Director Focus: DEREK JARMAN

I wouldn't wish the eighties on anyone, it was the time when all that was rotten bubbled to the surface. If you were not at the receiving end of this mayhem you could be unaware of it. It was possible to live through the decade preoccupied by the mortgage and the pence you saved on your income tax. It was also possible for those of us who saw what was happening to turn our eyes in a different direction; but what, in another decade, had been a trip to the clap clinic was now a trip to the mortuary.

- Derek Jarman

I was going to say it was about time I focused on a queer director but looking back, I see I've already covered quite a few. Shows how little I've been paying attention. Derek Jarman, though, is a whole other beast.

Angry queer. Political queer. Arty queer. Classical queer. Punk queer.

I'm looking forward to that mix. I'm also looking forward to seeing another side of the '80s. Jarman promises to throw me headfirst into a world I only caught fuzzy tv glimpses of from my family's living room in suburban Australia. Punk barely reached Perth, let alone the freshly dressed lawns of the southern suburbs. And queers, we only heard about them when someone like Boy George was refused entry into the country. On the upside, we never got our Thatcher and the "economic rationalism" that we experienced was nothing compared to her brutalising reign over the U.K.

For me, Jarman is tied to the '80s. That's odd considering for much of that decade he had moved away from long-form film making. I suppose I look upon him as one of Thatcher's most outspoken opponents from the art fraternity and I always think of Thatcher as a particularly '80s monster.

Still, despite his stature in queer film circles, I know little of Jarman. I've only seen two of his films so far, Edward II (which is a favourite from my youth) and Sebastiane. The rest have been waiting patiently for me to find the desire to devour. I have seen Isaac Julien's excellent documentary, made in collaboration with Jarman's friend and muse, Tilda Swinton, but it hasn't left me with any facts I can recall for you here, only impressions. Impressions of a man, erudite but approachable, with an overwhelming sense of social justice and the balls to kick against the pricks.

It's time to add some meat to those impressions. In more ways than one, I'd imagine...

The Films
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