Smiling in Slow Motion

401 Pages·2011·16.69 MB·English

by  Derek Jarman

SMILING IN SLOW MOTION
OTHER BOOKS BY DEREK JARMAN
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS
At Your Own Risk
Chroma
Dancing Ledge
Jubilee
Kicking the Pricks
Modern Nature
S M I L I NG IN
S L OW M O T I ON
Derek Jarman
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
First published in the United Kingdom by Century, 2000
First U.S. edition, University of Minnesota Press, 2011
Copyright 2000 The Estate of Derek Jarman
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jarman, Derek, 1942-1994.
Smiling in slow motion / Derek Jarman. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Originally published: London : Century, 2000.
ISBN 978-0-8166-7453-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Jarman, Derek, 1942-1994.—Diaries.
2. Motion picture producers and directors—Great Britain—Biography. 3. AIDS
(Diseases)—Patients—Biography. 4. Gay men—
Great Britain—Biography. 5. Painters—Great Britain—Biography.
6. England—Intellectual life—20th century. I. Title.
PN1998.3.J3A32011
791.4302'33092—dc22
[B]
2011000799
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Editor's Preface
Derek kept his handwritten journals in thirty-three black-bound handmade
watercolour books, just small enough to slip into his jacket pocket. All bore
the legend 'Reward if found', although two volumes were lost and have yet
to surface.
He seemed ambivalent about publication, once instructing me that on his
death he would like them to be burnt, yet he continued to write and each
volume bears a tentative title: Heart's Ease, A Fit of Amnesia, A Great War
of Poppies, Saint's Days, Shot Down in Flames, A Chill in Utopia, And the
Day Grows Old - Derek had always laboured over titles. In a lyrical
description of one of Derek's former lovers, who had subsequently appeared
in his first feature film, I discovered the title in the only underlined phrase:
There's a moment in Sebastiane when he surfaces from the water smiling in
slow motion.
Derek worked on the first volumes of the diaries himself, characteristically
revising and re-revising. I was fortunate to assist in the editing of two of
Derek's earlier autobiographical volumes, Kicking the Pricks and Modern
Nature, and stuck to the same methodology here. I have coalesced some
fragmentary biographical sketches, removed some repetition and for legal
reasons have excised some sections. The rest remains in Derek's vernacular,
its coherence - like his once beautiful handwriting - degenerating with the
progression of his illness.
Derek would keep his journal on most days, only twice resorting to
dictation when too ill to lift his fountain pen. In the final diary he wrote
without vision, his semi-legible scrawl only possible from his memory of the
scratch of nib on paper.
As I transcribed this last volume the writing stopped mid-sentence at a
page's end. Perhaps Derek had been distracted by a phone call or a visit from
a well-wisher, maybe exhaustion had set in. I took this to be the end of the
diaries until months later, showing this page to a friend, the same thing
happened to me that had happened to Derek - some blank pages had stuck
together. I turned past them to discover that in a pain-filled parody of his
calligraphy there were three final, heart-rending pages.
Writing in better health at an earlier time, Derek ended an earlier journal
on a more eloquent note:
Please read the cares of the world that I have locked in these pages; and
after, put this book aside and love. May you of a better future, love
without a care and remember we loved too. As the shadows closed in,
the stars came out.
Derek Jarman, At Your Own Risk
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