Derek Jarman

A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.

Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.

A collage of Derek Jarman's super 8 footage spanning over 20 years.

Documentary about British artist Andrew Logan as he attempts to put on the 2009 edition of his Alternative Miss World. The film also presents a history of the contest (which has run eccentrically since 1972) which was set up firstly as an excuse to have a good party, but has grown into a celebration of alternative lifestyles and sexualities. The documentary mixes archive footage, animated inserts, with talking head interviews and a fly-on-the-wall look at the organisation of the 2009 event

An illegal psychic teleportation experiment goes horribly wrong, and pretentious promo director Patrick gets his genes mixed with those of a football hooligan. Slowly, he begins to change - taking on some undeniably yobbish tendencies.

In 70s Great Britain, a gay teacher is forced to hide his sexuality by day while living his secret life by night.

In this short film written and directed by Alexis Bisticas, the audience sees through the eyes of a man in the woods, following the distant sound of a saxophone. In a single take, the fluid steadicam shot takes the viewer on a surreal and poetic journey, as the walker comes across everything from family picnics to men in bondage suits.

Ostia is a fascinating short film directed by Julian Cole and produced for the Royal College of Art, which reconstructs the events leading up to the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Ostia relocates the proceedings to London and stars Derek Jarman as Pasolini. The film features an evocative dream sequence which is accompanied by poignant excerpts from Pasolini’s own poetry, as read by Jarman.

In this revealing documentary, Ken McMullen creates an elegant portrait of artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman, based on an interview conducted by John Cartwright. The questions are unobtrusive, allowing Jarman to reflect on his major films. Despite the debilitating effects of serious illness, we see an artist with his inner vision unimpaired; still humorous, self effacing and disarmingly charming.

Documentary presenting Alan Parker’s view of British cinema with comments from Richard Lester and others and location report from King’s Lynn on the making of Hugh Hudson’s Revolution, starring Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland, and Nastassja Kinski.

Derek Jarman discusses his film and visual art work in this experimental conversation film.

Derek Jarman died after 19012 days from his birth. I wish I was able to see, and let people see, through the eyes of someone who is not there, through the memories of his life. - DP

A young man enters a psychosexual nightmare after his cat dies.

Experimental short film

When the young, attractive Joe Orton meets the older, more introverted Kenneth Halliwell at drama school, he befriends the kindred spirit and they start an affair. As Orton becomes more comfortable with his sexuality and starts to find success with his writing, Halliwell becomes increasingly alienated and jealous, ultimately tapping into a dangerous rage.

A nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous.

A shadowy, sharply-dressed spokesman for the occult, chaos-magic fellowship and network The Temple of Psychic Youth reads a brief message.

Derek, in chronological order, records the work and life that stands at the foot of Derek Jarman's humour and spirit of being an artist. The filmmaker and actress, Isaac Julien and Tilda Swinton respectively, have produced and narrated a film on his life whereby the use of language is perpetuated to give some type of palpable meaning to British audiences alone, and to their own personal relationship with him.

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.

The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are an order of gay male 'nuns', founded in San Francisco in the late 1970s with a goal to "expiate all stigmatic guilt and promulgate universal joy". There are now thousands of nuns all over the world including 30 in Britain, some of whom we meet in Tom Stephan's short documentary, which follows the Sisters' work as active campaigners in the LGBT community.

Documentary exploring the life and work of artist, Derek Jarman.

A documentary that collects for the first time and in an almost anthological way the historical repertoire of the Lindsay Kemp Company's shows, from the end of the 70s to the 90s. With footage from the Rai Teche and private archives, and an intimate and touching unpublished interview conducted by the director in her home in Livorno. The documentary is unique in its kind because it collects for the first time in an almost anthological way the repertoire of the shows of the glorious Lindsay Kemp Company from Salome to Flowers, from A Midsummer Night's Dream to Duende and Onnagata, up to the last show Kemp Dances. Lindsay Dances celebrates one of the most original, creative, and innovative artists in contemporary dance theatre. The documentary was nominated by Rai for the 72nd edition of the Prix Italia 2020.

