I have avoided seeing Derek Jarman's Blue (1993) for more than a decade because it was his last film by a margin of months and I haven't yet seen all of his features, let alone all of his music videos and shorts, and it has always sounded transcendently difficult to watch, only less so than The Garden (1990) because it was made in less of a shock of furious despair. I have just discovered the existence of a short film by Jude Rawlins called Red (2021). The copy for the published screenplay describes it as:
Jude Rawlins' long-gestating tribute to English artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. The experimental film was made during the Covid-19 lockdown and consists of a complex soundtrack of music and sounds interwoven with stream-of-consciousness dialogue, set against a blank red screen. Jude describes the film is a kind of "spiritual sequel" to Derek Jarman's 1993 film Blue, a deeply immersive emotional journey. Blue was made when Jarman was terminally ill with Aids. "We all knew he didn't have long left," remembers Rawlins, "and in one conversation I tried ham-fistedly to lighten the mood by saying that he shouldn't die, he should live and make a sequel to Blue. Which he turned around on me and said that I should do it, and that as Blue was essentially a film about the pain of dying, any sequel should be called Red and be a film about the pain of living. Almost thirty years on, and I have come to understand that concept very well."
Its cast includes Julian Firth and if it exists anywhere on the internet, I'm not finding it. I understand I'd have to watch Blue first, finally. I'd just like to know I could pair them if I felt like it. Firth's taste in short films continues to interest me. I do not know why the same motorcycle revs for hours across our street at the same time every night. It has been a month and I still miss Bertie Owen.
Jude Rawlins' long-gestating tribute to English artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. The experimental film was made during the Covid-19 lockdown and consists of a complex soundtrack of music and sounds interwoven with stream-of-consciousness dialogue, set against a blank red screen. Jude describes the film is a kind of "spiritual sequel" to Derek Jarman's 1993 film Blue, a deeply immersive emotional journey. Blue was made when Jarman was terminally ill with Aids. "We all knew he didn't have long left," remembers Rawlins, "and in one conversation I tried ham-fistedly to lighten the mood by saying that he shouldn't die, he should live and make a sequel to Blue. Which he turned around on me and said that I should do it, and that as Blue was essentially a film about the pain of dying, any sequel should be called Red and be a film about the pain of living. Almost thirty years on, and I have come to understand that concept very well."
Its cast includes Julian Firth and if it exists anywhere on the internet, I'm not finding it. I understand I'd have to watch Blue first, finally. I'd just like to know I could pair them if I felt like it. Firth's taste in short films continues to interest me. I do not know why the same motorcycle revs for hours across our street at the same time every night. It has been a month and I still miss Bertie Owen.
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