30
Oct/14

QUEER PAGAN PUNK: THE FILMS OF DEREK JARMAN

30
Oct/14
JUBILEE

JUBILEE, starring Jordan as Amyl Nitrite, kicks off Derek Jarman festival at BAM

JUBILEE (Derek Jarman, 1978)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Thursday, October 30, 7:00 & 9:30
Series runs October 30 – November 11
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.jarman2014.org

Back in May, we ventured out to BAM to see Derek Jarman’s cult classic, Jubilee, as part of the BAMcinématek series “Punk Girls.” We attended along with two friends, a British couple who were supposed to be in the movie but who somehow didn’t make it to the set for their scene. After seeing the 1978 film, they couldn’t have been happier that they weren’t part of this unwatchable disaster. The plot involves Queen Elizabeth I being sent into the future, into a postapocalyptic 1970s London; the cast includes Jenny Runacre as Bod and the queen, Nell Campbell as Crabs, the one-named Jordan as Amyl Nitrate, singer Toyah Willcox as Mad, theater star Ian Charleson as Angel, French chanteuse Hermine Demoriane as Chaos, Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien as John Dee, and Adam Ant as Kid, with a soundtrack by Brian Eno. (Be on the lookout for Siouxsie Sioux as well.) While some adore and treasure the film, others find it dubious at best and an embarrassing mess at worst. In a 2002 letter to Derek published in the Guardian, Jarman regular Tilda Swinton wrote, “It’s as cheeky a bit of inspired old ham punk spunk nonsense as ever grew out of your brain and that’s saying something: what a buzz it gives me to look at it now. And what a joke: there’s nothing an eighth as mad bad and downright spiritualized being made down here these days this side of Beat Takeshi,” a very different take from Vivienne Westwood, who designed a T-shirt back when the film was released that served as an open letter to Jarman, arguing, “I had been to see it once and thought it the most boring and therefore disgusting film I had ever seen. I went to see it again for after all, hadn’t you pointed your nose in the right direction? . . . I am not interested in however interestingly you say nothing. . . . You pointed your nose in the right direction then you wanked.” Jubilee, made in honor of Queen Elizabeth II’s silver jubilee year, is one of those films you have to see to believe, but we’re not about to recommend that you actually subject yourself to this inexplicable madness.

THE LAST OF ENGLAND is part of BAM tribute to Derek Jarman

THE LAST OF ENGLAND is part of BAM tribute to Derek Jarman

What’s more important is that Jubilee is kicking off the BAMcinématek series “Queer Pagan Punk: The Films of Derek Jarman,” comprising sixteen programs of shorts, music videos, and features he either directed or participated in another way; the series is part of the Jarman2014 celebration of the twentieth anniversary of his death. Among the films being shown, from October 30 to November 11, are Blue, Caravaggio, Sebastiane, Wittgenstein, War Requiem, The Garden, The Tempest, Edward II, The Devils, and The Last of England. In many ways, Jarman, also a painter and activist who died in 1994 at the age of fifty-four from an AIDS-related illness, was the British version of Andy Warhol, working with a Factory-like ensemble of actors, singers, and hangers-on while exploring life on the edge in his own inimitable style. During his career, he worked with Laurence Olivier and Marianne Faithfull, the Pet Shop Boys and Ken Russell, Tilda Swinton and Adam and the Ants, Judi Dench and the Sex Pistols, and many others — some from various artistic disciplines and some just picked up off the street, lending his films an appealing, experimental DIY quality. Just don’t start your exploration of his oeuvre with Jubilee.