In the early 1980s, Jarman struggled to get feature film projects off the ground and invested his energies in different fields, including music videos. In 1984 he made the promo for ‘What Presence?!’ by Scottish post-punk band Orange Juice, as fronted by Edwyn Collins. Before the official shoot, however, he visited the location and made this tape, trying out shots with a newly acquired Olympus VHS camera. The warm colours and fuzzy softness of the format, plus the decision to shoot handheld, imbue this little-known, rarely seen artefact with a palpable directness.

Clause and Effect is a tape that combines documentary footage with positive images of gay men and lesbians to show the impact of Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill both on them and the wider community. The tape is framed by an exclusive interview with Derek Jarman who talks about the origins of the Clause, ‘its roots in the moral majority and their interpretations of the Bible’, the effect that it will have on the community and on his work as a film maker.

Super 8 footage shot on location in Sardinia in 1975.

A BBC Arena profile of the Director from the time of the release of his film, The Garden, featuring interviews with Jarman, his collaborators and friends.

Reel 11 of Gérard Courant's on-going Cinematon series.

A studio discussion which looks at the push for gay marriage, or domestic partnership laws, in Britain, the USA, and Denmark. Would such laws be a truly radical initiative, or a complete sellout to the notion of equality with heterosexuals?

An ode to Derek Jarman, who, while grappling with death and the loss of his sight, began to see the world through a blue-tinted haze, a reflection of his struggle and medication. This is his Blue.

Several guests who are lesbian or gay go to a home for Christmas.

An elegy on the death of the film-maker's mother. Fragments from dreams, nightmares and memories combine with natural sound and landscape in this short film poem "a myriad of instances in transit" M. Maziere, Independent Media. Through various texts and spoken diaries oblique reference is made to the persistence of the imagination; the dark, wild wood of Dante's Inferno with Paolo and Francescs buffeted on an infernal breeze, whilst an iconoclasic re-depiction of a Renaissance painting of the deposition by Raphael, describes an age in which the reality of death and grief were less hidden.

A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.

Queen Elizabeth I visits late 1970s England to find a depressing landscape where life has changed since her time.

Queen Elizabeth I visits late 1970s England to find a depressing landscape where life has changed since her time.

The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.

During World War I, British soldier Owen is mortified by the examples of cruelty that surround him in the trenches. He combats these terrifying images by maintaining hope in his love for an army nurse. But he also begins to accept his fate as another battlefield sacrifice.

Rome, AD 303. Emperor Diocletian demotes his favourite, Sebastian, from captain of the palace guard to the rank of common soldier and banishes him to a remote coastal outpost where his fellow soldiers, weakened by their desires, turn to homosexual activities to satisfy their needs. Sebastian becomes the target of lust for the officer Severus, but repeatedly rejects the man's advances. Castigated for his Christian faith, he is tortured, humiliated and ultimately killed.

England, 14th century. King Edward II falls in love with Piers Gaveston, a young man of humble origins, whom he honors with favors and titles of nobility. The cold and jealous Queen Isabella conspires with the evil Mortimer to get rid of Gaveston, overthrow her husband and take power…

The Angelic Conversation is a lyrical, haunting film about a young man’s search for love in a dreamlike landscape. Its tone is set by the juxtaposition of slow moving homo-erotic images and opaque landscapes through which two men take a journey into their own desires. Offscreen, Dame Judi Dench recites a sequence of Shakespeare's sonnets that counterpoint the action. Jarman called it, “My most austere work, but also the closest to my heart.”

A silent avant-garde experience created by Derek Jarman, filled with superimposed images forming a whole picture. His palette consists mostly of reddish random images of Egypt and the pyramids; a strange garden destroyed from time to time by a man with a whip; a young peaceful man relaxing on the floor; other smoking and eating insects. This is Jarman's view of the Garden of Luxor and its mysteries.

Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.

A dramatization, in modern theatrical style, of the life and thought of the Viennese-born, Cambridge-educated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose principal interest was the nature and limits of language. A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, through the era of the first World War, to his eventual Cambridge professorship and association with Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The emphasis in these sketches is on the exposition of the ideas of Wittgenstein, a homosexual, and an intuitive, moody, proud, and perfectionistic thinker generally regarded as a genius.

