derek jarman - a tribute, part two
Another confession. Although luckily this time my stupidity was not published in a national magazine, I rather wish that this stupidity had been published, and my previous stupidity had not. In a letter in the early nineties, when my experience of any film was still limited, I described Ken Russell as 'egregious'. As with the Guns 'n' Roses incident I was wrong. My knowledge of Ken Russell at that time was largely drawn from misleading and conservative press in magazines and newspapers that had no real understanding of film.
The link here is that, as is well known, while Derek Jarman had been filming the people and places around him for some time, it was working on Ken Russell's The Devils as production designer that gave him his entry into 'professional' film making.
I cannot tell you which of Derek Jarman's films I saw first. What I am sure of is that I only saw parts of it, possibly flicking through channels at a friends house. I do know that I had seen significant sections of Jubilee, The Last of England, and Caravaggio by the time I listened to Blue - which was broadcast simultaneously on BBC television and Radio 3. I also know that while I learned more about Jarman in the years afterwards I did not watch any of his films in full until the late nineties when I saw Wittgenstein, Caravaggio, and The Last of England.
Both Wittgenstein and The Last of England contain moments that I find characteristic of Jarman. They are the moments when some part of the film makes you cringe and think, 'That's horrible, what the fuck is that?' In Wittgenstein the Martian is one such element, in Angelic Conversation one of those moments is when the film is projected on coloured paper giving it a strange cast. His work is full of these moments, especially Angelic Conversation. But you can always be certain that with Jarman that moment has come about as a matter of deliberate choice, from the subject matter and techniques of the film. Whereas with another director it might be mere incompetence or adherence to fashion, with Jarman it is integral to the aesthetic.
They are moments that shock you, that drag you out of the illusion the film is creating and back in to the act of watching a film, that make you question the director's judgement, and that reassert the image as an aesthetic construct. This is why they are valuable and, if not always calculated or planned in advance, at least intentionally placed in the finished film. Curiously, although it might seem to be a purely aesthetic calculation to draw attention to the artificiality of the medium, and to story and character as mere constructs, it serves to politicise the films. You are no longer a passive consumer, you have to engage with the films. The aesthetic does not allow them to pass over you like just another product, and in doing so it makes you look at every aspect of the film. The slow, repeated, unchanging sequences in Angelic Conversation can irritate and set your teeth on edge. That makes you ask why. Is it just the slowness, the repetition? Is it the hazy nature of the film? Is it that the scenes do not develop and go on interminably? Is it that you feel uncomfortable with a male body being objectified in a way that is unfamiliar in cinema? And why, then, do the images haunt you? Why do they begin to seem perfectly natural, the only intelligent decision?
I need to stop for a moment here. These are interesting questions that are raised by the majority of Jarman's films, but they do not explain what I meant by 'politicising' the films. There is an extent to which these questions were a way of avoiding the question. I sincerely feel that these aesthetic choices and disruptions do serve to politicise the films, I am less clear how they do so. What I said about these moments forcing you to engage with the films is part of it, but not the whole story, and certainly too vague to be a satisfactory explanation. How could a section of film given a greenish cast be regarded as political? Perhaps part of the answer is in other films, both the commercial cinema of the time, and the commercial cinema since. Special effects, illusions, a sustained pretended reality are the modus operandi of mainstream cinema. The surface is as consistent and uncontentious as possible, to allow for the broadest possible engagement with the film. This also has the effect of drawing attention away from the political or ethical stances the film takes. The illusion of 'reality' lends the illusion of neutrality, which I would argue is more corrosive than any obviously slanted diatribe.
The surface also becomes mere surface. An invisible aesthetic, and one capable of being used by any political persuasion, but an aesthetic nonetheless. Perhaps more truly art for its own sake than anything Jarman ever offered. An example: Science Fiction and Costume Dramas are genres with very strict governing structures. But to take only one, each places a great deal of value on a consistent look in terms of costume and set design. The intention being to create an absorbing illusion of a time past, or of a time that might be. But this usually seems to mean that consistency and engagement with the film are achieved through external means, the way things look, rather than through good writing, performances, editing, or compelling ideas. Instead of trusting the audience, and allowing them credit for some intelligence, many films use the seamless quality of their surfaces to deflect attention from any other deficiencies. They pretend to be apolitical. By contrast the films of Derek Jarman draw attention to themselves, they make the experience difficult, and so enable the viewer to engage with their ideas. This, I think, is at least part of what I had in mind.
