Derek Jarman | |
|---|---|
 Jarman during the 1991Venice Film Festival | |
| Born | (1942-01-31)31 January 1942[1] |
| Died | 19 February 1994(1994-02-19) (aged 52) St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, England |
| Resting place | St Clement Churchyard,Old Romney, Kent |
| Education | Canford School, Dorset |
| Alma mater | King's College London Slade School of Fine Art (UCL) |
| Occupation(s) | Film director,gay rights activist,gardener,set designer |
| Years active | 1970–1994 |
| Notable work | Sebastiane (1976) Jubilee (1977) The Tempest (1979) Caravaggio (1986) The Last of England (1988) War Requiem (1989) Edward II (1991) Wittgenstein (1993) Blue (1993) |
| Style | New Queer Cinema[3] |
| Partner(s) | Keith Collins (1987–1994; his death)[4] |
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman[2] (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an Englishartist,film maker,costume designer,stage designer,writer,poet,gardener, andgay rights activist.
Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing Home inNorthwood,Middlesex, England,[2] the son of Elizabeth Evelyn (née Puttock)[5] and Lancelot Elworthy Jarman.[6][7] His father was aRoyal Air Force officer, born inNew Zealand.
After a prep school education atHordle House School, Jarman went on to board atCanford School in Dorset and from 1960 studied English and art atKing's College London. This was followed by four years at theSlade School of Fine Art,University College London (UCL), starting in 1963. From 1966-1969 he rented a two-room flat on the top floor of 60Liverpool Road, London, sharing rooms during the last year with fellow artistKeith Milow. In August 1969, he moved to Upper Ground, oppositeBlackfriars Bridge, the first of a series of warehouses on the river front. In his own words: "an exhilarating change after seven years in cramped Georgian terrace houses and basements [..] the warehouse allowed me to slip quietly away from the 'scene' which for five years had been the centre of my life – and had now exhausted itself – and establish my own idiosyncratic mode of living".[8] In the 1970s, he had a studio atButler's Wharf. Jarman was outspoken about homosexuality, his public fight forgay rights, and his personal struggle with AIDS.
On 22 December 1986, Jarman was diagnosed asHIV positive and discussed his condition in public. His illness prompted him to move toProspect Cottage,Dungeness, in Kent, near thenuclear power station. In 1994, he died of an AIDS-related illness in London,[9] aged 52. He was anatheist.[10] He is buried in the graveyard atSt Clement's Church,Old Romney, Kent.
In his last years, Jarman was emotionally and practically supported by the companionship of Keith Collins (1963–2018), a young man whom he had met in 1987. While they were not lovers (Collins had his own partner), the friendship became essential for both of them. Jarman leftProspect Cottage to him.[11]
Ablue plaque commemorating Jarman was unveiled at Butler's Wharf in London on 19 February 2019, the 25th anniversary of his death.[12]
Jarman's first films were experimentalSuper 8mm shorts, a form he never entirely abandoned, and later developed further in his filmsImagining October (1984),The Angelic Conversation (1985),The Last of England (1987), andThe Garden (1990) as a parallel to his narrative work.The Garden was entered into the17th Moscow International Film Festival.[13]The Angelic Conversation featuredToby Mott and other members of theGrey Organisation, a radical artist collective.[14]
Jarman first became known as a stage designer. His break in the film industry came as production designer forKen Russell'sThe Devils (1971).[15] He made his mainstream narrative filmmaking debut withSebastiane (1976), about the martyrdom ofSaint Sebastian. This was one of the first British films to feature positive images of gaysexuality;[16] its dialogue was entirely inLatin.
He followed this withJubilee (shot 1977, released 1978), in which QueenElizabeth I of England is seen to be transported forward in time to a desolate and brutal wasteland ruled by her twentieth-century namesake.[17]Jubilee has been described as "Britain's only decentpunk film",[18] and featured punk groups and figures such asJayne County ofWayne County & the Electric Chairs,Jordan,Toyah Willcox,Adam and the Ants and The Slits.
This was followed in 1979 by an adaptation of Shakespeare'sThe Tempest.[19]
During the 1980s, Jarman was a leading campaigner againstSection 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 inThe Angelic Conversation (1985), a film in which the imagery is accompanied byJudi Dench's voice recitingShakespeare's sonnets.
Jarman spent seven years making experimental Super 8mm films and attempting to raise money forCaravaggio (he later claimed to have rewritten the script seventeen times during this period). Released in 1986,Caravaggio[20] attracted a comparatively wide audience; it is still, barring the cult hitJubilee, 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 companyChannel 4 in funding and distribution. Funded by theBritish Film Institute and produced by film theoristColin 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 actressTilda Swinton for the first time. Overt depictions of homosexual love, narrative ambiguity, and the live representations ofCaravaggio's most famous paintings are all prominent features in the film.