Prospero, a potent magician, lives on a desolate isle with his virginal daughter, Miranda. He's in exile, banished from his duchy by his usurping brother and the King of Naples. Providence brings these enemies near; aided by his vassal the spirit Ariel, Prospero conjures a tempest to wreck the Italian ship. The king's son, thinking all others lost, becomes Prospero's prisoner, falling in love with Miranda and she with him. Prospero's brother and the king wander the island, as do a drunken cook and sailor, who conspire with Caliban, Prospero's beastly slave, to murder Prospero. Prospero wants reason to triumph, Ariel wants his freedom, Miranda a husband; the sailors want to dance.

A collage of Derek Jarman's super 8 footage spanning over 20 years.

A collage of Derek Jarman's super 8 footage spanning over 20 years.

The film, shot in super 8 features figures moving in the foreground and background of an empty space holding mirrors which occasionally flash in the lens of the camera. The images portrayed in the film are reminiscent of Jarman's Abstract Landscape paintings of the same period. In his diary Jarman wrote of this film, 'this is only something that could only be done on a Super 8 camera, with it's built in meters and effects.' The film's title was reworked in the script for 'Dr Dee The Art Of Mirrors and The Summoning Of Angels' in 1975.

A silent short movie, is a literal journey that we can experience. We are being taken to Avebury and given the chance to admire it for 10 minutes. The shots are incredibly beautiful, as we see a huge stone or trees bathed in orange light of sunset.

An experimental film of the group Throbbing Gristle in concert.

A nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous.

In the Paris of the 1910s, brash young sculptor Henri Gaudier begins a creative partnership with an older writer, Sophie Brzeska. Though the couple is 20 years apart in age, Gaudier finds that his untamed work is complemented by the older woman's cultural refinement. He then moves to London with Brzeska, where he falls in with a group of avant-garde artists. There, Gaudier encounters yet another artistic muse in passionate suffragette Gosh Boyle.

A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.

Three promotional films by The Smiths directed with an artistic and conceptual vision by the late director Derek Jarman. The result is the junction of the powerful lyrics and melodies by Morrissey and Marr combined with Jarman's expressive images. The music videos: 1) The Queen Is Dead 2) There Is a Light That Never Goes Out 3) Panic

Prospero, a potent magician, lives on a desolate isle with his virginal daughter, Miranda. He's in exile, banished from his duchy by his usurping brother and the King of Naples. Providence brings these enemies near; aided by his vassal the spirit Ariel, Prospero conjures a tempest to wreck the Italian ship. The king's son, thinking all others lost, becomes Prospero's prisoner, falling in love with Miranda and she with him. Prospero's brother and the king wander the island, as do a drunken cook and sailor, who conspire with Caliban, Prospero's beastly slave, to murder Prospero. Prospero wants reason to triumph, Ariel wants his freedom, Miranda a husband; the sailors want to dance.

Imagining October explores art and politics in the final years of the Cold War, drawing connections between pre-Perestroika Russia and Thatcherite Britain. The title refers to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and Sergei Eisenstein’s propaganda film October: Ten Days That Shook the World 1928. The project began during a trip to the Soviet Union sponsored by the British Film Institute in October 1984. Jarman was invited to present The Tempest in Moscow and Baku with fellow filmmaker Sally Potter and film theorist Peter Wollen and asked in return to make a short film for the London Film Festival in November.

Imagining October explores art and politics in the final years of the Cold War, drawing connections between pre-Perestroika Russia and Thatcherite Britain. The title refers to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and Sergei Eisenstein’s propaganda film October: Ten Days That Shook the World 1928. The project began during a trip to the Soviet Union sponsored by the British Film Institute in October 1984. Jarman was invited to present The Tempest in Moscow and Baku with fellow filmmaker Sally Potter and film theorist Peter Wollen and asked in return to make a short film for the London Film Festival in November.

Imagining October explores art and politics in the final years of the Cold War, drawing connections between pre-Perestroika Russia and Thatcherite Britain. The title refers to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and Sergei Eisenstein’s propaganda film October: Ten Days That Shook the World 1928. The project began during a trip to the Soviet Union sponsored by the British Film Institute in October 1984. Jarman was invited to present The Tempest in Moscow and Baku with fellow filmmaker Sally Potter and film theorist Peter Wollen and asked in return to make a short film for the London Film Festival in November.

