Derek Jarman British Film Director

Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.

Jarman was born in Northwood, Middlesex. His father was a military officer, born in New Zealand, and his mother was half-Jewish. He boarded at Canford School in Dorset, and from 1960 studied at King's College London. This was followed by four years at the Slade School of Art, University College London, starting in 1963. He had a studio at Butler's Wharf, London, and was part of the Andrew Logan social scene in the 1970s. Jarman was outspoken about homosexuality, his never-ending public fight for gay rights, and his personal struggle with AIDS.

On 22 December 1986, Jarman was diagnosed as HIV positive, and discussed his condition in public. His illness prompted him to move to Prospect Cottage, Dungeness in Kent, near the nuclear power station. In 1994, he died of an AIDS-related illness in London, aged 52. He is buried in the graveyard at St. Clements Church, Old Romney, Kent.

Jarman made his debut in “overground” narrative filmmaking with the groundbreaking Sebastiane (1976), arguably the first British film to feature positive images of gay sexuality, and the first (and to date, only) film entirely in Latin. He follwed this with the film many regard as his first masterpiece, Jubilee (shot 1977, released 1978), in which Queen Elizabeth I of England is transported forward in time to a desolate and brutal wasteland ruled by her twentieth century namesake. Jubilee was arguably the first UK punk movie, and amongst its cast featured punk groups and figures such as Wayne County, Jordan and Adam and the Ants.

The band Chumbawamba subsequently released Song for Derek Jarman in his honour. Andi Sexgang, another music artist, released the CD Last of England as a Jarman tribute. The ambient experimental album The garden is full of metal, by Robin Rimbaud, includes Jarman speech samples. Manic Street Preachers' Bassist, Nicky Wire, also recorded a track titled Derek Jarman's Garden as a b-side to his single Break My Heart Slowly in 2006.

Jarman's work broke new ground in creating and expanding the fledgling form of 'the pop video' in England, and in gay rights activism. Several volumes of his diaries have been published.

Jarman also directed the 1989 tour by the UK duo Pet Shop Boys. By pop concert standards this was a highly theatrical event with costume and specially shot films accompanying the individual songs. Jarman was the stage director of Sylvano Bussotti's opera L'Ispirazione, first staged in Florence in 1998.

Jarman is also remembered for his famous shingle cottage-garden, created in the latter years of his life, in the shadow of Dungeness nuclear power station. The house was built in tarred timber. Raised wooden text on the side of the cottage is the first stanza and the last five lines of the last stanza of John Donne's poem, The Sun Rising. The cottage's beach garden was made using local materials and has been the subject of several books. At this time, Jarman also began painting again (see the book: Evil Queen: The Last Paintings, 1994).

Jarman was the author of several books including his autobiography Dancing Ledge, a collection of poetry A Finger in the Fishes Mouth, two volumes of diaries Modern Nature and Smiling In Slow Motion and two treatises on his work in film and art The Last of England (also published as Kicking the Pricks) and Chroma. Other notable published works include film scripts (Up in the Air, Blue, War Requiem, Caravaggio, Queer Edward II and Wittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script/The Derek Jarman Film), a study of his garden at Dungeness Derek Jarman's Garden, and At Your Own Risk, a defiant celebration of gay sexuality.