Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman
(31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English
artist,
film maker
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casti ...
,
costume designer
A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage production or television show. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits or costumes and balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc. The costume ...
,
stage designer
Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly trai ...
,
writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
,
gardener
A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby.
Description
A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the hobbyist in a residential garden, the home-owner supplem ...
and
gay rights
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Notably, , 3 ...
activist.
Biography
Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing Home in
Northwood,
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...
, England,
the son of Elizabeth Evelyn (''née'' Puttock) and Lancelot Elworthy Jarman. His father was a
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
officer, born in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
.
After a prep school education at
Hordle House School, Jarman went on to board at
Canford School
Canford School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18). Situated in 300 acres of parkland near to the market town of Wimborne Minster in Dorset, south west England, it is one of the largest s ...
in Dorset and from 1960 studied at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
. This was followed by four years at the
Slade School of Fine Art
The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
,
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
(UCL), starting in 1963. He had a studio at
Butler's Wharf
Butler's Wharf is an England, English historic building at Shad Thames on the south bank of the River Thames, just east of London's Tower Bridge, now housing luxury flats and restaurants. Lying between Shad Thames and the Thames Path, it overlo ...
, London, in the 1970s. Jarman was outspoken about homosexuality, his public fight for
gay rights
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Notably, , 3 ...
, and his personal struggle with AIDS.
On 22 December 1986, Jarman was diagnosed as
HIV positive
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immu ...
and discussed his condition in public. His illness prompted him to move to
Prospect Cottage,
Dungeness
Dungeness () is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh. Dungeness spans Dungeness Nuclear Power Station, the hamlet ...
, in Kent, near the
nuclear power station
A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces ele ...
. In 1994, he died of an AIDS-related illness in London, aged 52. He was an
atheist. He is buried in the graveyard at
St Clement's Church,
Old Romney
Old Romney is a village and civil parish in the Folkestone and Hythe district of Kent, England.
The village, as its name suggests, is the original site of the settlement, and is situated two miles (3.2 km) inland from New Romney. It lies o ...
, 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.
A
blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
commemorating Jarman was unveiled at
Butler's Wharf
Butler's Wharf is an England, English historic building at Shad Thames on the south bank of the River Thames, just east of London's Tower Bridge, now housing luxury flats and restaurants. Lying between Shad Thames and the Thames Path, it overlo ...
in London on 19 February 2019, the 25th anniversary of his death.
Films
Jarman's first films were experimental
Super 8mm
Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format.
The film is nominally 8 mm wide, the same as older formatted 8& ...
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.
''The Angelic Conversation'' featured
Toby Mott
Toby Victor Mott (born 12 January 1964) is a British artist, designer, and sometime Punk historian known for his work with the Grey Organisation, an artists' collective that was active in the 1980s, and for his fashion brand Toby Pimlico. More r ...
and other members of the
Grey Organisation, a radical artist collective.
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). He made his mainstream narrative filmmaking debut with ''
Sebastiane
''Sebastiane'' is a 1976 Latin-language British historical film directed by Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress and written by Jarman, Humfress and James Whaley. It portrays the events of the life of Saint Sebastian, including his iconic martyrdom by ...
'' (1976), about the martyrdom of
Saint Sebastian
Saint Sebastian (in Latin: ''Sebastianus''; Narbo, Gallia Narbonensis, Roman Empire c. AD 255 – Rome, Italia, Roman Empire c. AD 288) was an early Christian saint and martyr. According to traditional belief, he was killed during the Diocle ...
. This was one of the first British films to feature positive images of gay
sexuality; its dialogue was entirely in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
.
He followed this with ''
Jubilee
A jubilee is a particular anniversary of an event, usually denoting the 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and the 70th anniversary. The term is often now used to denote the celebrations associated with the reign of a monarch after a milestone number of y ...
'' (shot 1977, released 1978), in which Queen
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is ...
is seen to be transported forward in time to a desolate and brutal wasteland ruled by her twentieth-century namesake. ''Jubilee'' has been described as "Britain's only decent
punk film
The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedom ...
