Wicked Good Gay: Derek Jarman (Ep. 64)

Derek Jarman was an iconic artist, activist and filmmaker whose pioneering filmmaking was unapologetically queer. What better time to celebrate his work and legacy than Pride Month? 

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Transcript

Hello! I’m your host, J. Harvey. And Happy Pride! It’s that special time of year where we all get drunk or high or drunk and high at block parties, briefly consider opening up our relationships because we’re getting older and tired and it might be nice to sort of pass the buck on all the most labor-intensive parts of sex to a new, younger guy, and also have to listen to our moms complain that we get a whole month celebrating us while moms only get one day. Woman, this world is BUILT for moms; the patriarchy venerates you as long as you keep producing more patriarchs. Don’t give me this moms aren’t celebrated thing. Oooo look at a baby. Damn population explosion, with dwindling resources, keep breeding. Wait, where am I going with this? I’m going to Wicked Gay’s annual Wicked Good Gay episode. That’s where I briefly dispense with the murderers, sexual predators, traitorous spies, lying dogs, and vampire show recaps to highlight someone in our community who fought the good fight, who added to the world, one of us who did something great. 

Tonight, I’m talking about Derek Jarman, the iconic British artist, author, designer, and filmmaker whose politically charged queer fantasias scandalized the normies, and who bravely came out as HIV positive at a time in Britain when the prime minister was considering putting people with HIV in camps. 

Derek Jarman fought back through his art and his activism; he also lived beside a nuclear reactor, and his final film consists of solely one image, but is one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing. Or hearing, I’ll get to it.

You’re listening to Wicked Good Gay: a true-to-life podcast about gay people doing extraordinary things. 

My sources for this episode were Wikipedia, YouTube, and several of Derek Jarman’s films. 

Derek Jarman was born in England in 1942. His father was an officer in the Royal Air Force, so the family moved around quite a bit. And he spent portions of his childhood living overseas, a lot of it in Italy and the Mediterranean, the sometimes  bewitching beauty of both making a big impression on him.  

He studied at King's College London and later attended the Slade School of Fine Art, one of Britain's most prestigious art schools.

At first, he wasn't planning on becoming a filmmaker. He wanted to be a painter.

And honestly, that makes complete sense when you look at his movies. Even people who hate them usually admit they're visually stunning. Many of his scenes and images are stylized and shot in ways to make them seem like static works of art that have suddenly come to life. 

Before directing films, he worked as a stage and production designer. His first major break came when he worked with director Ken Russell on the notorious 1971 film The Devils. The Devils is a controversial historical drama based on real events in 17th-century France. The film follows charismatic priest Urbain Grandier, who becomes the target of political and religious enemies when a sexually repressed nun, Sister Jeanne des Anges, accuses him of witchcraft and demonic possession. As hysteria spreads, Grandier is subjected to a sham trial and brutal execution, exposing how those in power manipulate religion, fear, and superstition for political gain. 

Now, The Devils is one of those movies that's been causing arguments for more than fifty years. I am dying to see this; by all accounts, a violent, blasphemous, sexually explicit, and frequently banned movie. It’s the sort of project Mr. Jarman would be attracted to, I guess: at one point, Vanessa Redgrave, who is playing a hunchback nun with erotomania for Oliver Reed’s character, and whose faking demonic possession leads to Oliver being burned at the stake, apparently she ends up getting off with his thigh bone after he's bbbqed. I need to see this movie, 

Working on The Devils introduced him to filmmaking and helped shape the visual style he'd later become famous for.

And throughout the early 1970s, he made experimental Super 8 films with friends, artists, musicians, and members of London's underground queer scene. From there, he decided to make his first feature. And it ended up being bizarre and controversial and got him a lot of press, and it’s still sort of venerated as the start of what’s called New Queer Cinema in the UK. In 1976, Jarman released Sebastiane.

The film tells the story of Saint Sebastian, the Christian martyr who has long occupied a special place in gay culture. If you've ever seen paintings of Sebastian tied up and pierced with arrows while looking improbably attractive, you understand why.

