Derek Jarman

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Derek Jarman
New Queer Cinema[3]
Partner(s)Philip Macdonald
(1980–1988)
Keith Collins
(1987–1994; his death)[4]

Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman

gay rights
activist.

Biography

Blue plaque at Butler's Wharf

Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing Home in Northwood, Middlesex, England,[2] the son of Elizabeth Evelyn (née Puttock)[5] and Lancelot Elworthy Jarman.[6][7] His father was a Royal Air Force officer, born in New Zealand.

After a prep school education at

gay rights
, and his personal struggle with AIDS.

On 22 December 1986, Jarman was diagnosed as

atheist.[9] He is buried in the graveyard at St Clement's Church, Old Romney
, Kent.

In his last years, Jarman was emotionally and practically supported by the companionship of Keith Collins, a young man he had met in 1987. While not lovers (Collins had his own partner), the friendship became essential for both of them. Jarman left Prospect Cottage to him.[10]

A blue plaque commemorating Jarman was unveiled at Butler's Wharf in London on 19 February 2019, the 25th anniversary of his death.[11]

Films

Jarman's first films were experimental Super 8mm 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. The Garden was entered into the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.[12] The Angelic Conversation featured Toby Mott and other members of the Grey Organisation, a radical artist collective.[13]

Jarman first became known as a stage designer. His break in the film industry came as production designer for Ken Russell's The Devils (1971).[14] He made his mainstream narrative filmmaking debut with Sebastiane (1976), about the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. This was one of the first British films to feature positive images of gay sexuality;[15] its dialogue was entirely in Latin.

He followed this with

Jordan, Toyah Willcox, Adam and the Ants
and The Slits.

This was followed in 1979 by an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest.[18]

During the 1980s, Jarman was a leading campaigner against Clause 28, which sought to ban the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools. He also worked to raise awareness of AIDS. His artistic practice in the early 1980s reflected these commitments, especially in The Angelic Conversation (1985), a film in which the imagery is accompanied by Judi Dench's voice reciting Shakespeare's sonnets.

Jarman spent seven years making experimental Super 8mm films and attempting to raise money for Caravaggio (he later claimed to have rewritten the script seventeen times during this period). Released in 1986, Caravaggio[19] attracted a comparatively wide audience; it is still, barring the cult hit Jubilee, probably Jarman's most widely known work. This is partly due to the involvement, for the first time with a Jarman film, of the British television company Channel 4 in funding and distribution. Funded by the British Film Institute and produced by film theorist Colin MacCabe, Caravaggio became Jarman's most famous film to date, and marked the beginning of a new phase in his filmmaking career: from then onwards, 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. Overt depictions of homosexual love, narrative ambiguity, and the live representations of Caravaggio's most famous paintings are all prominent features in the film.

The conclusion of Caravaggio also marked the beginning of a temporary abandonment of traditional narrative in Jarman's films. Frustrated by the formality of

Silver Bear for an outstanding single achievement.[20]

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 the economic restructuring of

Village Voice
 critic.

In 1989, Jarman's film War Requiem produced by Don Boyd brought Laurence Olivier out of retirement for what would be Olivier's last screen performance. The film uses Benjamin Britten's eponymous anti-war requiem as its soundtrack and juxtaposes violent footage of war with the mass for the dead and the passionate humanist poetry of Wilfred Owen.

During the making of his film

music videos for various artists, including Marianne Faithfull,[21] The Smiths and the Pet Shop Boys.[22]

Jarman's headstone in the graveyard of St Clement's Church, Old Romney

By the time of his 1993 film

Arena slot on BBC Two
, and broadcast shortly after Jarman's death.

Other works

Derek Jarman's garden, Prospect Cottage, Dungeness, in May 2007

Jarman's work broke new ground in creating and expanding the fledgling form of 'the

gay rights activism.[29]

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. Jarman was the stage director of Sylvano Bussotti's opera L'Ispirazione, first staged in Florence in 1988.