The conclusion ofCaravaggio also marked the beginning of a temporary abandonment of traditional narrative in Jarman's films. Frustrated by the formality of35mm film production, and by the dependence on institutions and the resultant prolonged inactivity associated with it (which had already cost him seven years withCaravaggio, as well as derailing several long-term projects), Jarman returned to and expanded the super 8mm-based form he had previously worked in onImagining October andThe Angelic Conversation.Caravaggio was entered into the36th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won theSilver Bear for an outstanding single achievement.[21]
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 ofThatcher's government. "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 aVillage Voice critic.
In 1989, Jarman's filmWar Requiem produced byDon Boyd broughtLaurence Olivier out of retirement for what would be Olivier's last screen performance. The film usesBenjamin Britten's eponymousanti-war requiem as its soundtrack and juxtaposes violent footage of war with the mass for the dead and the passionate humanist poetry ofWilfred Owen.
During the making of his filmThe Garden, Jarman became seriously ill. Although he recovered sufficiently to complete the work, 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 gay activism) and theBrechtianWittgenstein, a delicate tragicomedy based on the life of the philosopherLudwig Wittgenstein. Jarman made a side income by directingmusic videos for various artists, includingMarianne Faithfull,[22]The Smiths and thePet Shop Boys.[23]
By the time of his 1993 filmBlue,[24] Jarman was losing his sight 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 bySimon Fisher Turner, and featuring original music byCoil and other artists, in which Jarman describes his life and vision. When it was shown on British television,Channel 4 carried the image whilst the soundtrack was broadcast simultaneously onBBC Radio 3.[25]Blue was unveiled at the1993 Venice Biennale with Jarman in attendance and subsequently entered the collections of the Walker Art Institute;[26]Centre Georges Pompidou,[27]MoMA[28] andTate.[24] His final work as a film-maker was the filmGlitterbug,[29] made for theArena slot onBBC Two, and broadcast shortly after Jarman's death.
Jarman's work broke new ground in creating and expanding the fledgling form of "thepop video" in England (eg. using his father'sWWIIarchival footage (one of the first people to use a colourhome movie camera which included the director as a toddler) on the early version ofWang Chung's "Dance Hall Days"), and ingay rights activism.[30]
Jarman also directed the 1989 tour by the UK duoPet 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 ofSylvano Bussotti's operaL'Ispirazione, first staged in Florence in 1988.
Jarman is also remembered for his famous shingle cottage-garden atProspect Cottage, created in the latter years of his life, in the shadow ofDungeness nuclear power station. The cottage is built in vernacular style in timber, with tar-based weatherproofing, like others nearby. Raised wooden text on the side of the cottage is the first stanza and the last five lines of the last stanza ofJohn Donne's 1633 poem,The Sun Rising. The cottage garden was made by arrangingflotsam washed up nearby, interspersed withendemic 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.[31]
In 2020 theGarden Museum in London held an exhibition called"Derek Jarman: my Garden's Boundaries are the Horizon"[32] parts of the garden and Prospect Cottage were recreated for the exhibition as well as artifacts from Jarman's estate.[33][34]
Jarman was the author of several books including hisautobiographyDancing 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.[35] A collection of poetryA Finger in the Fishes Mouth, two volumes of diariesModern Nature andSmiling In Slow Motion and two treatises on his work in film and artThe Last of England (also published asKicking the Pricks) andChroma.
Other notable published works include film scripts (Up in the Air,Blue,War Requiem,Caravaggio,Queer Edward II andWittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script/The Derek Jarman Film), a study of his garden at DungenessDerek Jarman's Garden, andAt Your Own Risk, a defiant celebration of gay sexuality.
After his death, the bandChumbawamba released "Song for Derek Jarman" in his honour.Andi Sexgang released the CDLast of England as a Jarman tribute. The ambient experimental albumThe Garden Is Full of Metal byRobin Rimbaud included Jarman speech samples.[36]
Manic Street Preachers' bassistNicky Wire recorded a track titled "Derek Jarman's Garden" as ab-side to his single "Break My Heart Slowly" (2006). On his albumIn the Mist, released in 2011, ambient composerHarold Budd features a song titled "The Art of Mirrors (after Derek Jarman)".[37]
Coil, which in 1985 contributed a soundtrack for Jarman'sThe Angelic Conversation[38] released the 7" single "Themes for Derek Jarman's Blue"[39] in 1993. In 2004, Coil'sPeter Christopherson performed his score for the Jarman shortThe 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.[40] In 2018, composerGregory 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 byKeith Garebian from his collection "Blue: The Derek Jarman Poems" (2008).
The French musician and composer Romain Frequency released his first albumResearch on a nameless colour[41] 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.[42]
At the time of his death, Jarman was slated to direct theAnnie Lennox music video for "Every Time We Say Goodbye" from herRed Hot + Blue project (1990). As a tribute, the video features family film footage of Jarman's childhood.
Jarman's early Super-8 mm work has been included on some of the DVD releases of his films.
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.
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