Derek was in an amazing period of film-making where he would shoot in 8mm film, transfer to video to edit and to finish on 35mm. Made with mostly small handheld cameras, I saw this right before I made my film Drugstore Cowboy and realised that I had needed to see Derek’s great film a little earlier than I had, because within this film there were all the potential stylistic inspirations I needed to film Drugstore which I had resigned to shoot with clunky Panavision.
Rock’n’roll blares, as England falls, a fairy dances, beautiful soldiers drink vodka and have gay sex.
An amazing soundtrack by the genius Simon Turner. A Caravaggio, and beautiful Tilda Swinton valiantly defaces her ballgown and the visuals of an England going past us in burning rubble and bright home movies. A skinhead boy shoots up light flares dances and stomps. Derek Jarman’s The Last of England is an amazing barrage of memories, obsessions, cataclysmic visions, where Derek plays a gay memoirist writing his thoughts down.