Jarman is also remembered for his famous shingle cottage-garden at

flotsam washed up nearby, interspersed with endemic salt-loving beach plants, both set against the bright shingle. The garden has been the subject of several books. At this time, Jarman also began painting again.[30]

In 2020 the Garden Museum in London held an exhibition called "Derek Jarman: my Garden's Boundaries are the Horizon"[31] parts of the garden and Prospect Cottage were recreated for the exhibition as well as artifacts from Jarman's estate. [32][33]

Jarman was the author of several books including his autobiography Dancing Ledge (1984), which details his life until the age 40. He provides his own insight on the history of gay life in London (1960s-1980s), discusses his own acceptance of his homosexuality at age 16 and accounts of the financial and emotional hardships of a life devoted to filmmaking.[34] 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 garden at Dungeness Derek Jarman's Garden, and At Your Own Risk, a defiant celebration of gay sexuality.

Musical tributes

After his death, the band

Andi Sexgang released the CD Last of England as a Jarman tribute. The ambient experimental album The Garden Is Full of Metal by Robin Rimbaud included Jarman speech samples.[35]

Break My Heart Slowly" (2006). On his album In the Mist, released in 2011, ambient composer Harold Budd features a song titled "The Art of Mirrors (after Derek Jarman)".[36]

Coil, which in 1985 contributed a soundtrack for Jarman's The Angelic Conversation[37] released the 7" single "Themes for Derek Jarman's Blue"[38] in 1993. In 2004, Coil's Peter Christopherson performed his score for the Jarman short The Art of Mirrors as a tribute to Jarman live at L'étrange Festival in Paris. In 2015, record label Black Mass Rising released a recording of the performance.[39] In 2018, composer Gregory Spears created a work for chorus and string quartet, titled "The Tower and the Garden", commissioned by conductors Donald Nally, Mark Shapiro, Robert Geary and Carmen-Helena Téllez, setting a poem by Keith Garebian from his collection "Blue: The Derek Jarman Poems" (2008).

The French musician and composer Romain Frequency released his first album Research on a nameless colour[40] in 2020 as a tribute to Jarman's final collection of Essays “Chroma” released in 1994, the year he died and written while struggling with illness (facing the irony of an artist going blind). The songs are devoted to an unexisting colour and their attendant emotion as a transposition of a certain contemplative state into sound. The album received a positive response from the press.[41]

Filmography

Feature films

Short films

  • Studio Bankside (1971)
  • Electric Fairy (1971)
  • Garden of Luxor (aka Burning the Pyramids 1972)
  • Burning the Pyramids (1972)
  • Miss Gaby (1972)
  • A Journey to Avebury (1971)
  • Andrew Logan Kisses the Glitterati (1972)
  • At Low Tide (1972)
  • Tarot (aka the Magician, 1972)
  • Art of Mirrors (1973)
  • Sulphur (1973)
  • Stolen Apples for Karen Blixen (1973)
  • Ashden's Walk on Møn (1973)
  • Miss World (1973)
  • The Devils at the Elgin (aka Reworking the Devils, 1974)
  • Fire Island (1974)
  • Duggie Fields (1974)
  • Ulla's Fete (aka Ulla's Chandelier, 1975)
  • Picnic at Ray's (1975)
  • Sebastiane Wrap (1975)
  • The Making of Sebastiane (1975)
  • Sea of Storms (1976)
  • 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 (1974) (in 1981 Throbbing Gristle was commissioned to provide a new soundtrack for this 54-minute film)
  • T.G.: Psychic Rally in Heaven (1981)
  • Jordan's Wedding (1981)
  • Waiting for Waiting for Godot (1982)
  • Pontormo and Punks at Santa Croce (1982)
  • B2 Tape (1983)
  • The Dream Machine (1983) (Consists of multiple short vignettes of previous works)
    • Witches Song (1979)
    • Broken English (1979)
    • Ballad Of Lucy Jordan (1979)
    • Pirate Tape (1983)
    • T.G.: Psychic Rally In Heaven (1981).
  • Imagining October (1984)
  • Pirate Tape (William S. Burroughs Film) (1987)
  • Aria (1987)
    • segment: Depuis le Jour
  • L'Ispirazione (1988)
  • Coil: Egyptian Basses (1993)
  • The Clearing (1994)[42]
  • Glitterbug (1994) (one-hour compilation film of various Super-8 shorts with music by Brian Eno)
  • Will You Dance With Me?" (2014) (filmed in 1984 but released posthumously)[43]

Jarman's early Super-8 mm work has been included on some of the DVD releases of his films.

