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

Derek Jar creations film BlueI am a cock suckingStraight actingLesbian manWith egg crushing bad mannersLaddish nymphomaniac politics peppy sexist desiresOf incestuous inversion and Incorrect ter bitologyI am a Not Gay (Blue, Jarman 1995 119). In offering this extract from Derek Jarmans film Blue, (England, 1993) I have established an expectation that this papers concern is with the sexual physical structure of East End boot stomping, ball crushing queens. However, whilst this sequence has caught our imagination, my interest also lies in the analysis of the cinematic representation of the pathologic and medicalised body of the artist affected by human immunodeficiency virus/ assist.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 ocularly in the film, to counter retrogressive depictions of people living with HIV. Thus, Jarmans depiction of the diseased body in Blue is inferred rather 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 reorient with an impulse to visually represent his loss of optical vision referable 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 modern culture.4 The mathematical product between queer activist politics and post modernist culture was authoritative to the practice of many western artists working around issues associated with HIV... ...Beauvais, Y 1992, AIDS A SIDA, film, France, 51/2 minBordowitz, G 1993, Fast Trip, colossal Drip, US, video, 56 minCartwright, J 1993, There we are John 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