- Sebastiane Wrap (1975)
- Sloane Square: A Room of One's Own (1976)
- Gerald's Film (1976)
- Art and the Pose (1976)
- Houston Texas (1976)
- Jordan's Dance (1977)
- Every Woman for Herself and All for Art (1977)
- The Pantheon (1978)
- In the Shadow of the Sun (1980) (this compilation of Jarman's Super-8 shorts from 1974-1980 effectively serves as an extended music video for eponymous piece by Throbbing Gristle)
- T.G.: Psychic Rally in Heaven (1981)
- Jordan's Wedding (1981)
- Pirate Tape (W.S. Burroughs Film) (1982)
- Waiting for Waiting for Godot (1982)
- Pontormo and Punks at Santa Croce (1982)
- B2 Tape/Film (1983)
- Catalan (1984)
- Imagining October (1984)
- Aria (1987)
- segment: Depuis le Jour
- L'Ispirazione (1988)
- Glitterbug (1994) (one-hour compilation film of various Super-8 shorts with music by Brian Eno)
Jarman's early Super-8 mm work has been included on some of the DVD releases of his films.
[edit] Music videos
- The Sex Pistols: The Sex Pistols Number One (1976). Early live footage of the band.
- Marianne Faithfull: "Broken English", "Witches' Song", and "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" (all 1979)
- Throbbing Gristle: TG Psychic Rally in Heaven (1981).
- Language: "Touch The Radio Dance" (1984)[1] (notable because it was shown at the Museum of Modern Art)
- Orange Juice: "What Presence?!" (1984).
- Marc Almond: "Tenderness Is a Weakness" (1984).
- The Smiths:
- The Queen Is Dead, a short film incorporating the Smiths songs "The Queen Is Dead", "Panic", and "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" (1986)
- The "Panic" sequence from The Queen Is Dead was edited to form the video for that single (1986)
- "Ask" (1986)
- Matt Fretton: "Avatar" (1986)
- Pet Shop Boys: "It's a Sin", "Rent", and "Projections".
[edit] References
- ^ Peake, Tony. 1999. Derek Jarman: A Biography. New York: The Overlook Press/Little, Brown. pg. 312: listed as "Steve Hale's 'Touch the Radio, Dance!'"
[edit] Further reading
- Martin Frey. Derek Jarman - Bewegte Bilder eines Malers. (BoD, 2008), ISBN 978-3-8370-1217-0
- Steven Dillon. Derek Jarman and Lyric Film: The Mirror and the Sea. (2004).
- Tony Peake. Derek Jarman (Little, Brown & Co, 2000). 600-page biography.
- Michael O'Pray. Derek Jarman: Dreams of England. (British Film Institute, 1996).
- Howard Sooley. Derek Jarman's Garden. (Thames & Hudson, 1995).
- Derek Jarman. 'Modern Nature' (Diaries 1989 - 1990)
- Derek Jarman. 'Smiling in Slow Motion' (Diaries 1991 - 1994)
[edit] External links
- Bibliography of books and articles about Jarman via UC Berkeley Media Resources center
- Slow Motion Angel - a Derek Jarman Information and Resource Site
- Stage and Screen Online Composer Simon Fisher Turner discusses, in a 1 hour interview, his close collaborations with Derek Jarman.
- Derek Jarman biography and credits at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
- Derek Jarman: Radical Traditionalist
- Preserving A Harlequin - a Jarman retrospective by Nick Clapson.
- Derek Jarman at the Internet Movie Database.
- Photographs of Prospect Cottage at Flickr
- Derek Jarman on Find-A-Grave
- Derek Jarman - Moving Pictures of a Painter
LINKS:
A nice site, but pretty incomplete, about the director:
Derek Jarman, shadow & substance
Another tribute page, but in japanese!
Derek Jarman pages, WAX museum
Complete list of his filmography:
Derek Jarman on the Internet Movie Database
List of books written by Derek Jarman, or about his life and his work:
Derek Jarman page, Amazon.com
The Derek Jarman collection
A fine amatorial page dedicated to Derek Jarman, with photos of the Prospect Cottage, by Dave Gardiner:
Derek Jarman Homepage
Back to the Tilda Swinton Lovers' Page
Derek Jarman Curated by Isaac Julien
23 February - 13 April 2008
The Derek Jarman exhibition will present a selection of work by the leading British film-maker of his generation. Curated by the celebrated artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, it will highlight Jarman’s work in film and painting, including his pioneering presentation of the moving image within the gallery context. Jarman was arguably the single most crucial figure of British independent cinema in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. He struggled for Gay Liberation and with the impact of AIDS and lived as a participant observer, recording all that passed before him, from punk to Thatcher, Hampstead Heath to film premiere.
