By Anthony Paull
The young gays of our generation, sadly, we are so easy to forget. We're too focused on being trendy, indie, hot, now, cool – we barely have time to take in a breath of today or tomorrow, let alone look backwards at the triumphs of our gay forefathers. It's tragic, really.
The life-work of painter, punk, poet and filmmaker Derek Jarman – whose story is told in the revealing documentary "Derek" – premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The gay media barely flinched, opting instead to complain the festival neglected to include enough independent films with LGBT content this year. But seriously, do we need another "queer" film featuring two straight actors bumping and grinding in the boondocks to move us forward, or will looking to the past advance us in the long run?
I take the blame too. I understand how easy it is to shy away from the term "documentary." Just mention the word and I flash back to American history class, clutching my heart in despair after being told to eyeball another film on the Civil War or the shooting of JFK. War is bad. Shooting the president is bad. Even then, I understood.
Still, I neither wanted nor needed to see such a highly-regarded man as JFK being murdered at every feasible camera angle. Though somehow, the well-crafted story of Derek Jarman changed that line of thinking for me. Shortly after viewing "Derek," I yearned to know the intimacies surrounding the much-too-short life of Mr. Jarman. What made him fascinating enough to inspire Chumbawumba to write a song in his honor? Why did he choose to cover up all those sexy men with ill-fitting cloaks in The Pet Shop Boys "It's a Sin" video? Did he ever get close enough to smell Morrissey's armpit when working with The Smiths? I guess that's what superb documentaries are meant to do – challenge us to risk asking peculiar questions.
Narrated by the equally haunting and arresting voice of Oscar-nominee Tilda Swinton, "Derek" (directed by Isaac Julien) follows the nearly-visible ghost of yesterqueer film prophet Jarman through the industrial streets and green, green fields of his English homeland. Through intimate recollections, you feel Swinton genuinely believes she'll discover Jarman around a narrow bend in the road or in the shelter of the timber cottage where he lived, created and erected a beach garden. This lends the documentary an eerie edge, allowing the viewer to drown in the notion of living beyond the emptiness of sleeping forever in a rarely-visited grave, of continuing to leave a mark even when hidden six feet below.
An outspoken AIDS activist, Derek's unabashed love for men, film – along with the endless possibilities hidden within mundane projects like gardening – transports the viewer to a vulnerable place where compassion for his disease feels fresh and genuine. Modern-day gay pornography, with all its prickly pleasantries, seems boorish in comparison to the homoerotism, the gentle touch of the semi-nude male soldiers portrayed in Jarman's 1975 directorial debut, "Sebastiane," a film depicting the life and death of gay icon Saint Sebastiane.
Personal friend of Jarman, Swinton solemnly admits she'll miss "the mess, the vulgarity, the cant, the edge" that defines Jarman's work. Clips and candid interviews of Jarman speak to her testament, allowing audiences a glimpse of a painter who wasn't afraid to make a muddled splash, of a filmmaker who never feared to tattoo himself with a taboo subject.
Even when faced with his demise, fear never fills Jarman's fiery eyes. His endless body of work – comprised primarily of avant-garde short and feature films, including the 1978 masterpiece "Jubilee" that follows Queen Elizabeth I traveling 400 years in the future – speaks of a man unafraid to speak loudly, even if his fellow directors cringe and turn a deaf ear. With hope, "Derek" will allow those in the gay and straight world a chance to recognize the importance of Jarman's artistic stroke, the bold manner in which he colored outside the once-narrow line. Like Swinton, maybe someday we'll pause long enough to see the footprints of Jarman surrounding us.
