Derek Jarmans Blue Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Derek Jarmans Blue - Essay Example Discovering he was HIV positive in 1986, it comes as no surprise that Jarman’s work passionately embraced the call of AIDS activism. Indeed, until his death from AIDS in 1994 a great amount of Jarman’s visual and sound art concerned the nature of homosexual identity and the need for increased attention to victims of this disease. While Jarman’s artistic production exhibits a considerable range of work, from stage design to writing and even conceptual pieces, it’s unquestionably his work in the filmic medium that has garnered him the most critical acclaim. While beginning with crude super 8 mm films, Jarman progressed to more elaborate film art visions. In Sebastianne (1976) Jarman is credited with producing the first British film that depicted homosexuality from a positive perspective. In the 1980s Jarman increasingly turned his attentions to questions of homosexuality and AIDS activism. These themes and style continued until Jarman eventually experienced health concerns and began constructing more paired down works. It is in this context that Jarman’s seminal film Blue was produced in 1993. During the time of its production Jarman was dying of AIDS and his sight was rapidly diminishing. The film itself consists of an entirely blue screen with text and music interspersed in a stream of conscious like narrative format. Rowland Wymer has articulated the film as, â€Å"The return to the suffering body - the blue screen representing not only an 'open door to the soul' but also an after-image on the retina left by the 'shattering bright light of the specialist's camerea' - is also a return to politics.† While the narrative contains ambiguity characteristic of Jarman’s personal artistic approach, it’s clear the film exhibits a relationship between the motif of transcendence and AIDS activism. This essay considers Derek Jarman’s Blue within this context, and attempts to situate it within the broader contex t of Queer theory, and the aural landscape of the relatively new field of sound art. Analysis In great part one detects in Derek Jarman’s Blue the interrelation between the form of the film and the underlining subtext of the film’s narrative and artistic intentions. Perhaps the most pervasive and overarching structural concerns one notes is transcendental nature of how the flow of life equals the stream of conscious flow of the narrative. In these regards one thinks of the transcendent in the Emersonian sense, as life is understood not as the singular entity of the individual, but rather as a universal oneness. This flows from Jarman’s own confrontation with morality in the film and the impending questions all individuals with AIDS must face regarding their own transitory existence. While the film returns to a number of thematic tropes, it is this underlining subtext, namely the motif of transcendence and AIDS activism, that is perhaps most prevalent throughout Jarman’s work in this film. As the film progresses these thematic concerns gradually become articulated through a number of structural means. While the predominant emphasis is on the nature of sound and text, one must also consider Jarman’s implementation of the blue background throughout the entirety of the film. Early in the film, one notes Jarman’s direct discussion of the color blue. The film states, â€Å"Blue is the universal love in which man bathes. It is the terrestrial paradise.† The film then transitions to the narrator describing himself walking along the beach in which he hears the voices of dead friends. Here the blue background represents the transcendence of the ocean and sounds of past friends. It functions as a testament to these individuals who perhaps died from AIDS, drawing attention to the