Music videos

Scenic design

Bibliography

  • Dancing Ledge (1984)
  • Kicking the Pricks (1987)
  • Modern Nature: Journals, 1989-1990 (1991)
  • At Your Own Risk (1992)
  • A Finger in the Fishes Mouth, poetry
  • Derek Jarman's Garden (1995)
  • Smiling in Slow Motion: Journals, 1991-1994 (2000)

Film and television works prompted by Jarman's life and work

  • The Last Paintings of Derek Jarman (Mark Jordan, Granada TV 1995). Broadcast by
    Whitworth Art Gallery
    , Manchester. (Contact BFI for footage).
  • Derek Jarman: Life as Art (2004): a film exploring Derek Jarman's life and films by 400Blows Productions/Andy Kimpton-Nye, featuring Tilda Swinton, Simon Fisher Turner, Chris Hobbs and narrated by John Quentin. Broadcast on Sky Arts and screened at film festivals around the world, including Buenos Aires, Cork, London, Leeds, Philadelphia and Turin.
  • Derek (2008): a biography of Jarman's life and work, directed by Isaac Julien and written and narrated by Tilda Swinton.
  • Red Duckies (2006):
    Dazed & Confused
    for World Aids Day 2006.
  • Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman (2009): a "stylized and lyrical coming-of-age" short film combining narrative and documentary elements directed by Matthew Mishory depicting Jarman's "artistic, sexual, and political awakening in postwar England".[58] Jarman's surviving muse Keith Collins and Siouxsie and the Banshees founder Steven Severin both participated in the making of the film, which had its world premiere at the 2009 Reykjavik International Film Festival in Iceland, its UK premiere at the Raindance Film Festival in London, and its California premiere at the 2010 Frameline International Film Festival in San Francisco. In 2011, the film was installed permanently in the British Film Institute's National Film Archive in London.
  • The Gospel According to St Derek (Andy Kimpton-Nye/400Blows Productions, 2014): screened at the King's College Early Modern Exhibition, the Pacific Film Archive - Berkeley Art Museum, the Australian cinematheque and on the Guardian website, this 40 mins documentary bears witness to Derek Jarman’s unique approach to low-budget film-making and his near-alchemical ability to turn the base components of film-making in to artistic gold.
  • Saintmaking: Derek Jarman and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (2021): a documentary by Marco Alessi, commissioned by The Guardian to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Jarman's canonisation into the first British living gay saint by the group of queer activist nuns, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.[59]