", and featured punk groups and figures such as
Jayne County
Wayne Rogers (born July 13, 1947), better known by her stage name Jayne County is an American singer, songwriter, actress and record producer whose career has spanned six decades. Under the name Wayne County (inspired by Wayne County, Michigan), ...
of
Wayne County & the Electric Chairs
Wayne County & the Electric Chairs were part of the first wave of punk bands from the 1970s. The band was headed by Georgia-born singer Jayne County and became known for their campy, foul-mouthed ballads, glam punk inspired songs and image which ...
,
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
,
Toyah Willcox
Toyah Ann Willcox (born 18 May 1958) is an English musician, actress, and TV presenter. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Willcox has had eight top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in over 40 stage plays an ...
,
Adam and the Ants
Adam and the Ants were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. The group existed in two incarnations, both fronted by Adam Ant, over the period 1977 to 1982. The first, founded in May 1977 and known simply as The Ants until November of t ...
and The Slits.
This was followed in 1979 by an adaptation of Shakespeare's ''
The Tempest''.
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
Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Regarded as one of Britain's best actresses, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her ...
'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'' 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
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
in funding and distribution. Funded by the
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
and produced by film theorist
Colin MacCabe
Colin Myles Joseph MacCabe (born 9 February 1949) is an English academic, writer and film producer. He is currently a distinguished professor of English and film at the University of Pittsburgh. , ''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
Katherine Matilda Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition t ...
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
35mm film 35 mm may refer to:
* 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film
* 35 mm movie film, a type of motion picture film stock
* 35MM 35 mm may refer to:
* 135 film, a type of still photography format ...
production, and by the dependence on institutions and the 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 8mm-based form he had previously worked in on ''Imagining October'' and ''The Angelic Conversation''. ''Caravaggio'' was entered into the
36th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the
Silver Bear
The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the fes ...
for an outstanding single achievement.
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
Thatcher'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 a ''
Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...
'' critic.
In 1989, Jarman's film ''
War Requiem
The ''War Requiem'', Op. 66, is a large-scale setting of the Requiem composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The ''War Requiem'' was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was bui ...
'' produced by
Don Boyd
Donald William Robertson Boyd (born 11 August 1948 in Nairn, Scotland) is a Scottish film director, producer, screenwriter and novelist. He was a Governor of the London Film School until 2016 and in 2017 was made an Honorary Professor in the Col ...
brought
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the Theatre of the U ...
out of retirement for what would be Olivier's last screen performance. The film uses
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
'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
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced b ...
.
During the making of his film ''
The 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
Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to t ...
'' (perhaps his most politically outspoken work, informed by his gay activism) and the
Brechtian
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
''
Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...
'', a delicate tragicomedy based on the life of the philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...
. Jarman made a side income by directing
music videos
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
for various artists, including
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single " As Tears Go By" and became one of the lead female artists during the British I ...
,
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1982. They comprised the singer Morrissey, the guitarist Johnny Marr, the bassist Andy Rourke and the drummer Mike Joyce. They are regarded as one of the most important acts to eme ...
and the
Pet Shop Boys.
![Derek Jarman's grave](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Derek_Jarman%27s_grave.jpg)
By the time of his 1993 film ''
Blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...
'',
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 by
Simon Fisher Turner
Simon Fisher Turner (born 21 November 1954) is an English musician, songwriter, composer, producer and actor.
After portraying Ned East in the 1971 BBC TV adaptation of ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'' and roles in films such as ''The Big Sleep'' (1 ...
, and featuring original music by
Coil and other artists, in which Jarman describes his life and vision. When it was shown on British television,
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
carried the image whilst the soundtrack was broadcast simultaneously on
BBC Radio 3. ''Blue'' was unveiled at the
1993 Venice Biennale with Jarman in attendance and subsequently entered the collections of the Walker Art Institute;
Centre Georges Pompidou,
MoMA and
Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
.
His final work as a film-maker was the film ''
Glitterbug'', made for the ''
Arena
An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators ...
'' slot on
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...
, and broadcast shortly after Jarman's death.
