How Derek Jarman’s films queer the nar­ra­tive of history

On the sur­face, Derek Jarman’s 1986 film Car­avag­gio is a high­ly tra­di­tion­al biopic, a sort of great­est-hits ver­sion of the life and work of the (in)famous artist, com­plete with the fram­ing device of an old­er Car­avag­gio (Nigel Ter­ry) on his deathbed used to anchor the sto­ry as it jumps back­wards and for­wards in time. But what is uncon­ven­tion­al about the film – and Jarman’s approach to ideas of his­to­ry and biog­ra­phy – is the way it reframes Caravaggio’s paint­ings, imbu­ing them with a cer­tain queer­ness; a way of reclaim­ing the past.

One of the most visu­al­ly strik­ing aspects of the film is the way it recre­ates Caravaggio’s paint­ings, from the young artist him­self (Dex­ter Fletch­er) appear­ing in a self-por­trait as Bac­chus, to the many por­traits of Lena (Til­da Swin­ton), includ­ing ​‘The Patient Mag­da­lene’ and ​‘The Death of the Vir­gin.’ It isn’t just Jarman’s artistry here that’s impres­sive, but how he changes our per­cep­tion of Caravaggio’s art.

After Car­avag­gio meets and imme­di­ate­ly becomes infat­u­at­ed with Rolen­to (Sean Bean), he is shown paint­ing the young man. This turns the paint­ing into some­thing queer, moti­vat­ed by desire – and not just the paint­ing, but the act of mak­ing art itself. Jar­man chal­lenges the idea of where art comes from, and what these paint­ings mean for a con­tem­po­rary audi­ence. He forces us to recon­sid­er what we know or don’t know about the director’s own life and work, as well as the his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive of respectabil­i­ty – in this case, het­ero­sex­u­al­i­ty – that is so often asso­ci­at­ed with art his­to­ry. Jar­man refus­es to allow notions of queer­ness to be rel­e­gat­ed to the sub­text, instead fore­ground­ing them in how and why his Car­avag­gio makes art.

The rela­tion­ship between life and art is among the film’s main themes, with the title char­ac­ter him­self ask­ing ​“how can you com­pare flesh and blood with ground pig­ment?” Jar­man exam­ines what it means for these paint­ings to be true to life, espe­cial­ly as Caravaggio’s queer­ness is explored in dif­fer­ent ways through­out the film (he’s con­sid­ered to be the per­fect artist for a com­mis­sion on ​“pro­fane love”). The reper­cus­sions of Caravaggio’s art and queer­ness are dis­cussed in a way that feels unique­ly mod­ern; through a bitchy art crit­ic who describes his work as a ​“sad reflec­tion of our time.” This fur­ther exem­pli­fies one of Jarman’s favourite meth­ods for explor­ing his­to­ry through con­tem­po­rary eyes: anachro­nism. The crit­ic lies in a bath, ham­mer­ing away at his review on a man­u­al typewriter.

This spir­it of anachro­nism – bring­ing togeth­er past and present – is also evi­dent in the open­ing sequence of 1976’s Sebas­tiane, Jarman’s explo­ration of the bib­li­cal saint. The scene in ques­tion is a strange orgy, with the par­tic­i­pants in make­up that brings to mind Leigh Bow­ery and the Club Kids as they bran­dish com­i­cal­ly huge mock-penis­es, cul­mi­nat­ing in a quote-unquote mon­ey shot. In Sebas­tiane, Jar­man approach­es the sex­u­al­i­ty of the past much in the same way as he does in Car­avag­gio: by refus­ing to treat it as sub­text. It’s fas­ci­nat­ing just how porno­graph­ic the open­ing of Sebas­tiane is; a rad­i­cal act of refusal.

The way Jar­man cap­tures the male bod­ies of Sebas­tiane and his fel­low sol­diers, show­ing them as desir­able, as queer, still feels rare in con­tem­po­rary queer cin­e­ma. The men move between a kind of ​‘no-homo’ brag­ging to moments of aston­ish­ing inti­ma­cy, as when they swim togeth­er and are seem­ing­ly revi­talised by the water, or when Sebas­tiane takes off his general’s armour. Every­thing from the lan­guage to the pre­sen­ta­tion of mas­culin­i­ty (some­thing that at once offers these men com­pan­ion­ship, but lim­its how they can express them­selves around each oth­er) makes the film feel dis­tinct­ly modern.

There’s a clear pow­er in the kind of rep­re­sen­ta­tion that these films offer, and it’s more than just the ways in which they make queer desire explic­it. In Car­avag­gio, with its recla­ma­tion of not only the artist but his art, Jar­man reveals that queer­ness has been present in our his­to­ry for a long time. The his­to­ry of rep­re­sen­ta­tion is much short­er than the his­to­ry of queer­ness, of course, but cru­cial­ly Jar­man queers the act of his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive and sto­ry­telling, mak­ing myths for those who went with­out them for so long.