Derek Jarman's film portrait of American writer William S. Burroughs was shot in September 1982 during his first visit to England to attend the legendary Final Academy events at the South London Ritzy Cinema. These were Burroughs-themed art and performance nights curated by Psychic TV. Jarman’s film shows Burroughs on Tottenham Court Road signing autographs with fans and inside a shop buying alcohol. The industrial soundtrack by Psychic TV features a sample of Burroughs repeating "boys, school showers and swimming pools full of 'em'". Additional footage shot by Jarman during Burroughs' visit is reported to have been confiscated by Scotland Yard in 1991 and remains lost. Jarman and Psychic TV would continue to collaborate (“magic bound us together” Jarman wrote), with Jarman directing the music video for Catalan and staring as the spokesperson in the Psychic TV video A Spokesman for the Temple of Psychick Youth.

Imagining October explores art and politics in the final years of the Cold War, drawing connections between pre-Perestroika Russia and Thatcherite Britain. The title refers to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and Sergei Eisenstein’s propaganda film October: Ten Days That Shook the World 1928. The project began during a trip to the Soviet Union sponsored by the British Film Institute in October 1984. Jarman was invited to present The Tempest in Moscow and Baku with fellow filmmaker Sally Potter and film theorist Peter Wollen and asked in return to make a short film for the London Film Festival in November.

'The Shadow of the Sun' draws upon Derek Jarman’s interest with alchemical processes as a metaphor for reprocessing Super-8 film. Jarman once described film’s union of light and matter as “an alchemical conjunction” and experimented throughout his career with creating dream symbolism through the superimposition of image and action. Originally called English Apocalypse, the film’s final title is derived from a 17th Century alchemical text that used the phrase as a synonym for the philosopher’s stone – the highly sought substance that turns base metals into gold and silver. The film was intended as a step toward the idea of an ambient video, that like its musical counterpart, was designed to enhance an environment.

A short film by Derek Jarman.

'Miss Gaby' gets ready for her close up, Sunset Boulevard-style. Primping and preening herself in the make-up mirror, she applies her mask while an admirer pays court from an unmade bed.

The innovative and influential British filmmaker Derek Jarman was invited to direct the Pet Shop Boys' 1989 tour. This film is a series of iconoclastic images he created for the background projections. Stunning, specially shot sequences (featuring actors, the Pet Shop Boys, and friends of Jarman) contrast with documentary montages of nature, all skillfully edited to music tracks.

Father Urbain Grandier’s unorthodox views of sex and religion make him a polarizing figure in 17th-century France. His outspokenness has amassed a passionate following of nuns and a respected reputation for protecting the city of Loudon from corruption. Grandier’s influence is then undermined following a sexually repressed nun’s accusation of witchcraft.

Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.

During World War I, British soldier Owen is mortified by the examples of cruelty that surround him in the trenches. He combats these terrifying images by maintaining hope in his love for an army nurse. But he also begins to accept his fate as another battlefield sacrifice.

The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.

12 minute short film for 'Broken English' directed by Derek Jarman, comprised of “Witches Song”, “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” and “Broken English”. Part of the “The Dream Machine” vignette (1983).

A stop-motion film showing Jarman and several other occupants vandalizing an apartment from which they have just been evicted.

An experimental film by Derek Jarman in which male subjects are bathed in light.

An experimental short film by Derek Jarman includes images of a man combing his hair, death reflected in the mirror and various burning objects.

An experimental film by Derek Jarman that captures the decay of an urban environment.

In this experimental short, four naked men are touched by death.

Stolen Apples for Karen Blixen is a three-minute black and white film which begins with a portrait of Karen Blixen taken from a photograph.

An experimental short by Derek Jarman visually represents a crumbling barn.

An experimental short film by Derek Jarman the depicts the crush of flesh at an art-world event.

An experimental short film by Derek Jarman cuts together disparate footage.

A short experimental film by Derek Jarman.

Experimental short overlays footage of buildings and fields with that of a spiral galaxy.

An experimental short film by Derek Jarman enlivens urban surrounding with the presence of a human being.

Abstract images of figures moving about a room. Filmed from a video monitor in Super 8 during a rehearsal of a RADA production of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot".

Super 8 film by Derek Jarman

Super 8 short film by Derek Jarman, shot on Fire Island in New York.

This film was shot on Super-8 by Derek Jarman in 1977 and is considered to be the inspiration for Jubilee. Jarman often showed his films silent or with different musical accompaniment - one of Jarman's suggestions was Brahms' "Violin Concerto."

