Jarman Volume 1: 1976-1986 (ej svensk text) (Blu-ray)

Limited to only 2,000 copies 24 years have gone by since his death at just 52, but the legacy of the iconoclastic filmmaker Derek Jarman (1942-1994) lives on, and his ground-breaking and highly influential work has lost none of its relevance or impact. The first of two deluxe box sets brings together a selection of his feature films on Blu-ray for the first time. Jarman Volume One: 1972-1986 contains In the Shadow of the Sun, Sebastiane, Jubilee, The Tempest, The Angelic Conversation and Caravaggio and is packed with an incredible 30 extras and accompanied by an 80-page book. Jarman’s multi-faceted work is inspirational in its fearlessness, yet remains touchingly personal. The dynamism of these features evokes comparison with the bold romanticism of directors like Ken Russell (an early champion) and Michael Powell, as well as artists Paul Nash and John Piper. But Jarman was also a subversive force in film. Beginning with his psychedelic debut feature, In the Shadow of the Sun (1972-1974), then came the provocative Jubilee (1978), the evocative Shakespeare adaptation The Tempest (1979) and The Angelic Conversation (1985), in which he invoked Elizabethan occultist Dr John Dee and explored alchemical imagery, a subject in which he was well versed. In Sebastiane (1976) and Caravaggio (1986) he revived key gay and homo-erotic figures from the past – with edgy and unmistakable style. Derek Jarman’s first six feature films have all been newly scanned at 2K from original film elements and are presented in this lavish box set alongside an exciting array of new and archival extras drawn from Jarman’s archive of workbooks and papers held in BFI Special Collections. Newly interviewed exclusively for this box set are some of the people who worked on these films; punk legend Jordan, producer and filmmaker Don Boyd, production designer Christopher Hobbs and artist filmmaker John Scarlett-Davis.