Advertisement
Become a member of the Big Issue community
JOIN
Culture

Jarman of the board: a tribute to a countercultural icon

A warm tribute to countercultural icon Derek Jarman to mark the 25th anniversary of his death leads Robin Ince to reaffirm his respect.

Artist and film director Derek Jarman (1942 - 1994). Photo by Terry O'Neill/Iconic Images/Getty Images

One of the many signs of ageing is having to explain all your cultural reference points.

I was surprised when a youthful LGBT activist I was working with had no idea who Derek Jarman was. He was a dominant figure in my youth when first discovering counterculture.

His films were on late-night Channel 4 when it was a place of eccentricity and frequent condemnation by the press. He directed pop promos for The Smiths and Pet Shop Boys and his published diaries fascinated. He popped up on Jonathan Ross’s early chat show outing eating cornflakes out of a bowler hat. He was also one of the first public figures to be out as someone living with HIV.

Jarman remains a fascinating figure, a “happy megalomaniac” in his own words.

It is 25 years since he died, the same year as other counterculture figures who could almost live in the mainstream – Dennis Potter, Kurt Cobain and Bill Hicks. To commemorate the anniversary of his death, Modern Nature is read by Rupert Everett on BBC Radio 4 Extra. It is a book of gardening, art and death, his diary of 1989 and 1990.

It starts on New Year’s Day at Prospect Cottage, Jarman’s famous black-timbered home, with a view of Dungeness power station and an intriguing garden fashioned from driftwood and the hardy flowers that could thrive in shingle. “There are no walls or fences. My garden’s boundaries are the horizon. In this desolate landscape the silence is only broken by the wind…”

Listening to Everett’s eloquent reading, I wonder if, as Jarman’s films fall further into the shadows, too odd for the tastes of most TV channels, it may be his diaries that live on the longest. He writes of the grotesqueries of the press in its treatment of both gay men and Aids and the preternatural ghost march of so many of his friends’ deaths with a naturalistic poetry.

Advertisement
Advertisement

He has an effortless lyricism when observing other people’s barbaric loathing. He manages to rise above while still keeping a steady aim, anger not limiting his vocabulary in the way it so often did with his opponents. While surrounded by so much death and his own ill health, he expresses a joyous lust for life.

In a delightful moment, Everett reads out Jarman’s entry about his visit to the Noël Coward play, The Vortex, starring Rupert Everett. They meet in “the dungeon of his dressing room” where Everett explained that “he had fallen out with the theatre set and it’s oh so nasty social niceties”. Everett’s own barbed and witty autobiographies will fill you in on that and other stories.

There are also succinct summaries of other artists, including Jarman’s New York memories of Andy Warhol and visits to his factory (“it was boring watching boring films…it captured the least interesting aspect of the Sixties, the knowing complicity with trash”).

Jarman remains a fascinating figure, a “happy megalomaniac” in his own words. He fought hard to make his films and was never courted by the major companies during the British movie renaissance of the Eighties, but he always delivered his vision without compromise.

Modern Nature is available on BBC iPlayer. @robinince

Advertisement

Become a Big Issue member

3.8 million people in the UK live in extreme poverty. Turn your anger into action - become a Big Issue member and give us the power to take poverty to zero.

Recommended for you

View all
Top 5 books about friendship, chosen by author Marianne Cronin
Books

Top 5 books about friendship, chosen by author Marianne Cronin

TV star AJ Odudu on why life can be 'humbling' and how we can all restore hope
Exclusive

TV star AJ Odudu on why life can be 'humbling' and how we can all restore hope

How Dante's grudges, gossip and pettiness still inspire hundreds of years on
Dante
Books

How Dante's grudges, gossip and pettiness still inspire hundreds of years on

Music is everywhere, including in our heads. So why is it so hard to describe?
The earliest-known musical score is a clay tablet found in Ugarit, northern Syria, that dates back to around 1400 BC
Music

Music is everywhere, including in our heads. So why is it so hard to describe?

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know