Sebastiane was radical for several reasons.

First, the entire movie is spoken in Latin. Not some Latin. All Latin. Which sounds like a terrible commercial decision. People aren't going to be flocking down with Nicole Kidman in her sparkly pantsuit to experience heartbreak feeling good n a place like this if it's all in Latin. 

Second, it featured frank homoerotic imagery at a time when very few films did. And the gay men in it weren't jokes, victims, or villains. This was very unusual. This became his calling card: arty films that present queer imagery very frankly and were astounding, unapologetic about it 

A year later, Derek gave the British public a punk rock movie sorta mocking punk rock, and kinda amateurish and dumb, but its interetsing. 1978’s Jubilee is A LOT. Queen Elizabeth I is transported forward in time to an apocalyptic punk rock Britain by her court magician, and I guess the spirit Ariel from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, to bring them there. She follows around a group of punk rock girls with names like Amyl Nitrate, Bod, Chaos, Crabs and Mad. A lot of arty punk rock stuff happens, a lot of pink bands play, and look there’s a young Adam Ant, and Siousxi Soux!  It’s mostly about how terrible the future was going to be. Little did they know, 

In 1979, Jarman adapted Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which is a dreamlike take on Willy's play and was mostly shot in one abbey in Warwickshire, England. HE had become Britain’s most visible gay filmmaker, 

And he eventually became its most infamous. At the end of 1985, Jarman's three feature films to date were broadcast on Channel 4. As you can imagine, because people are dumb and hateful and scared of what they don't immediately understand, there was some outrage over the gay movies. A woman named Mary Whitehouse, who was a British conservative Christian activist known for her vocal campaigns against perceived moral decline, permissive social attitudes, and explicit content in mainstream media. petitioned the Director of Public Prosecutions to bring charges against the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) for permitting the broadcasts; Winston Churchill's grandson, politician Winston Churchill, wrote to The London Times criticising the IBA, and a mainstream film director, Michael Winner, publicly accused Jarman of making pornography, which Jarman ignored. All of this merely increased interest in Jarman’s work. 

And in 1986 was able to make his dream project. Caravaggio.

Caravaggio is notable for several reasons; it's the first Jarman film I ever saw. That's not why it's notable; that's just local color. So it introduced the world to the extraterrestrial matriarch beamed in from Planet David Bowie known as Tilda Swinton. It's a biographical tale of the man who is in some circles considered the father of modern art - Caravaggio- and it made Caravaggio’s story, taking great license with it, indisputedly queer. I got into the movie a little in the Patreon ep I did on Caravaggio, who, btw, was also a terrible person and a murderer; consider that a plug. 

It also dove headfirst into what would be a trait of Jarman’s films: anachronisms, films that are supposed to be taking place long ago, yet you've got radios going for etc. Jarman’s films are notable because he told stories the way he wanted to tell them, and logic didn't always enter the picture, and, as we know, being human beings, logic can often stand in the way of feeling. You want a film to be logical, or do you want it to make you feel something? Discuss. 

It got very good reviews; it was considered his first mainstream sorta hit for a little arthouse movie; it won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and according to Wikipedia, that was the year Jarman was shortlisted for the Turner Prize, the annual award for the artist judged to have made the greatest contribution to British art. In announcing the shortlist, the Tate Gallery cited “the outstanding visual qualities of his films,” with particular reference to Caravaggio.

He made six movies after Caravaggio; I’m going to get into two of them. One right now - Edward II. Jarman gave us Edward the second in 1991, it; it’s a British romantic historical drama film starring Steven Waddington, Tilda, and Andrew Tiernan. It is based on the play of the same name by Christopher Marlowe. The plot revolves around Edward II of England's infatuation with one Piers Gaveston, which proves to be the downfall of both of them, thanks to the machinations of one Roger Mortimer.

