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‘The past is present’ said Jarman, and his vision rediscovers the significance of Shakespeare’s stormy weather in his time and ours. Glittering, punkish, and unashamedly camp, this spectacle’s joys shine brighter for the ‘things of darkness’ around them.

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The film will be introduced by lecturers in English literature from Northumbria University, specialists in Shakespeare, and they will also stay for a discussion with the audience after the screening.

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“In The Tempest (1979), Jarman uses an astonishingly broad stylistic range – from Baroque painting to Gothic melodrama to camp – to explore Shakespeare's late masterpiece about power and love.” – JIM’S REVIEW http://jclarkmedia.com/jarman/jarman03tempest.html

“Derek Jarman's film of The Tempest, William Shakespeare's final play, challenges the idea of the "faithful" literary adaptation. Jarman's marvelous, light-hearted, visually evocative film is, for the most part, true to the text of Shakespeare's play, but the director builds around the text in ingenious ways, creating a dense patchwork that melds his own punk sensibility with the Bard's mystical ode to romance, revenge and redemption.” – SEUL LE CINEMA BLOG http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/tempest.html

The Tempest “brilliantly mixes past and present to show Shakespeare as a poet of desire and repression.” – THE INDEPENDANT

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“The Tempest is Jarman's most visually accomplished, and audacious, film up to that time. After an arduous search, he found exactly the locations he wanted.

For exteriors, he chose Bamburgh Castle, which for centuries has towered over the Northumberland Sea, rising above the barren sand flats in aloof splendor. Interiors were shot at the labyrinthine Stoneleigh Abbey, near Coventry, Warwickshire in England.

It is a rambling, fire-gutted Paladian mansion with corridors which seem to stretch to infinity, and rooms opening out of rooms like Chinese puzzle boxes. In other words, it perfect fit Jarman's conception for the film.

As he once explained, "I never did visualize The Tempest on an exotic island of the Southern seas. For me the play exists within its own isolation. The setting is timeless – a twilight never-never land. When I saw Stoneleigh, I knew this was the place." The cast and crew lived and worked at the desolate abbey throughout the month-long shoot.”

Excellent article from JIM’S REVIEW http://jclarkmedia.com/jarman/jarman03tempest.html

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“Music plays a supremely important role in the film, as it does in all of Jarman's work, and it ranges from a hurdy-gurdy tune cranked out by Caliban to ethereal electronic vibrations (by co-composers Brian Hodgson and John Lewis) to bouncy operetta tunes.

Of course, music, poetry and song are woven throughout Shakespeare's play (which may orignally have been performed for the marriage of gay King James I's daughter).

But Jarman has his film bursting with music at every opportunity, from the "sweet airs" mentioned in the text to ominous rumblings which seem to rise directly out of the magical island itself.”

Excellent article from JIM’S REVIEW http://jclarkmedia.com/jarman/jarman03tempest.html

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“Leading avant-garde British filmmaker whose visually opulent and stylistically adventurous body of work stands in defiant opposition to the established literary and theatrical traditions of his sometimes staid national cinema.” - Baseline's Encyclopedia of Film

On his death in 1994, THE INDEPENDENT wrote:

“DEREK JARMAN's death robs British cinema of its most vital force. For 20 years Jarman has been a constantly innovative figure, breaking with the conservatism of every aspect of cinematic practice to produce works which have been technically original, aesthetically radical and which constitute an astonishing personal and public record of England in the last quarter of the 20th century. (…)

The two most important facts about Jarman's life and works were his sexuality and his nationality. His greatest pleasures in life were provided by his homosexuality and by England: the outrage that fuelled his art was occasioned by those who would deny and repress homosexuality and who would travesty the traditions of his country.”

REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-derek-jarman-1395505.html

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Film programmed as part of our ALTERNATIVE SHAKESPEARE FILM FESTIVAL (17 June - 5 July)

Given upcoming events this summer celebrating Shakespeare, let’s remember that despite these official, establishment celebrations of the writer (and what he represents), Shakespeare also thrives in stranger, alternative forms. Do these rarely-screened films from around the world show The Bard meaning more than he bargained for?

5 films from around the world

Here is a selection of 5 excellent lesser-known, surprising and rarely screened film adaptations of his work. The films all come from different countries: the UK, Japan, the USA, the Soviet Union, and one film is technically British but is set in Madagascar.

Organised with lecturers from Northumbria University + Discussions

This festival was programmed by the Star and Shadow Cinema and lecturers in English literature from Northumbria University. All screenings will be introduced by literature lecturers, specialists of Shakespeare, and will be followed by discussions with the audience.

Formats + Special screening

4 out of 5 of the films will be shown on 35mm – the most beautiful projection format, which is now disappearing from most cinemas. Also, on Sat 23 June, the film Makibefo will be shown in the presence of the director, Alexander Abela, who will introduce and discuss his film with the audience.

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