So the films of Derek Jarman are infuriating, irritating, can seem to be ugly, are frequently jarring and difficult, and they lodge in your head. As with all art there are no wrong answers. If you have ever seen a Jarman film and hated it, you were right, it was made that way.
The final part coming soon - I have no idea what's going to be in it.
.
The link here is that, as is well known, while Derek Jarman had been filming the people and places around him for some time, it was working on Ken Russell's The Devils as production designer that gave him his entry into 'professional' film making.
I cannot tell you which of Derek Jarman's films I saw first. What I am sure of is that I only saw parts of it, possibly flicking through channels at a friends house. I do know that I had seen significant sections of Jubilee, The Last of England, and Caravaggio by the time I listened to Blue - which was broadcast simultaneously on BBC television and Radio 3. I also know that while I learned more about Jarman in the years afterwards I did not watch any of his films in full until the late nineties when I saw Wittgenstein, Caravaggio, and The Last of England.
Both Wittgenstein and The Last of England contain moments that I find characteristic of Jarman. They are the moments when some part of the film makes you cringe and think, 'That's horrible, what the fuck is that?' In Wittgenstein the Martian is one such element, in Angelic Conversation one of those moments is when the film is projected on coloured paper giving it a strange cast. His work is full of these moments, especially Angelic Conversation. But you can always be certain that with Jarman that moment has come about as a matter of deliberate choice, from the subject matter and techniques of the film. Whereas with another director it might be mere incompetence or adherence to fashion, with Jarman it is integral to the aesthetic.
They are moments that shock you, that drag you out of the illusion the film is creating and back in to the act of watching a film, that make you question the director's judgement, and that reassert the image as an aesthetic construct. This is why they are valuable and, if not always calculated or planned in advance, at least intentionally placed in the finished film. Curiously, although it might seem to be a purely aesthetic calculation to draw attention to the artificiality of the medium, and to story and character as mere constructs, it serves to politicise the films. You are no longer a passive consumer, you have to engage with the films. The aesthetic does not allow them to pass over you like just another product, and in doing so it makes you look at every aspect of the film. The slow, repeated, unchanging sequences in Angelic Conversation can irritate and set your teeth on edge. That makes you ask why. Is it just the slowness, the repetition? Is it the hazy nature of the film? Is it that the scenes do not develop and go on interminably? Is it that you feel uncomfortable with a male body being objectified in a way that is unfamiliar in cinema? And why, then, do the images haunt you? Why do they begin to seem perfectly natural, the only intelligent decision?
I need to stop for a moment here. These are interesting questions that are raised by the majority of Jarman's films, but they do not explain what I meant by 'politicising' the films. There is an extent to which these questions were a way of avoiding the question. I sincerely feel that these aesthetic choices and disruptions do serve to politicise the films, I am less clear how they do so. What I said about these moments forcing you to engage with the films is part of it, but not the whole story, and certainly too vague to be a satisfactory explanation. How could a section of film given a greenish cast be regarded as political? Perhaps part of the answer is in other films, both the commercial cinema of the time, and the commercial cinema since. Special effects, illusions, a sustained pretended reality are the modus operandi of mainstream cinema. The surface is as consistent and uncontentious as possible, to allow for the broadest possible engagement with the film. This also has the effect of drawing attention away from the political or ethical stances the film takes. The illusion of 'reality' lends the illusion of neutrality, which I would argue is more corrosive than any obviously slanted diatribe.
The surface also becomes mere surface. An invisible aesthetic, and one capable of being used by any political persuasion, but an aesthetic nonetheless. Perhaps more truly art for its own sake than anything Jarman ever offered. An example: Science Fiction and Costume Dramas are genres with very strict governing structures. But to take only one, each places a great deal of value on a consistent look in terms of costume and set design. The intention being to create an absorbing illusion of a time past, or of a time that might be. But this usually seems to mean that consistency and engagement with the film are achieved through external means, the way things look, rather than through good writing, performances, editing, or compelling ideas. Instead of trusting the audience, and allowing them credit for some intelligence, many films use the seamless quality of their surfaces to deflect attention from any other deficiencies. They pretend to be apolitical. By contrast the films of Derek Jarman draw attention to themselves, they make the experience difficult, and so enable the viewer to engage with their ideas. This, I think, is at least part of what I had in mind.
So the films of Derek Jarman are infuriating, irritating, can seem to be ugly, are frequently jarring and difficult, and they lodge in your head. As with all art there are no wrong answers. If you have ever seen a Jarman film and hated it, you were right, it was made that way.
The final part coming soon - I have no idea what's going to be in it.
.
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