Marlowe's play is set in 14th-century England, with kings, nobles, castles, and medieval costumes. Jarman keeps most of Marlowe's language but places the story in a deliberately anachronistic world. Characters wear modern suits, military uniforms, leather jackets, and contemporary clothing. Police in riot gear appear alongside medieval nobles. Tilda looks flawless and completely chic and gorgeous with her face beat, perfect hair, and gowns by Sandy Powell. She’s a walking painting in this movie. 

So Jarman takes what's not stated in the play, that Edward and Gaveston are fucking, and puts it right out there, with the premise that queer love is so anathema to the general public that it can destroy empires. He equates all the goings on with the modern gay rights movement, which is sorta of anachronisticlaly woven through the movie. All of the gay people are brutally murdered, with one lovely exception. It was also a cinematic response to Clause 28 in Britain, which we’ll get to in a second. And the final shot, sorry, spoiler, is this freeze frame of modern-times gay activists of now, and the camera slowly trails past them. And it's sort of haunting; I recommend this movie. Also, Waddington and Tiernan are kinda early 90s hot flopping around. 

And here’s where we get into a part of Jarman’s life which would greatly inform all of his work henceforth. 

In December of 1986, Derek Jarman learned that he was HIV positive.

In 1986, Britain was messy with fear, misinformation, and growing panic over the AIDS crisis. Many people misunderstood how HIV was transmitted, with some believing it could be spread through casual contact. Sensational media coverage fueled terror (London tabloids are not known for their subtlety or their sensitivity), with AIDS labeled a "gay plague," reinforcing this false belief that it only affected gay men. As a result, many queer people faced increased discrimination, with some being ostracized by employers, landlords, friends, and family members. The crisis also intensified political and cultural debates about homosexuality, as some conservative shitheads used the epidemic to argue against advances in gay rights, creating a climate of stigma and fear that deeply affected Britain's LGBTQ+ community.

And as happened here in the States, some people got nutty. While concentration camps were never an official British government policy and were never seriously considered for implementation, a small number of politicians and public figures did advocate extreme measures during the height of the crisis. In 1986, Conservative MP Nicholas Winterton suggested that people with AIDS might need to be segregated in special hospitals, while some tabloid newspapers and fringe commentators called for compulsory HIV testing, quarantine, and restrictions on the movement of those infected. 

And how did Derek Jarman handle HIS diagnosis? Well, his ass fought back. 

Against medical advice, he told his family and friends about his HIV status. After being diagnosed HIV-positive on December 22, 1986, he publicly disclosed his status about a month later, becoming one of the first prominent Britons to speak openly about living with HIV."

Jarman has always been a gay activist, and a confrontational sort, but HIV sort of kick-started a whole new era of activism for him. From this point he adopted a more outspoken role in addressing the impact of the AIDS epidemic on the gay community. Jarman joined radical direct-action groups like OutRage! and supported ACT UP London, while also publicly deriding other gay rights groups for being too passive. Already bullshit about the inadequacy of the government's response to the crisis, he was especially angered by the proposed Clause 28, which sought to prohibit the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools. By the way, Maggie Thatcher? Not a big pal to the gays. It was passed into law in 1988 as Section 28. He protested again Clause 28 with his film Edward II as well as his 1987 film The Last of England—a bleak, apocalyptic cinematic protest against Thatcherism. At a 1989 art festival, Jarman strictly targeted the legislation by installing a performance piece featuring two naked men in a bed, enclosed by barbed wire and blood-spattered homophobic newspaper clips.

In an interesting aside. He also went after Gandalf Magneto. Jarman publicly criticized his friend and fellow activist Sir Ian McKellen for accepting a knighthood from the Conservative government in 1991. Jarman argued that accepting an honor from the political party responsible for enacting Section 28 was an unacceptable moral compromise, which, um, yeah?  I love me some Sir Ian. but…

defended his decision by arguing that being an openly gay knight could be useful politically and help advance gay rights. He later said that the title gave him influence and credibility in places where activists might otherwise be ignored, helping to "open doors" for LGBTQ+ advocacy.