This film was shot on Super-8 by Derek Jarman in 1977 and is considered to be the inspiration for Jubilee. Jarman often showed his films silent or with different musical accompaniment - one of Jarman's suggestions was Brahms' "Violin Concerto."

This film was shot on Super-8 by Derek Jarman in 1977 and is considered to be the inspiration for Jubilee. Jarman often showed his films silent or with different musical accompaniment - one of Jarman's suggestions was Brahms' "Violin Concerto."

Derek Jarman's film portrait of American writer William S. Burroughs was shot in September 1982 during his first visit to England to attend the legendary Final Academy events at the South London Ritzy Cinema. These were Burroughs-themed art and performance nights curated by Psychic TV. Jarman’s film shows Burroughs on Tottenham Court Road signing autographs with fans and inside a shop buying alcohol. The industrial soundtrack by Psychic TV features a sample of Burroughs repeating "boys, school showers and swimming pools full of 'em'". Additional footage shot by Jarman during Burroughs' visit is reported to have been confiscated by Scotland Yard in 1991 and remains lost. Jarman and Psychic TV would continue to collaborate (“magic bound us together” Jarman wrote), with Jarman directing the music video for Catalan and staring as the spokesperson in the Psychic TV video A Spokesman for the Temple of Psychick Youth.

A 16mm anthology of experimental super 8 films by Derek Jarman, Michael Kostiff, Cerith Wyn Evans and John Maybury, with framing footage by Tim Burke of Brion Gysin using a dream machine. Jarman's contribution is a version of his 1977 Art and the Pose (aka Arty the Pose), refilmed at 3fps, with a musical soundtrack. Jarman planned The Dream Machine as a commemoration of William Burroughs and Gysin's 1982 visit to the UK, and received initial funding from the Arts Council in 1983, then rethought the project as a portmanteau film featuring Gysin alone. The production remained in limbo until 1986, when James Mackay obtained completion funding from the British Film Institute. (Since this film was released on VHS accompanied by Jarman's Broken English: Three Songs by Marianne Faithfull, T.G.: Psychic Rally in Heaven and Pirate Tape under the umbrella title The Dream Machine, synopses of this film have often muddled up its details with those of the earlier films. )

A lonely glassed shy teenage boy makes several amusing and charming attempts to declare his love for a girl, carrying a bouquet of flowers with him.

A silent avant-garde experience created by Derek Jarman, filled with superimposed images forming a whole picture. His palette consists mostly of reddish random images of Egypt and the pyramids; a strange garden destroyed from time to time by a man with a whip; a young peaceful man relaxing on the floor; other smoking and eating insects. This is Jarman's view of the Garden of Luxor and its mysteries.

Experimental short overlays footage of buildings and fields with that of a spiral galaxy.

An experimental short film by Derek Jarman the depicts the crush of flesh at an art-world event.

A short film created for Spanish TV touching on the subject of Catalonia's struggle for independence, interspersed with symbolic images.

Experimental short overlays footage of buildings and fields with that of a spiral galaxy.

Derek Jarman’s Will You Dance with Me? is an essential document of LGBTQ London that was unseen until 2014, 30 years after it was originally shot. In September 1984, Jarman was invited by director Ron Peck and writer Mark Ayres to record improvisations at Benjy’s, a gay club in East London’s Mile End district, as part of the early experimental work for their feature film Empire State, a neo-noir that would be released in 1987. The coed, racially diverse crowd of roughly 100 people at Benjiy’s that night included club regulars, bar staff, and potential players in Empire State. Every single detail captured in Jarman’s on-location assignment abounds with era-specific riches: from the New Romantic cutie journaling while nestled in a corner booth to the DJ’s cheerful exhortations and the songs he spins (“Let the Music Play,” “Planet Rock,” “Relax").

Thirteen Smiths' recordings, half of them in a club with a live audience. These alternate with five rock videos, two directed by Derek Jarman (Panic and Ask), two by Tim Broad (Girlfriend in a Coma and Stop Me...), and one by Paula Grief and Richard Levine (How Soon Is Now?). It concludes with Jarman's short film, "The Queen Is Dead," with a three-song soundtrack. The rock videos, particularly Jarman's, are filled with multiple and superimposed images, changing tints, and little narrative coherence; they get their pace from the music's rhythm. Androgyny, dancing children, belching smokestacks, graffiti, angry young men, a waif in a cap: collages of modern alienation.