Other works
![Derek Jarman's garden](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Derek_Jarman%27s_garden.JPG)
Jarman's work broke new ground in creating and expanding the fledgling form of 'the
pop video' in England (eg. using his father's
WWII
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
archival footage
Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stoc ...
(one of the first people to use a color
home movie
A home movie is a short amateur film or video typically made just to preserve a visual record of family activities, a vacation, or a special event, and intended for viewing at home by family and friends. Originally, home movies were made on ph ...
camera which included the director as a toddler) on the early version of
Wang Chung's "
Dance Hall Days
"Dance Hall Days" is a song by English new wave band Wang Chung. It was originally released as a single in 1982 when the band was called Huang Chung, then it was re-recorded and re-released a year later in 1983 for the studio album ''Points on ...
"), and in
gay rights
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Notably, , 3 ...
activism. 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. Jarman was the stage director of
Sylvano Bussotti
Sylvano Bussotti (1 October 1931 – 19 September 2021) was an Italian composer of contemporary classical music, also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and manager, writer and academic teacher. His compositions employ graphic n ...
's opera ''
L'Ispirazione'', first staged in Florence in 1988.
Jarman is also remembered for his famous shingle cottage-garden at
Prospect Cottage, created in the latter years of his life, in the shadow of
Dungeness nuclear power station
The Dungeness nuclear power stations are a pair of non-operational nuclear power stations located on the Dungeness headland in the south of Kent, England.
Dungeness A is a legacy Magnox power station consisting of two 250 MWe reactors which w ...
. 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 of
John Donne
John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's ...
's poem, ''The Sun Rising''. The cottage garden was made by arranging
flotsam
In maritime law, flotsam'','' jetsam'','' lagan'','' and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage. A shipwreck is defined as the rema ...
washed up nearby, interspersed with
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
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.
Jarman was the author of several books including his
autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
''Dancing Ledge'' (1984), which details his life until the age 40. He provides his own insight on the history of gay life in London (60's-80's), discusses his own acceptance of his homosexuality at age 16 and accounts of the financial and emotional hardships of a life devoted to filmmaking. 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
Chumbawamba released "Song for Derek Jarman" in his honour.
Andi Sexgang
Andi Sex Gang (born Andreas McElligott) is the founder, vocalist and main songwriter of the band Sex Gang Children who were a prominent act in the gothic rock movement of the 1980s. His band played at the infamous Batcave club in 1982.Strong, Mart ...
released the CD ''Last of England'' as a Jarman tribute. The ambient experimental album ''The Garden Is Full of Metal'' by
Robin Rimbaud
Robin Rimbaud is an electronic musician who works under the name Scanner due to his use of cell phone and police scanners in live performance. He is also a member of the band Githead with Wire's Colin Newman and Malka Spigel and Max Franken fro ...
included Jarman speech samples.
Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers, also known simply as the Manics, are a Welsh Rock music, rock band formed in Blackwood, Caerphilly, Blackwood in 1986. The band consists of cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Sean Moore (musician ...
' bassist
Nicky Wire
Nicholas Allen Jones (born 20 January 1969), known as Nicky Wire, is a Welsh musician and songwriter, best known as lyricist, bassist and secondary vocalist of the Welsh alternative rock band, Manic Street Preachers.
Prior to the group, Wire s ...
recorded a track titled "Derek Jarman's Garden" as a
b-side to his single "
Break My Heart Slowly" (2006). On his album ''In the Mist'', released in 2011, ambient composer
Harold Budd
Harold Montgomory Budd (May 24, 1936December 8, 2020) was an American composer and poet. Born in Los Angeles and raised in the Mojave Desert, he became a respected composer in the minimalist and avant-garde scene of Southern California in the ...
features a song titled "The Art of Mirrors (after Derek Jarman)".
Coil, which in 1985 contributed a soundtrack for Jarman's ''
The Angelic Conversation'' released the 7" single "Themes for Derek Jarman's Blue" 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. In 2018, composer
Gregory Spears
Gregory Spears is an American composer of instrumental and operatic works that blend aspects of romanticism, minimalism, and early music. Among his best known works are the operas ''Fellow Travelers'' and ''Paul's Case'', as well as his Requiem. ...