Years later, McKellen reflected on Jarman's criticism with some hurt. In a 2024 interview, he recalled that Jarman had said he was "a straight man in gay clothing" and suggested Jarman felt he should have joined a more radical circle of queer artists and only taken gay roles. McKellen pushed back, saying that would have limited him as an actor: "Heterosexuality is far too interesting to be ignored." And straight guys are hot. i said the quiet part out loud. 

Back to being serious. And now we come to what I feel like is Jarman;s most important work, which I watched this week. 1993’s Blue 

Blue was made in the final years of his life, when his health was severely affected by HIV/AIDS-related complications, including a serious decline in his eyesight due to cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis. By this point, he was often too ill and visually impaired to work in regular film formats, so he conceived Blue as a workaround: it's a 79-minute single, unchanging frame of deep blue, colored, accompanied by a soundscape of voices, music, and autobiographical narration. It featured the voices of Nigel Terry, John Quentin, his bestie Tidla, and Derek himself. And it goes from these poetic passages about a character named Blue, and then about the color of blue, to spirituality, and philosophy, and musings about life and death, then interspersed with what Jarman’s life living with AIDS was like, the names of all the friends he lost, what it was like to lose his eyesight. It's just beautiful and deeply affecting. It's about illness and mortality and the perception of both. 

ITs funny, personally, blue has always been,y faovirt color, and blue pope up in my life all the time, as a person who struggles with depression, amd sprt pfa;ofe;omng sadness ad hppe;esness at muy core which i fucking brawl with on the daily, and lue is th eocean, that brings me peace and fills me with awe of its beaity, and theres a wall at the 9/11 memorial museum in New York City, behind whicht thet tell you are remains of the all people welost still, a dhtat wall is blue, a ne of course it was I thought ti myself when uig rist saw it and I bustr into tears in front of it, And then this movie, this guy Derel Jarman just showed me his soul, and there;s this sort of aching hope through all of it. Life is horrible, yes, but life is also this immense shining experience we all share, and at the core of it is love. It's just a very affecting piece. Wherever he is now, or if he is now, or whatever you believe. He should be proud. 

Oh, and I'm also fascinated with his cottage.

Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage in Dungeness, Kent was where he lived from 1986 until his death, and it quickly became part of his work rather than just a home. He bought it right after his HIV diagnosis, and it gave him space away from London while his health was declining. The place itself is pretty stark—shingle beach, wind, and the nuclear power station in the background behind it—and instead of trying to tame it, he worked with it. He made this like a tough beach garden; he started planting hardy coastal flowers and mixing them with driftwood, rusted metal, stones, and other bits he found on the beach. It’s not a “pretty garden” in the traditional sense; it’s more like a piece of land he was constantly editing. Over time, it became inseparable from his art practice—and it became sort of famous, this tough garden he made.

Derek Jarman died in London on 19 February 1994 of an AIDS-related illness, aged 52; he was an atheist and is buried in the graveyard at St Clement’s Church in Old Romney, Kent. In his final years, he was supported emotionally and practically by Keith Collins (1963–2018), a young man he had met in 1987—though they were not sexually involved, the relationship became central to his daily life, and Jarman left Prospect Cottage to him. After his death, Jarman’s legacy continued to be publicly recognised, including a blue plaque unveiled at Butler’s Wharf in London on 19 February 2019, marking the 25th anniversary of his death.

And that’s the Derek Jarman story. I’ve become quite an admirer of Mr. Jarman. I didn't even get into his collaborations with the Smiths and especially the Pet Shop Boys, whom I adore. If you take anything away from this ep, you gotta watch Blue. It’s free on Pluto or Tubi or one of those other streaming services you hate to use cuz the interface sucks. But this one's worth the hassle and commercials. 

Anyway, you, all of you, gay straight, queer, aces, whatever’s clever, I'm proud of all of you and wish you nothing but good things this Pride Month. If you need to hear it, you're gonna be ok, and you matter, greatly, ok? Happy Pride. Nite