What do you get if you cross Shakespeare, ’70s punk, a liberal dose of theatrics and um, gardening? It’s Derek Jarman of course, perhaps one of the most subversive and visionary British film-makers of the last forty years.
And this month sees the 20th anniversary of his death in 1994, aged just 52. Jarman’s legacy is substantial; his cinema simultaneously provokes and bewitches. With his strong sense of aesthetics and background in set design, you’ll always remember a Jarman feature, and cinemas across the UK are celebrating his work with an array of films and events.
A typical motif in his filmmaking is his use of anachronism – a mixing and merging of historical periods, often as a means to make a comment on the ‘here and now’. It’s a style already visible in his set and production design for Ken Russell’s brilliantly bonkers THE DEVILS. Jarman began with a more experimental style in numerous shorts in the early ‘70s, before graduating onto full features starting with SEBASTIANE, a celebratory and camp depiction of a martyr.
For Jarman, film was political. He was certainly no wallflower and launched scathing attacks on current British politics and ideologies, as well as tirelessly speaking out for gay rights. EDWARD II, his take on Christopher Marlowe’s 1594 tragedy, uses the story of the monarch’s suggestively close relationship with court familiar, Gaveston, to make a comment on the Tory government’s draconian Section 28 (an act stating that schools and authorities shouldn’t promote or teach homosexuality). Jarman mixes up historical periods, camps it up and even Annie Lennox turns up singing a Cole Porter song. It’s a fantastically inventive production making a serious point about homophobia.
Jarman also successfully married the high-brow with pop culture – another reason to love him. He adapted Shakespeare’s late play THE TEMPEST with Toyah Willcox as Miranda, while the grainy JUBILEE asks what would happen if Elizabeth I were transported to the 20th century. But Jarman has transformed contemporary Britain into a dystopian wasteland, populated by disaffected punks (including Toyah Willcox, Adam Ant and Siouxsie Sioux).
His last full-length film was 1993’s BLUE. The 79 minute feature shows just a single shot of the colour blue, accompanied by music and a narration from Jarman about his life, the colour blue and his experiences with HIV and AIDS. Apparently Jarman was losing his eyesight when he made BLUE, and this colour was one of the last he saw. It’s a strange film to watch – your eyes begin to play tricks on you after a while. I imagine on the big screen it will be intense and almost overwhelming.
But Jarman’s legacy is wider than film. An artist, writer, cinematographer, poet and gardener, he had a prolific output. Anyone wishing to widen their appreciation of Jarman wouldn’t go far wrong with Modern Nature, a volume of his journals charting his life and the creation of his garden in Dungeness. He retreated to this isolated but bleakly beautiful coast once he knew he was succumbing to HIV-related complications. His work in music video was also pioneering, including stints with The Smiths, Suede, The Sex Pistols and The Pet Shop Boys, among others (he also created the short films and costumes for The Pet Shop Boys’ 1989 tour).
You too can celebrate his legacy in 2014 with a vast array of events to choose from. In Edinburgh, Filmhouse’s Derek Jarman season, in partnership with Drambuie runs until April 9th. They’re offering a retrospective of his full-length features (in chronological order).
And in London, the BFI is also running a series of screenings and talks to coincide with the free exhibition Derek Jarman: Pandemonium in the Inigo Rooms, King’s College London.