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'' 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.
Filmography
Feature films
* ''
Sebastiane
''Sebastiane'' is a 1976 Latin-language British historical film directed by Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress and written by Jarman, Humfress and James Whaley. It portrays the events of the life of Saint Sebastian, including his iconic martyrdom by ...
'' (1976)
* ''
Jubilee
A jubilee is a particular anniversary of an event, usually denoting the 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and the 70th anniversary. The term is often now used to denote the celebrations associated with the reign of a monarch after a milestone number of y ...
'' (1978)
* ''
The Tempest'' (1979)
* ''
The Angelic Conversation'' (1985)
* ''
Caravaggio'' (1986)
* ''
The Last of England'' (1987)
* ''
War Requiem
The ''War Requiem'', Op. 66, is a large-scale setting of the Requiem composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The ''War Requiem'' was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was bui ...
'' (1989)
* ''
The Garden'' (1990)
* ''
Edward II
Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to t ...
'' (1991)
* ''
Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...
'' (1993)
* ''
Blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...
'' (1993)
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
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
Film)'' (1987)
* ''
Aria
In music, an aria (Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompanime ...
'' (1987)
**segment: ''Depuis le Jour''
* ''L'Ispirazione'' (1988)
* ''Coil: Egyptian Basses'' (1993)
*''The Clearing'' (1994)
* ''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)
Jarman's early Super-8 mm work has been included on some of the DVD releases of his films.
Music videos
*
The Sex Pistols
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
: ''The Sex Pistols Number One'' (1977)
*
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single " As Tears Go By" and became one of the lead female artists during the British I ...
: "
Broken English
Broken English is a name for a non-standard, non-traditionally spoken or alternatively-written version of the English language. These forms of English are sometimes considered as a pidgin if they have derived in a context where more than one ...
",
[ "Witches' Song", and "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" (1979)]
* Throbbing Gristle: "TG Psychic Rally in Heaven" (1981)
* The Lords of the New Church
The Lords of the New Church were an English/American supergroup with a line-up originally consisting of four musicians from 1970s punk bands. This line-up comprised vocalist Stiv Bators (ex- the Dead Boys), guitarist Brian James (ex- the Da ...
: "Dance With Me" (1983)
* Carmel
Carmel may refer to:
* Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea
* Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea
* Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order
Carmel may also ...
: "Willow Weep for Me" (1983)
* Wang Chung: "Dance Hall Days
"Dance Hall Days" is a song by English new wave band Wang Chung. It was originally released as a single in 1982 when the band was called Huang Chung, then it was re-recorded and re-released a year later in 1983 for the studio album ''Points on ...
" (first version) (1983)
* Psychic TV Jordi Valls: "Catalan" (1984)
* Language: "Touch The Radio Dance" (1984) (shown at the Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York City)
* Wide Boy Awake
WIDE or Wide may refer to:
*Wide (cricket)
*Wide and narrow data, terms used to describe two different presentations for tabular data
*WIDE Project, Widely Integrated Distributed Environment
*Wide-angle Infinity Display Equipment
*WIDE-LP, a radio ...
Billy Hyena (1984)
* Orange Juice
Orange juice is a liquid extract of the orange tree fruit, produced by squeezing or reaming oranges. It comes in several different varieties, including blood orange, navel oranges, valencia orange, clementine, and tangerine. As well as vari ...
: "What Presence?!" (1984)
* Marc Almond
Peter Mark Sinclair "Marc" Almond, (born 9 July 1957) is an English singer. Almond first began performing and recording in the synthpop/ new wave duo Soft Cell where he became known for his distinctive soulful voice and androgynous image. ...
: "Tenderness Is a Weakness" (1984)
* Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry CBE (born 26 September 1945) is an English singer and songwriter. His voice has been described as an "elegant, seductive croon". He also established a distinctive image and sartorial style: according to ''The Independent'', Ferry an ...
: "Windswept" (1985)
* The Smiths
The Smiths were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1982. They comprised the singer Morrissey, the guitarist Johnny Marr, the bassist Andy Rourke and the drummer Mike Joyce. They are regarded as one of the most important acts to eme ...