Short film made on Bankside featuring, as the electric fairy, a "young man with curly blonde hair, a star on his forehead and stars on his tunic, headphones, jewels and carmine lips".

The Angelic Conversation is a lyrical, haunting film about a young man’s search for love in a dreamlike landscape. Its tone is set by the juxtaposition of slow moving homo-erotic images and opaque landscapes through which two men take a journey into their own desires. Offscreen, Dame Judi Dench recites a sequence of Shakespeare's sonnets that counterpoint the action. Jarman called it, “My most austere work, but also the closest to my heart.”

A nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous.

The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.

Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.

Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.

Super 8 footage shot on location in Sardinia in 1975.

'The Shadow of the Sun' draws upon Derek Jarman’s interest with alchemical processes as a metaphor for reprocessing Super-8 film. Jarman once described film’s union of light and matter as “an alchemical conjunction” and experimented throughout his career with creating dream symbolism through the superimposition of image and action. Originally called English Apocalypse, the film’s final title is derived from a 17th Century alchemical text that used the phrase as a synonym for the philosopher’s stone – the highly sought substance that turns base metals into gold and silver. The film was intended as a step toward the idea of an ambient video, that like its musical counterpart, was designed to enhance an environment.

Derek Jarman’s Will You Dance with Me? is an essential document of LGBTQ London that was unseen until 2014, 30 years after it was originally shot. In September 1984, Jarman was invited by director Ron Peck and writer Mark Ayres to record improvisations at Benjy’s, a gay club in East London’s Mile End district, as part of the early experimental work for their feature film Empire State, a neo-noir that would be released in 1987. The coed, racially diverse crowd of roughly 100 people at Benjiy’s that night included club regulars, bar staff, and potential players in Empire State. Every single detail captured in Jarman’s on-location assignment abounds with era-specific riches: from the New Romantic cutie journaling while nestled in a corner booth to the DJ’s cheerful exhortations and the songs he spins (“Let the Music Play,” “Planet Rock,” “Relax").

Derek Jarman’s Will You Dance with Me? is an essential document of LGBTQ London that was unseen until 2014, 30 years after it was originally shot. In September 1984, Jarman was invited by director Ron Peck and writer Mark Ayres to record improvisations at Benjy’s, a gay club in East London’s Mile End district, as part of the early experimental work for their feature film Empire State, a neo-noir that would be released in 1987. The coed, racially diverse crowd of roughly 100 people at Benjiy’s that night included club regulars, bar staff, and potential players in Empire State. Every single detail captured in Jarman’s on-location assignment abounds with era-specific riches: from the New Romantic cutie journaling while nestled in a corner booth to the DJ’s cheerful exhortations and the songs he spins (“Let the Music Play,” “Planet Rock,” “Relax").

A documentary record of the 1968 ballet by Frederick Ashton, performed by The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House.

A documentary record of the 1968 ballet by Frederick Ashton, performed by The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House.

A silent short movie, is a literal journey that we can experience. We are being taken to Avebury and given the chance to admire it for 10 minutes. The shots are incredibly beautiful, as we see a huge stone or trees bathed in orange light of sunset.

A silent short movie, is a literal journey that we can experience. We are being taken to Avebury and given the chance to admire it for 10 minutes. The shots are incredibly beautiful, as we see a huge stone or trees bathed in orange light of sunset.

Rome, AD 303. Emperor Diocletian demotes his favourite, Sebastian, from captain of the palace guard to the rank of common soldier and banishes him to a remote coastal outpost where his fellow soldiers, weakened by their desires, turn to homosexual activities to satisfy their needs. Sebastian becomes the target of lust for the officer Severus, but repeatedly rejects the man's advances. Castigated for his Christian faith, he is tortured, humiliated and ultimately killed.

Rome, AD 303. Emperor Diocletian demotes his favourite, Sebastian, from captain of the palace guard to the rank of common soldier and banishes him to a remote coastal outpost where his fellow soldiers, weakened by their desires, turn to homosexual activities to satisfy their needs. Sebastian becomes the target of lust for the officer Severus, but repeatedly rejects the man's advances. Castigated for his Christian faith, he is tortured, humiliated and ultimately killed.