See also

References

  1. ^ Tony Peake, Derek Jarman: A Biography (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1999), pp. 12–13.
  2. ^ a b c Tony Peake, Derek Jarman: A Biography (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1999), p. 13.
  3. ^ Jim Ellis, Derek Jarman's Angelic Conversations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), pp. 200–1.
  4. ^ Tony Peake, Derek Jarman: A Biography (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1999), pp. 389–94, 532–33.
  5. ^ Elizabeth Puttock's mother, Moselle, a daughter of Isaac Frederic Reuben, had Jewish ancestry. Tony Peake, Derek Jarman: A Biography (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1999), p. 10
  6. ^ Tony Peake, Derek Jarman: A Biography (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1999), pp. 8–9.
  7. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/55051. Retrieved 28 September 2019. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  8. ^ "Deaths England and Wales 1984–2006". Archived from the original on 4 November 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2009.
  9. ISBN 9780786414307
    . To those familiar with his other films, Jarman reinforces his atheism and contempt for traditional Christianity, thereby re-emphasizing the point he just made – that "paradise" is "terrestrial" and is the fruit of human love.
  10. ^ "Keith Collins obituary". the Guardian. 2 September 2018.
  11. Peter Tatchell Foundation
    . 19 February 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
  12. ^ "17th Moscow International Film Festival (1991)". MIFF. Archived from the original on 3 April 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  13. ^ "Toby Mott". IMDb.com. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
  14. ^ Turning to Derek Jarman|Current|The Criterion Collection
  15. ^ "Derek Jarman". UCL Campaign. 9 February 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  16. ^ Jubilee (1978)|The Criterion Collection
  17. ^ Anarchy in the UK: Derek Jarman’s Jubilee (1978) Revisited, Julian Upton, Bright Lights Film Journal, Portland, OR, 1 October 2000.Retrieved: 1 January 2015.
  18. ^ adamscovell (1 June 2015). "Alchemical Magic in Derek Jarman's The Tempest (1979)". Celluloid Wicker Man. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  19. ^ "Revisiting Derek Jarman's Caravaggio". Bfi. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  20. ^ "Berlinale: 1986 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Archived from the original on 22 March 2016. Retrieved 15 January 2011.
  21. ^ a b "Watch Derek Jarman's Daring 12-Minute Promo Film for Marianne Faithfull's 1979 Comeback Album Broken English (NSFW)". openculture.com. 6 April 2017. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
  22. ^ a b c d e Schneider, Martin (3 December 2013). "Derek Jarman's Videos for the Smith and Pet Shop Boys". 12 March 2013. dangerousminds.net. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
  23. ^ a b "'Blue', Derek Jarman, 1993". Tate. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  24. ^ "6 Things You Need To Know About Derek Jarman". BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 23 April 2015. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
  25. ^ Blue|Walker Art Center
  26. ^ Blue - Centre Pompidou
  27. ^ Blue. 1993. Directed by Derek Jarman|MoMA
  28. ^ "Glitterbug :: Zeitgeist Films". zeitgeistfilms.com. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  29. ^ Soundtrack Mix #28: Forever Blue: An Ode to Derek Jarman on Notebook|MUBI
  30. ^ Evil Queen: The Last Paintings, 1994
  31. ^ Garden Museum (4 July 2020). "DEREK JARMAN: MY GARDEN'S BOUNDARIES ARE THE HORIZON".
  32. ^ The Guardian (21 July 2020). "Blooms with a view: Derek Jarman's magical garden gets a transplant". The Guardian.
  33. ^ FRIEZE (3 September 2020). "The Worlds of Derek Jarman's Garden".
  34. ^ Jarman, Derek, and Shaun Allen. Dancing Ledge. Minneapolis: Minn., 2010. Print.
  35. ^ "Robin Rimbaud – The Garden Is Full of Metal – Homage To Derek Jarman". Discogs. 1997. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
  36. ^ "Harold Budd – The Art of Mirrors (after Derek Jarman)". youtube.com. 26 October 2013. Archived from the original on 11 December 2021. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
  37. ^ "The Quietus | Reviews | Peter". The Quietus. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  38. ^ Coil – Themes For Derek Jarman's Blue (1993, Blue, Vinyl), 1993, retrieved 5 May 2021
  39. ^ "Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson* - Live At L' Etrange Festival 2004 - The Art Of Mirrors (Homage To Derek Jarman)". Discogs. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  40. ^ Simoneau·Music·March 3 (3 March 2020). "Video premiere: Romain Frequency - 'Perfect Blue'". Kaltblut Magazine. Retrieved 5 May 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  41. ^ Frank, Paula (17 February 2020). "Romain Frequency: Research on a Nameless Colour". Fourculture Magazine. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  42. ^ The Clearing, retrieved 23 March 2020
  43. ^ Kenny, Glenn (4 August 2016). "Review: Dim All the Lights, Again: 'Will You Dance With Me?'". The New York Times.
  44. ^ a b c d e f g h "the making of: Derek Jarman's Music Videos". greg.org. 4 March 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  45. ^ "Throbbing Gristle – "T.G. psychic rally in Heaven"". mvdbase.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  46. ^ a b c "Derek Jarman's music videos". Johncoulthart.com. 4 February 2012. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  47. ^ "Wang Chung – "Dance hall days [version 1: home movie footage]"". mvdbase.com. 12 November 1983. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  48. ^ 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!'"
  49. ^ "Marc Almond – "Tenderness is a weakness"". mvdbase.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  50. ^ "Bryan Ferry – "Windswept"". mvdbase.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  51. ^ "the Smiths – "The Queen is dead [version 2: film]"". mvdbase.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  52. ^ "the Smiths – "Ask [version 1]"". mvdbase.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  53. ^ "Pet Shop Boys – "Violence"". mvdbase.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  54. ^ "Suede – "The next life"". mvdbase.com. 29 March 1993. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  55. ^ "Patti Smith – "Memorial tribute"". mvdbase.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  56. ^ a b c d e f From the programme to the production of Waiting for Godot
  57. ^ Queer Cinema in America: An Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Films, Characters and Stories - Google Books (pg.147)
  58. ^ "Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman | Raindance Film Festival 2009". Raindance.co.uk. 11 October 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  59. ^ "Saintmaking: Derek Jarman and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence". theguardian.com. 22 September 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2021.

Further reading

External links

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