:
** ''The Queen Is Dead'', a short film incorporating the Smiths songs "The Queen Is Dead
''The Queen Is Dead'' is the third studio album by English rock band the Smiths. Released on 16 June 1986 in the United Kingdom by Rough Trade Records, and on 23 June 1986 in the US by Sire Records, it spent 22 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, pea ...
", "Panic
Panic is a sudden sensation of fear, which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation consistent with an animalistic fight-or-flight reactio ...
", and "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out
"There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" is a song by the English rock band the Smiths, written by guitarist Johnny Marr and singer Morrissey. Featured on the band's third studio album ''The Queen Is Dead'', it was not released as a single in t ...
" (1986)
** The "Panic" sequence from ''The Queen Is Dead'' was edited to form the video for that single (1986)
** "Ask
Ask is the active verb for a direct question.
Ask may also refer to:
Places
* Ask, Akershus, a village in Gjerdrum municipality, Viken county, Norway
* Ask, Buskerud, a village in Ringerike municipality, Viken county, Norway
* Ask, Vestland, a ...
" (1986)
* Easterhouse
Easterhouse is a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, east of the city centre on land gained from the county of Lanarkshire as part of an expansion of Glasgow before the Second World War. The area is on high ground north of the River Clyde and south ...
: "1969" and "Whistling in the Dark" (1986)
* Matt Fretton: "Avatar" (unreleased) (1986)
* The Mighty Lemon Drops
The Mighty Lemon Drops were an English rock group active from 1985 to 1992.
Biography
Originally called the Sherbet Monsters, the quartet first formed in the spring of 1985 in Wolverhampton, in the Black Country. Paul Marsh, Dave Newton and ...
"Out of Hand" (1987)
* Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof (; born 5 October 1951) is an Irish singer-songwriter, and political activist. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s as lead singer of the Rock music in Ireland, Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats, who achieved ...
: "I Cry Too" and "In The Pouring Rain" (1987)
* Pet Shop Boys: "It's a Sin
"It's a Sin" is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys from their second studio album, ''Actually'' (1987). Written by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant, the song was released on 15 June 1987 as the album's lead single. It became the duo's ...
" (1987), "Rent
Rent may refer to:
Economics
*Renting, an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property
*Economic rent, any payment in excess of the cost of production
*Rent-seeking, attempting to increase one's share of e ...
" (1987), several concert projections (released as ''Projections'' in 1993), and "Violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or Power (social and p ...
" (1995)
* Suede
Suede (pronounced ) is a type of leather with a fuzzy, napped finish, commonly used for jackets, shoes, fabrics, purses, furniture, and other items. The term comes from the French , which literally means "gloves from Sweden". The term was firs ...
: " The Next Life" (1993)
* Patti Smith
Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946)
is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album ''Horses''.
Called the "punk poet ...
: "Memorial Tribute" (1993)
Scenic design
* '' Jazz Calendar'' at Covent Garden.[From the programme to the production of '' Waiting for Godot'']
* '' Don Giovanni'' at the Coliseum[
* '' The Devils'', directed by Ken Russell][
* '' Savage Messiah'', directed by Ken Russell][
* '']The Rake's Progress
''The Rake's Progress'' is an English-language opera from 1951 in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings '' A Rake's Prog ...
'', directed by Ken Russell in Florence[
* 1991: '' Waiting for Godot'' by ]Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...
at the Queen's Theatre in the West End[
]
Film and television works prompted by Jarman's life and work
*''The Last Paintings of Derek Jarman'' (Mark Jordan, Granada TV 1995). Broadcast by Granada TV
ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was its ...
and shown at the San Francisco Frameline Film Festival. Includes footage of Jarman producing his final works. Guests included Margi Clarke
Margi Clarke (born 25 May 1954) is an English actress and radio and television presenter. She had a leading role in the film ''Letter to Brezhnev'' (1985), a low-budget film which had an international release. Later, Clarke played Jackie Dobbs ...
, Toyah Wilcox
Toyah Ann Willcox (born 18 May 1958) is an English musician, actress, and TV presenter. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Willcox has had eight top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in over 40 stage plays an ...
