The Angelic Conversation + Short: Dungeness
classified 18Filmmaker, artist, activist Derek Jarman is, along with Peter Greenaway, one the most iconoclastic figures of the 1980s.
Following an apprenticeship on Ken Russell’s The Devils Jarman’s filmmaking started in the late 1970s with Sebastiane, a passionate celebration of homoeroticism and Jubilee described as “Britain’s only decent Punk film”.
His celebratory tone would shift to anger with the ravaging effects of Thatcherism on community and culture through the ‘80s leading to the raging howl of his most well-known film of the decade The Last of England (1987). The parallel tragedy of the AIDS epidemic and the oppressive Clause 28 which banned schools from discussing gay relationships as acceptable, would galvanise Jarman’s activism. That activism found poetic expression in The Angelic Conversation, an evocative and radical visualisation of Shakespeare’s love poems.
Judi Dench’s rich emotive readings of 14 sonnets are coupled with ethereal visuals: shot on Super-8 before being transferred to 35mm the unique technical approach results in a striking aesthetic, with experimental group Coil’s languorous soundtrack completing the intoxicating effect. The film, which Jarman described as ‘a dream world, a world of magic and ritual’, is a quietly subversive and poetic embrace of Shakespeare as gay icon taking the form of a poetic montage of imagery depicting gay male desire.
+ Short film: Dungeness (Dir John Smith UK 1987 3mins) Made for Graeme Miller's multi-media theatre production "Dungeness - The Desert in the Garden", Dungeness was inspired by the landscape and architecture of the area and features a guest appearance from Derek Jarman’s then recently acquired Prospect Cottage.
With thanks to the BFI National Archive. This screening is co-curated with Charlotte Bendrey and presented as part of Other Ways of Seeing, with support from BFI Awarding Funds from National Lottery.
With an introduction by curator Charlotte Bendrey.
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