“In all home movies there is a longing for paradise.”-Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman (1942–1994) is best known as a poetic, visionary filmmaker and one of England's most visible gay directors, but he was also a noted writer, painter, and gardener, and an avid maker of home movies. Jarman's first films, made in the early seventies, were shot on Super 8. Both his father and grandfather had been amateur filmmakers, and some of their home movies are included in Jarman's The Last of England. Jarman saw his own “home movie” making as more interesting than his features because it dealt more directly with his experience. He used Super 8 as a type of notation, a diaristic record of his friends and activities, and integrated it into his feature-length films. By the early 1980s, he had virtually stopped screening these films due to their fragility. James Mackay, producer of many of Jarman's features, has made a number of Jarman's rare Super...