Films A to Z
The Garden
- Runtime:
- 95 min.
- Year of Production:
- 1990
- Country:
- United Kingdom
- Director:
- Cast:
- Tilda Swinton
Johnny Mills
Kevin Collins
Pete Lee-Wilson
Spencer Leigh
Jody Graber
Roger Cook
Jessica Martin
Philip Macdonald - Production Company:
- Basilisk Communications
- Berlinale Section:
- Forum
- Berlinale Category:
- Feature Film
Derek Jarman had two gardens. One was in Dungeness, he started to work on it after being diagnosed with HIV. ''The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end,'' he wrote in his journal. The other one, this film, opens with images of a man sleeping on a desk, his face resting on an open notebook as a voice proclaims ''I want to share this emptiness with you,'' before a series of vignettes begins in which hallucinations of a two-man-Eden become progressively unravelled. This is a cinema of ecstasy; extinction looms from all sides, friends die silently, queer bodies are whipped, hanged, stoned and chased by cameras. There is the growing impression that representation means violence, means imprisonment. But this is also a cinema of sharing, stemming from the hope that it is indeed possible to share one's dreams, failures, uncertainties and cares. Jarman repeatedly shows himself tending the garden and offers us snapshots of mushrooms, stones, butterflies, poppies, snails, crows, clouds, embraces and music: a whole ecology of images.
BIOGRAFIE Derek Jarman
Born 1942, died 1994. Studied painting and worked as a costume and set designer for the Royal Ballet. Worked as a set designer on Ken Russell’s 1970 film THE DEVILS. Made numerous short films before directing his first feature, SEBASTIANE, in 1976. His first film to screen at the Berlinale was THE TEMPEST in 1979. In addition to his subversive period dramas and experimental films, he began directing avant-garde music videos in the 1970s. He was also a committed campaigner for gay rights in Britain.
FILMOGRAFIE Derek Jarman (selection)
2014 Will You Dance with Me?
2008 Derek
1993 Blue
1992 Wittgenstein
1991 Edward II
1990 The Garden
1989 War Requiem
1987 Aria
1987 The Last of England
1986 Caravaggio
1985 The Angelic Conversation
1984 Imagining October
1979 The Tempest
1977 Jubilee
1976 Sebastiane