A dramatization, in modern theatrical style, of the life and thought of the Viennese-born, Cambridge-educated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose principal interest was the nature and limits of language. A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, through the era of the first World War, to his eventual Cambridge professorship and association with Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The emphasis in these sketches is on the exposition of the ideas of Wittgenstein, a homosexual, and an intuitive, moody, proud, and perfectionistic thinker generally regarded as a genius.

Recorded live at Wembley Arena, July 1989 on their MCMLXXXIX Tour.

Derek Jarman's interpretation of the aria 'Depuis le jour' from the final act of Gustave Charpentier's opera Louise (1900) features Aimée Delamain as an aging opera singer taking her final bow and recalling a love affair from her youth. As the aria goes: 'Et je tremble délicieusement au souvenir charmant du premier jour d'amour! (And I tremble deliciously at the delightful memory of the first day of love!)' – Her reveries feature Tilda Swinton and Spencer Leigh wandering around the topiaries of Swinton's family garden and at various seaside locations. The film was made for Aria (1987), the portmanteau project of producer Don Boyd who invited ten directors to create short films set to operatic arias of their choice. The particular performance used in Depuis le jour is by esteemed African-American soprano Leontyne Price.

A filmed record of a bizarre garden party organized to pay a fine incurred by singer Ulla for "liberating a chandelier from Harrods."

A filmed record of a bizarre garden party organized to pay a fine incurred by singer Ulla for "liberating a chandelier from Harrods."

The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.

A nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous.

A nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous.

In the early 1980s, Jarman struggled to get feature film projects off the ground and invested his energies in different fields, including music videos. In 1984 he made the promo for ‘What Presence?!’ by Scottish post-punk band Orange Juice, as fronted by Edwyn Collins. Before the official shoot, however, he visited the location and made this tape, trying out shots with a newly acquired Olympus VHS camera. The warm colours and fuzzy softness of the format, plus the decision to shoot handheld, imbue this little-known, rarely seen artefact with a palpable directness.

England, 14th century. King Edward II falls in love with Piers Gaveston, a young man of humble origins, whom he honors with favors and titles of nobility. The cold and jealous Queen Isabella conspires with the evil Mortimer to get rid of Gaveston, overthrow her husband and take power…

Short film by Derek Jarman.

Arms outstretched, a masked god stands on a clifftop surveying the rocks below and sees a sailor lying drowned in a rockpool, while a mermaid makes tiny silver boats. The god approaches and embraces the mermaid. Filmed on the Dorset coast.

Shot 1988 by Derek Jarman, completed for the exhibition Tilda Swinton: Ongoing at Eye Filmmuseum

A tapestry of colour and movement made from twelve reels of all the oddbits, fragments and diary films compiled between 1972 and 1983 that didn’t quite fit into a finished film.

A tapestry of colour and movement made from twelve reels of all the oddbits, fragments and diary films compiled between 1972 and 1983 that didn’t quite fit into a finished film.

A tapestry of colour and movement made from twelve reels of all the oddbits, fragments and diary films compiled between 1972 and 1983 that didn’t quite fit into a finished film.

Derek Jarman’s Will You Dance with Me? is an essential document of LGBTQ London that was unseen until 2014, 30 years after it was originally shot. In September 1984, Jarman was invited by director Ron Peck and writer Mark Ayres to record improvisations at Benjy’s, a gay club in East London’s Mile End district, as part of the early experimental work for their feature film Empire State, a neo-noir that would be released in 1987. The coed, racially diverse crowd of roughly 100 people at Benjiy’s that night included club regulars, bar staff, and potential players in Empire State. Every single detail captured in Jarman’s on-location assignment abounds with era-specific riches: from the New Romantic cutie journaling while nestled in a corner booth to the DJ’s cheerful exhortations and the songs he spins (“Let the Music Play,” “Planet Rock,” “Relax").

Abstract images of figures moving about a room. Filmed from a video monitor in Super 8 during a rehearsal of a RADA production of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot".

Abstract images of figures moving about a room. Filmed from a video monitor in Super 8 during a rehearsal of a RADA production of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot".

Abstract images of figures moving about a room. Filmed from a video monitor in Super 8 during a rehearsal of a RADA production of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot".