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Product Description
A double bill of Derek Jarman films. 'Blue' is a blank blue screen that serves as the backdrop for a multi-layered soundtrack of music and voices, relating to Jarman's struggle with life, death and the AIDS virus. 'Glitterbug' is a montage of Super 8 footage shot by Jarman from 1970 to 1986. Part home-movie, part formal experimentation and part social documentary, with music by Brian Eno.
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), WIDESCREEN, SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Blue: Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue. Glitterbug: This British film represents the farewell of author/director Derek Jarman who died of AIDS in March 1994. It is considered to be the companion piece to Jarman's film Blue. Without a traditional plot, the film chronicles Jarman's life before AIDS with a series of free-flowing images gleaned from over 15 hours of Jarman's home movies taken between the years 1970-1985. London provides the central image, but other places seen include Italy, Spain, and rural England. The glittering parties filled with drag queens, drugs, and interesting people before the onset of AIDS are also chronicled. ...Blue / Glitterbug
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Blue was Jarman's last film. He was reaching the end of a long battle with HIV at this time and the film reflects that, with its elegaic quality. Part of his illness manifested as a loss of sight, a critical and deeply tragic thing for a man whose life was so visual and visionary. This film pays homage to that loss in that visually it is just an intense blue screen, and what we hear is most important.
Jarman had a great affinity with the colour blue, and uses the film to explore its deeper meaning and symbolism in relation to his art, his life and his impending death. The intensity of the colour and the stark lack of images, particularly coming from a man who was known for the intense beauty and collage like layering of images, particularly in his films is part of what lifts this film out of the ordinary and makes it a masterpiece.
The voices work well, blending and melting into each other to create the kind of sense perceptions you would usually expect to get from his visual work. Here, your imagination is forced to work hard to fill in the blanks, but it is well worth the effort.
The text is taken from Jarman's own diary, his work Derek Jarman's Garden and some original material. It holds together well and is incredibly moving, pushing us as the audience to truly inhabit Derek's world, if only for a short time.
A fitting epitaph and a must see for anyone interested in his work.
Jarman had a great affinity with the colour blue, and uses the film to explore its deeper meaning and symbolism in relation to his art, his life and his impending death. The intensity of the colour and the stark lack of images, particularly coming from a man who was known for the intense beauty and collage like layering of images, particularly in his films is part of what lifts this film out of the ordinary and makes it a masterpiece.
The voices work well, blending and melting into each other to create the kind of sense perceptions you would usually expect to get from his visual work. Here, your imagination is forced to work hard to fill in the blanks, but it is well worth the effort.
The text is taken from Jarman's own diary, his work Derek Jarman's Garden and some original material. It holds together well and is incredibly moving, pushing us as the audience to truly inhabit Derek's world, if only for a short time.
A fitting epitaph and a must see for anyone interested in his work.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By NTD
Format:DVD
I've little to add to the above review other than my rapt admiration of this film. It came on TV late at night and I watched it in order to receive some of the beautiful humanity of Derek Jarman. Few reviews of the film I've seen mention the music and acoustic backdrop to the words yet this sonorous static gives an extra life to what is in effect a radio play, which I say without meaning to denigrate or mis-understand the use of the symbolic blue screen throughout. As good as Dylan Thomas's 'Under Milk Wood', which shows the level of profundity of this art-film.
We lost a profound humanity with the passing away of Derek Jarman.
We lost a profound humanity with the passing away of Derek Jarman.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
Yes, it's just a blue screen. No, it doesn't change. At all. And yet I could think of no better way to relate Jarman's story; glimpses of a fascinating life and a brilliant director's mind, juxtaposed with the inexorable progression of the illness that he knows will kill him.
It's easy to dismiss this as an attempt to be different, to be deliberately 'arty' or pretentious. Indeed, it does give the impression of being more art installation than film in the conventional sense. But don't be put off by what you might have heard; this film is thought-provoking, touching, even humorous at times, and the constancy of the image is part of the story.
The soundtrack features astounding audio effects and music throughout, and therefore (however strange it may seem), this film really needs a DVD release to do it justice.
Anyone interested in film should see this.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Glitterbug
As well as being a professional film maker, Derek Jarman also kept a Super 8 film diary. Glitterbug is assembled from these diaries and shows the places he lived, behind the scenes... Read more
Published 10 months ago by jim br
4.0 out of 5 stars
DIFFERENT
Well as an advocate of Micheal Bay i wanted to make the point that just because you enjoy mindless Big Mac movies doesnt mean you cant be intelligent or open to other types of... Read more
Published on 11 April 2011 by mister joe
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetic
Previous to watching 'Blue', I was quite unfamiliar with Derek Jarman's work. I possessed a vague idea of the nature of his films, but had never taken an interest in gay cinema and... Read more
Published on 21 Dec 2010 by MildCreativeBreeze
5.0 out of 5 stars
Under a cloudless summer sky
Considering the context for this film I felt spiritually uplifted by Jarman's poetry and courageous attempt to juxtapose physical deterioration against the beauty of living and the... Read more
Published on 7 April 2008 by Room For A View
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful
Indeed, a masterpiece, a work of film genius. Yes I suppose it is about Jarman's failing sight, and life; but he knew where he stood in art's history and he knew that painting had... Read more
Published on 16 April 2006 by HD
5.0 out of 5 stars
beautiful
i first saw this movie when i was 12 as part of bbc2's early 90s AIDS awareness week. i was sucked in by the the blue sceen and relentless, sad words of an illness that i was... Read more
Published on 2 Mar 2006 by "ljcrazysexycool"
5.0 out of 5 stars
Derek Jarman give us a Cinema lesson
You can see just a Blue screen. Next you have rumors and voices. The Marrator is Jarman himself. The story is the development of his young life. Read more
Published on 19 Feb 2001 by Rodana Fasolo
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