''The Last of England'' is a 1987 British

arthouse film An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...

directed by

Derek Jarman Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English artist, film maker, costume designer, stage designer, writer, gardener and gay rights activist. Biography Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing Home ...

and starring

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 to ...

. It is a poetic depiction of what Jarman felt was the loss of traditional

English culture The culture of England is defined by the cultural norms of England and the English people. Owing to England's influential position within the United Kingdom it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate English culture from the culture of the ...

in the 1980s and his anger about Thatcher's England (including the formation of Section 28 Local Government Act), declaring it a

homophobic Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...

and repressive

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...

state. In 1986, Jarman was also 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 had just finished his masterpiece, ''

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

'', so the film is a confluence of angry imagination. It is named after '' The Last of England'', a painting by

Ford Madox Brown Ford Madox Brown (16 April 1821 – 6 October 1893) was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often William Hogarth, Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his mos ...

. The painting and the film, share themes of escape and the changing of place. The film uses a shaky hand-held camera to evoke anxiety, and the ever-present melancholy is expressed in the extracts from poems, including

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...

's ''

The Hollow Men "The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised: compare "Ge ...

'' and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

's "

Howl Howl most often refers to: *Howling, an animal vocalization in many canine species *Howl (poem), a 1956 poem by Allen Ginsberg Howl may also refer to: Film * ''The Howl'', a 1970 Italian film * ''Howl'' (2010 film), a 2010 American arthouse b ...

", which are monotonously read by narrator Nigel Terry. One of the film's most famous scenes is of Tilda Swinton, dressed not unlike the woman from Ford Madox Brown's painting, as a

bride A bride is a woman who is about to be married or who is newlywed. When marrying, the bride's future spouse, (if male) is usually referred to as the ''bridegroom'' or just ''groom''. In Western culture, a bride may be attended by a maid, brides ...

mourning her executed husband, whirling, screaming and letting out a primal cry with flames behind her. The scene was shot near the director's home on the beach of Dungeness, Kent. Other images in the film, are counterpointed by

Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...

violin sonatas and 1980s disco. Skulls, fire and ashes embody death and destruction, while scenes of sex on a Union Jack flag and 'Spring'

masturbating Masturbation is the sexual stimulation of one's own genitals for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation may involve hands, fingers, everyday objects, sex toys such as vibrators, or combinati ...

show a disregard for social conventions and suggest a country in a state of sordid, chaos and decadence.

Cast

as The Maid * Spencer Leigh as Soldier / Various roles * 'Spring' Mark Adley as Spring / Various roles *

Gerrard McArthur Gerrard may refer to: People * Alfred Horace Gerrard (1899–1998), English sculptor * Anthony Gerrard (born 1986), English footballer * Edward Gerrard (footballer) (1900–1987), English footballer * James Joseph Gerrard, (1897–1991), American ...

as Various roles * Jonny Phillips (credited as Jonathan Phillips) as Various roles * Gay Gaynor as Various roles * Matthew Hawkins as Junkyard Guy *

Nigel Terry Peter Nigel Terry (15 August 1945 – 30 April 2015) was an English stage, film, and television actor, typically in historical and period roles. He played Prince John in Anthony Harvey's film '' The Lion in Winter'' (1968) and King Arthur in ...

as Narrator (voice)

Awards

Derek Jarman received the 1988

Teddy Award The Teddy Award is an international film award for films with LGBT topics, presented by an independent jury as an official award of the Berlin International Film Festival (the Berlinale). In the most part, the jury consists of organisers of gay a ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

for the film. Also Tilda Swinton received the jury prize for her performance in the film.

Reviews

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, it has an average score of 68%, based on 3 reviews. 'What proof do you need the world's curling up like an autumn leaf?' is '' Time Out'' magazine's review. "Terrible" is David Bezanson's review, "Impressionistic" doesn't have to mean "bad" and "It's graphic and disorienting, yet also totally trite".

Book

Jarman wrote a book to accompany the film, which deals more explicitly with the relationship he had with his father, who was a

Lancaster bomber The Avro Lancaster is a British Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the Short Stirling ...

pilot in the

Second World War 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 ...

. Jarman used the impact of his father's despair, depression and violence on his own artistic vision. The depression that his father suffered is attributed to the high number of fatalities that bomber crews experienced and the

carpet-bombing Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. The phrase evokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in t ...

of civilians. The book and to a lesser extent the film are very much in the tradition of

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

''Camera Lucida'',

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

's ''On Photography'',

Jeanette Winterson Jeanette Winterson (born 27 August 1959) is an English writer. Her first book, '' Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit'', was a semi-autobiographical novel about a sensitive teenage girl rebelling against convention. Other novels explore gender pola ...

's ''Art Objects'' and to a lesser extent

John Berger John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism ''Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...

's ''Ways of Seeing'' in that he has used the deeply familiar and personal as a vehicle for dialogue about art and contemporary culture.

Soundtrack album

Two versions of the soundtrack album were released on the

Mute Records Mute Records is a British independent record label owned and founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller. It has featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Depeche Mode, Erasure, Einstürzende Neubauten, Fad Gadget, Goldfrapp, Grinderm ...

label. The LP has one side ("Bombers") by Simon Turner, and the other ("Diplomat") by a variety of performers, including

Mayo Thompson Mayo Thompson (born February 26, 1944 in Houston, Texas, United States) is an American musician and visual artist best known as the leader of the experimental rock band Red Krayola. Background His formal education includes Garden of Arts Kind ...

with Albert Oehlen and

;

Andy Gill Andrew James Dalrymple Gill (1 January 1956 – 1 February 2020) was a British musician and record producer. He was the lead guitarist for the rock band Gang of Four, which he co-founded in 1976. Gill was known for his angular, jagged style of g ...

with

Dean Garcia Dean Garcia (born 3 May 1958) is an English multi-instrumentalist musician, best known as a member of the alternative rock duo Curve from 1990 to 2005. He also released solo work and collaborated with many other artists. Biography Garcia was ...

Barry Adamson Barry Adamson (born 11 June 1958) Discography Studio Albums Compilation Albums EPs Singles Soundtracks References External links * Adamson's art-house
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Adamson, Barry 1958 births Living people People from ...

and Martin Micarrick, Brian Gulland and Diamanda Galas. The CD version includes all of this material and a third section, "Dead to the World", primarily by Turner.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Of England, The 1988 films 1987 LGBT-related films 1987 films Films set in London 1980s English-language films Films directed by Derek Jarman English films Non-narrative films 1980s avant-garde and experimental films British avant-garde and experimental films 1980s British films