Focus on DEREK JARMAN: Jubilee (1978)

I honestly don't have all that much to give you on Jarman's second feature, Jubilee, except to say that it is a film of its time, even if, in its time, it wasn't wholly celebrated, at least not in the punk circles it tongue-in-cheekily dissected (see Vivianne Westwood's "open t-shirt" to Jarman re: the film).

I can't vouch for any of that. I was barely alive in '78. The closest I came to any of the music scene luminaries that take to the screen here is a copy of Adam and the Ants' 'Kings of the Wild Frontier' that was sent to my parents through their record club. They didn't a) like it; or b) return it in time to not have to pay for it. So it sat in their collection and eventually came to be loved by the whole family. Adam plays Kid here, a young martyr for punk's anti-cause. He's surrounded by a host of the subcultures luminaries, Jordan, Toyah, Little Nell, who will no doubt be far more recognisable to those who had skin in the game.

What I can see in the heavy aesthetics of Jubilee is its importance both as a direction-ratifying marker for this particular brand of British cinema (confirming Russell's rawness and presaging Greenaway's intricate art mashups), for artier queer cinema (Bruce La Bruce's The Raspberry Reich would take a similar slant on the pop-anarchy at the turn of the century) and as a stepping stone in Jarman's own approach to cinema - again, narrative plays a near silent second fiddle to both the visuals and the politics, sexual, social and artistic.

Jarman's celebratory critique of punk, viewed from a contemporary vantage point, looks pretty spot on, especially in his takedown of the parasitic Malcolm McLaren proxy Borgia Ginz ("He's always looking for new talent, he owns the media") and his protege/Eurovision entrant, Amyl Nitrite, probably the main source of Westwood's ire. Jarman's embryonic, sometimes shambolic cinema fits well with punk's anti-establishment, sexually fluid, gender equalising push - and in the face of Thatcher's Britain, this makes for stark dramatic contrast. Though he may take jabs at punk's money hungry string pullers, Jarman still empathises with the puppets and their anarchistic ideals. He reinforces their right to anger, even as he mocks its propensity to be co-opted.

All this, as well as the poetic Elizabethan commentary from Queen Liz I, John Dee and Shakespeare's Ariel, make for an extra messy, extra angry, extra misanthropic take on the Queen's silver jubilee (hence the film's name) but that period was messy, angry and misanthropic for those that weren't rich as royalty. So, while many of the contemporary references go over my head here, the sentiment sticks. It's a solid fuck you to Thatcher's conviction politics and the money grubbers who reaped the benefits of it. For that it will stand for all time.

Next up: The Tempest.

This post contributes to Director Focus: Derek Jarman.