, Brett Anderson
Brett Lewis Anderson (born 29 September 1967) is an English singer best known as the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the band Suede. After Suede disbanded in 2003, he fronted The Tears with former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler in 2004- ...
, and Jon Savage
Jon Savage (born Jonathan Malcolm Sage; 2 September 1953 in Paddington, London) is an English writer, broadcaster and music journalist, best known for his history of the Sex Pistols and punk music, ''England's Dreaming'', published in 199 ...
. To coincide with the broadcast the exhibition, Evil Queen was premiered at the Whitworth Art Gallery
The Whitworth is an art gallery in Manchester, England, containing about 55,000 items in its collection. The gallery is located in Whitworth Park and is part of the University of Manchester.
In 2015, the Whitworth reopened after it was transfo ...
, 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
Sky Arts (originally launched as Artsworld) is a British free-to-air television channel offering 24 hours a day of programmes dedicated to highbrow arts, including theatrical performances, movies, documentaries and music (such as opera perfor ...
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
Sir Isaac Julien (born 21 February 1960Annette Kuhn"Julien, Isaac (1960–)" BFI Screen Online.) is a British installation artist, filmmaker, and distinguished professor of the arts at UC Santa Cruz.
Early life
Julien was born in the East End ...
and written and narrated by Tilda Swinton
Katherine Matilda Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition t ...
.
*''Red Duckies'' (2006): Short film directed by Luke Seomore
Luke Seomore is an English film director, and musician, part of a critically acclaimed filmmaking duo working alongside English director Joseph Bull. He often performs and writes under the moniker ‘Blessed are the Hearts that Bend'. Seomore's ...
and Joseph Bull, featuring a voice-over from Simon Fisher Turner
Simon Fisher Turner (born 21 November 1954) is an English musician, songwriter, composer, producer and actor.
After portraying Ned East in the 1971 BBC TV adaptation of ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'' and roles in films such as ''The Big Sleep'' (1 ...
commissioned by 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". 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
Raindance is an independent film festival and film school that operates in major cities including London, Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Budapest, Berlin, and Brussels. The festival was established in 1992 by Elliot Grove t ...
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
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
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 - Berekeley 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.
See also
* LGBT culture in London
The LGBT community in London is one of the largest within Europe. LGBT culture of London, England, is centred on Old Compton Street in Soho. There are also LGBT pubs and restaurants across London in Haggerston, Dalston and Vauxhall.Olson, Donald ...
References
Further reading
* Robert Mills, ''Derek Jarman's Medieval Modern'' (D.S. Brewer, 2018),
* Niall Richardson, 'The Queer Cinema of Derek Jarman: Critical and Cultural Readings' (I.B. Tauris, 2009)
* Michael Charlesworth, ''Derek Jarman'' (Reaktion, 2011)
* Martin Frey. ''Derek Jarman – Moving Pictures of a Painter.'' (INGRAM Content Group Inc., 2016),
* 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
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
, 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)
* Derek Jarman. 'Dancing Ledge' (Memoir. )
*'Evil Queen' exhibition catalogue. Foreword by Mark Jordan
*Derek Jarman. 'At Your Own Risk' (Memoir, Thames & Hudson, 1991)
* Judith Noble. "The Wedding of Light and Matter: Alchemy and Magic in the Films of Derek Jarman." In ''Visions of Enchantment: Occultism, Magic, and Visual Culture'', eds. Daniel Zamani, Judith Noble, and Merlin Cox (London: Fulgur Press, 2019), pp. 168–181
External links
Bibliography of books and articles about Jarman
via UC Berkeley Media Resources center
*
Derek Jarman: Radical Traditionalist
– a Jarman retrospective by Nick Clapson
*
*
Photographs of Prospect Cottage
garden details
at Flickr
Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...
Derek Jarman; On lyrical love and dedication
Audio recording of Derek Jarman interviewed by Ken Campbell at the ICA, London, 7 February 1984
Link to correspondence between Derek Jarman and Angelique Rockas
Time is away show
on NTS Radio.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jarman, Derek
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BAFTA Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award
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