Derek Jarman’s film Blue Essay -- Film Movie Movies AIDS Essays

Derek Jarmans film BlueI am a cock suckingStraight acting homosexual manWith ball crushing bad mannersLaddish nymphomaniac regimeSpunky sexist desiresOf incestuous inversion and Incorrect ter momentologyI am a Not Gay (Blue, Jarman 1995 119). In offering this survival of the fittest from Derek Jarmans film Blue, (England, 1993) I have established an expectation that this subjects concern is with the sexual carcass of East End hot flash stomping, ball crushing queens. However, whilst this sequence has caught our imagination, my interest similarly lies in the abridgment of the cinematic representation of the diseased and medicalised body of the artist affected by HIV/ support.However, in the film Blue, we see neither the diseased nor disappearing body of the filmmaker who has AIDS. Jarmans body is embodied sonically rather than visually in the film, to counter retrogressive enactments of people living with HIV. Thus, Jarmans depiction of the diseased body in Blue is inferred ra ther than seen.1 This representation of the body may appear to be at odds with AIDS activist discourse, which has advocated at length for positive images of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA)2 since the 1980s.3 However, Derek Jarmans strategy to challenge and derail the notion of visibility was also aligned with an impulse to visually represent his loss of optical ken due to HIV related illness. The strategy to deny the viewer a visual image of the person with AIDS was effectively a counterpoint to the saturation of images that was prevalent in early 1990s post contemporary gardening.4 The intersection between queer activist politics and post modernist culture was important to the practice of many western artists working around issues associated with HIV... ...Beauvais, Y 1992, AIDS A SIDA, film, France, 51/2 instantuteBordowitz, G 1993, profligate Trip, Long Drip, US, video, 56 minCartwright, J 1993, There we are tail end Derek Jarman interviewed by John Cartwright, UK, video, 30 min.Demme, J 1993, Philadelphia, film, US, 155 minGoldin, N & Coulthand, E 1996 Ill be your Mirror, video, US, 52 minHaynes, T 1996, Safe, film, US, 118 minHoolboom, M 1998, Panic Bodies, film, Canada, 70 minJarman, D 1994, Blue, film, UK, 75 minRiggs, M 1991, Anthem, video, USA, 10minSpottiswoode, R , And The Band Played On, USA, film, 140minTartaglia, J 1989, Eco Homo, USA, video, 7 min------------1988, A.I.D.S.C.R.E.A.M., USA, video, 6 min Thew, A 1993, Cling Film, UK, film/video, 20minThomas, I 1992,The Dreaming, UK, video, 13 min------------1992, The Fading, UK, video, 5 minVon Trier, L 1987 Epidemic, Denmark, film, 105 min