"All the charms of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!"

[greygirlbeast]

I think Spring is beginning to think about considering possibly coming somewhere near Rhode Island. Highs in the high 40s Fahrenheit. We may have 60s by late April.

Yesterday was a bloody nightmare of double-barreled line editing. No, no, no. That almost makes it sound fun, and it was at that other end of the spectrum from fun. Spooky and Sonya

Comments

Derek Jarman

[thebacchanal]

she showed me Derek Jarman's adaptation of The Tempest (1979), which was, by turns (and, sometimes, all at once), sublime, grotesque, and beautiful. Jarman's cinematic composition always amazes me, each shot framed like a Renaissance painting, so arresting to the eye that you almost don't want to progress to the next frame of film.The Tempest is perhaps my favorite Jarman film, although The Angelic Conversation and Caravaggio are hauntingly queer social indictments I also number amidst the films I most admire. I love how he removes Caliban from the traditional post-colonial readings and instead creates an Oedipal Other of the man/monster. Ariel's alchemical queerness is arresting (Karl Johnson's fragile, ghostly visage didn't hurt either, if you find that sort of thing attractive), and of course the influence of Caravaggio's Tenebrist style of intense chiaroscuro creates the perfect amount of weird atmosphere for Shakespeare's perhaps darkest comedy. I'm glad you enjoyed it! You might want to check out Jarman's Jubilee if you enjoyed

Re: Derek Jarman

[greygirlbeast]

The Tempest is perhaps my favorite Jarman film

At the moment, The Last of England is my favorite, but there are many I've not seen.

Re: Derek Jarman

[thebacchanal]

I suspect your appreciate for The Last of England is in no small way due to Tilda Swinton's performance? If so, I can't blame you. I have quite a hetero-crush on her (I only address it as such since I am a gay male), although I wonder if it the boyish charm of her androgynous countenance that I find so charming.

Re: Derek Jarman

[sovay]

Ariel's alchemical queerness is arresting (Karl Johnson's fragile, ghostly visage didn't hurt either, if you find that sort of thing attractive)

I find him very beautiful, and as Ariel very nonhuman. (I need to make an icon of him, frankly.) He's also a lovely Wittgenstein. I haven't yet seen him in Jubilee.

Re: Derek Jarman

[thebacchanal]

I hope you don't mind, but I may have to pirate your idea to make a Karl-Johnson-as-Ariel icon. ;) And Wittgenstein is the only Jarman production I haven't seen, but I think I will be amending that problem very soon.

Re: Derek Jarman

[sovay]

I hope you don't mind, but I may have to pirate your idea to make a Karl-Johnson-as-Ariel icon.

I don't mind at all-I just hope you won't object when I steal it!

And Wittgenstein is the only Jarman production I haven't seen, but I think I will be amending that problem very soon.

Oh, my God, see Wittgenstein. I wrote it up here and here.

Re: Derek Jarman

[thebacchanal]

Now I'm terribly frustrated because Netflix doesn't have a copy of Wittgenstein. Bah. I'll find a way! I've been looking for the excuse to buy Glitterbox (the DVD collection with Caravaggio and Angelic Conversation, why I don't own it yet is still a mystery), and now I think you've given me that push. My credit card won't be happy, but that's another story altogether. ;)

[sovay]

I'll find a way! I've been looking for the excuse to buy Glitterbox (the DVD collection with Caravaggio and Angelic Conversation, why I don't own it yet is still a mystery), and now I think you've given me that push.

Glad to have been your enabler.

Let me know what you think of Wittgenstein!