‘Art of Mirrors’: Derek Jarman’s abstract reflections on film
Among the most important artists of the 20th century, Derek Jarman was an integral part of the vast landscape of English cinema. Through masterpieces like The Last of England and Edward II, Jarman raised important questions about the rapidly deteriorating sociopolitical conditions while establishing his unique vision of queer cinema. Unfortunately, the life of the great visionary was tragically cut short in 1994 when he passed away due to complications caused by AIDS.
For Jarman, cinema was always about the expression of the self, and there’s no better example of this than his 1993 magnum opus Blue. Presented in shades of blue (which was all he saw during his final days due to his illness), it’s an emotionally devastating self-portrayal of an artist who was failed by a morally corrupt and indifferent society. While Blue is the best example of this, various elements of himself were also present in his minor works.
When asked about inserting the self into art, Jarman once said: “I suppose ostrich-like filmmakers often ignore their own lives, but I was brought up with a different set of aesthetics to filmmaking, those of the painter. Presumably, the painter would paint his immediate surroundings, and if he was going to paint a vase of flowers, it would be one at home. For a painter to concentrate on his own life or any other form of art is actually considered to be a raison d’être.”
While talking about the artistic processes of a painter and a filmmaker, Jarman added: “If a painter started to operate in the way a film director did, everyone would say the paintings were valueless. Witness the astronomical sums of money that are paid for van Gogh at the moment when someone is painting their own life. It seems very strange that in cinema this doesn’t really happen.”
There is also a part of Jarman that is present in his 1973 short Art of Mirrors, a particularly alluring cinematic experiment. Filmed with a Super 8 camera, the filmmaker insisted that such a short was only possible due to the device. In his diary, Jarman wrote: “This is only something that could only be done on a Super 8 camera, with its built-in meters and effects.” Jarman’s statement is self-evident when you see the work, a strange vision that could only be conjured up on Super 8.
Almost a conceptual project, it involves three figures dressed in fascinating costumes who try to reflect sunlight into the camera while walking around an unsettling, empty space. Almost in anticipation of the aesthetic frameworks he would use for his more ambitious features, Art of Mirrors is a meditative work by Jarman which uses its abstractions to slowly pull us into a world where conventional systems of symbols and meanings lose their preassigned values.
Watch the film below.
