Blue (1993 film)

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Blue
blue field
Directed by	Derek Jarman
Produced by	James Mackay Takashi Asai
Written by	Derek Jarman
Narrated by	Derek Jarman Tilda Swinton Nigel Terry John Quentin
Music by	Simon Fisher Turner John Balance Momus Peter Christopherson Karol Szymanowski Erik Satie
Distributed by	Basilisk Communications Ltd
Release date(s)	Venice Biennale, June 1993, Edinburgh International Film Festival, August 1993,October 3, 1993 (New York Film Festival)
Running time	79 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Blue is the twelfth and final feature film by director Derek Jarman, released just four months before his death by AIDS-related complications. Such complications had already rendered him partially blind at the time of the film's release.

The film was his last testament as a film-maker, and consists of a single shot of saturated blue colour filling the screen, as background to a soundtrack where Jarman's and some of his favourite actors' narration describes his life and vision.

On its premiere, Channel 4 and BBC Radio 3 collaborated on a simultaneous broadcast so viewers could enjoy a stereo soundtrack. Radio 3 subsequently broadcast the soundtrack separately as a radio play and it was later released as a CD.

The film ends with the words:

In time,
No one will remember our work
Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud
And be scattered like
Mist that is chased by the
Rays of the sun
For our time is the passing of a shadow
And our lives will run like
Sparks through the stubble. I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave

The film has been released on DVD in Germany and in Italy. On July 23, 2007 British distributor Artificial Eye released DVD tying Blue together with Glitterbug, a collage of Jarman's Super 8 footage.

In Polari or gay slang, 'Blue' is a code word for 'homosexual'.

[edit] See also

Themes For Derek Jarman's Blue

[edit] External links

v • d • e Derek Jarman

Feature Films	Sebastiane (1976) • Jubilee (1977) • The Tempest (1979) • The Angelic Conversation (1985) • Caravaggio (1986) • Aria (segment "Depuis le Jour") (1987) • The Last of England (1988) • War Requiem (1989) • The Garden (1990) • Edward II (1991) • Wittgenstein (1993) • Blue (1993)

Short film collages	In the Shadow of the Sun (1981) • Glitterbug (1994)