This exhibition is a timely reappraisal of Jarman’s work, conceived as an immersive environment by Julien, featuring rarely seen films from the Derek Jarman Super-8 archive, an installation of his film Blue, 1993, as well as a selection of his paintings. Julien has also created a series of photographic lightboxes documenting Jarman’s cottage and garden in Dungeness.
The exhibition will mark the premiere of Julien’s new film about Jarman, Derek, the centre of which is a day-long interview Jarman recorded in 1990. The film includes a narration by Tilda Swinton and clips of Jarman’s films, juxtaposed with news and footage of the current affairs from the times that this life illuminated. It is a film of Jarman’s life as well as the story of England from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Derek is supported by Channel 4, Film London and the Sundance Film Fund. The film will premier on More4 and in the Serpentine Gallery exhibition, as part of a season of events celebrating Jarman’s work. This will also include screenings of Jarman’s films on More4 and at Picturehouse cinemas throughout London and the launch of the Jarman Award for artist film-makers, presented by Film London and More4, in partnership with the Serpentine Gallery.
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Isaac Julien talks to Joanne Oatts on a tour of the exhibition
This Spring will also see Jarman's super-8 films displayed as part of the Tate’s Lightbox series from 5 April – 1 June at Tate Britain.
Derek Jarman Blue 1993 Courtesy of Basilisk Communications
Current
Derek Jarman Curated by Isaac Julien
23 February - 13 April 2008
The Derek Jarman exhibition will present a selection of work by the leading British film-maker of his generation. Curated by the celebrated artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, it will highlight Jarman’s work in film and painting, including his pioneering presentation of the moving image within the gallery context. Jarman was arguably the single most crucial figure of British independent cinema in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. He struggled for Gay Liberation and with the impact of AIDS and lived as a participant observer, recording all that passed before him, from punk to Thatcher, Hampstead Heath to film premiere.
This exhibition is a timely reappraisal of Jarman’s work, conceived as an immersive environment by Julien, featuring rarely seen films from the Derek Jarman Super-8 archive, an installation of his film Blue, 1993, as well as a selection of his paintings. Julien has also created a series of photographic lightboxes documenting Jarman’s cottage and garden in Dungeness.
The exhibition will mark the premiere of Julien’s new film about Jarman, Derek, the centre of which is a day-long interview Jarman recorded in 1990. The film includes a narration by Tilda Swinton and clips of Jarman’s films, juxtaposed with news and footage of the current affairs from the times that this life illuminated. It is a film of Jarman’s life as well as the story of England from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Derek is supported by Channel 4, Film London and the Sundance Film Fund. The film will premier on More4 and in the Serpentine Gallery exhibition, as part of a season of events celebrating Jarman’s work. This will also include screenings of Jarman’s films on More4 and at Picturehouse cinemas throughout London and the launch of the Jarman Award for artist film-makers, presented by Film London and More4, in partnership with the Serpentine Gallery.
This exhibition contains material, including scenes of a sexual nature, that some people may find offensive. Parental guidance is advisable.
| Derek Jarman's Garden Prospect Cottage, Dungeness, Kent  | Barbara Hepworth Ivon Hitchens Derek Jarman Ian Hamilton Finlay | ||
| Derek Jarman was drawn to Dungeness by its desolate character; he used it as the setting for his film The Last of England, an allegory on the social and sexual inequalities in England under Thatcherism. Later that year he was diagnosed as HIV positive, and while his public life became increasingly dedicated to gay rights issues, he devoted his private life to the creation of a garden at Prospect Cottage, a fisherman’s house on a huge bank of shingle on the Kent coast. Jarman was a relatively inexperienced gardener, and given the inhospitable conditions at Dungeness he initially had little hope of establishing a garden. But he succeeded with the help of friends, especially the photographer Howard Sooley, using local plants and gathering flints and stones to form large circular beds and standing stones, or ‘dragon’s teeth’. He also collected old fishing tackle, shells, broken garden tools, driftwood and pieces of twisted metal from old sea defences, using them as plant supports and garden sculptures. The front garden was more formal, the back garden more experimental, although there are no fences of walls anywhere. Jarman’s garden featured in his 1989 film War Requiem, and in the following year was the focal point of The Garden, ‘a parable about the cruel and unnecessary perversion of innocence’ where it figured both as the Garden of Eden and the garden at Gethsemane. |
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