Derek Jarman’s 1979 film The Tempest, with Toyah as Miranda, will be part of a study day, focusing on Shakespeare on film, at The British Museum later this year. This role gained Toyah a nomination for Best Newcomer at The Evening Standard Film Awards in 1980.
Tony Howard, University of Warwick, introduces extracts from Macbeth films made in Britain, Madagascar, Japan, Australia, Brazil and the USA, exploring how they have mapped the play’s politics, psychology and ethics. The afternoon session will place Derek Jarman’s 1979 reimagining of The Tempest in the context of other film adaptations. Producer Don Boyd and actor David Meyer will relate their experiences of Jarman’s version.
Filming Shakespeare’s Magic
Saturday 17 November 2012, 10.30–16.30
Stevenson Lecture Theatre, TBM, London
The, just revealed, artwork for The Derek Jarman Collection 5 disc DVD set. This includes Jubilee and The Tempest and will be released in Australia (but available to everyone thanks to the internet) on 2nd May 2012.
A collection of five astonishing films from a visionary British filmmaker:
Jubilee (1978) Queen Elizabeth I travels to late twentieth-century Britain to discover a tawdry and depressing landscape where life mostly seems aimless and is anyway held cheap. Three post-punk girls while away their vacuous existence as best they can, from time-to-time straying into murder to relieve the boredom.
The Tempest (1979) Jarman’s Tempest is the story of Miranda’s growth from girlhood to woman; Prospero has retreated to a world of ideas but it is cold and loveless, he condemns Caliban as a monster but all Jarman’s Caliban is guilty of is possessing carnal appetites, the same appetites which Miranda is starting to discover for herself.
‘Second Sight’, classic film and tv on DVD, has great pages dedicated to the DVD releases of Jubilee and The Tempest. Both of these. now iconic, films were reissued on Region 2 DVD in the mid-2000s.
Both are also just about to be reissued again, as part of The Derek Jarman Collection: A 5DVD box set of Derek Jarman films released by Umbrella Entertainment, in Australia, on 2nd May 2012.
• View the Jubilee page here, and The Tempest here.
A 5DVD box set of Derek Jarman films is released, by Umbrella Entertainment (who just uploaded the trailer for Jubilee to ‘You Tube’), in Australia on 2nd May 2012. The set includes both films Toyah starred in, Jubilee and The Tempest.
The Derek Jarman Collection: DVD A collection of five astonishing films from a visionary British filmmaker: Actors: Tilda Swinton, Laurence Olivier, Sean Bean, Toyah Willcox, Adam Ant.
The Tempest (1979): The tale of a potent magician, banished by his brother and the King to live on a desolate isle with his daughter. Last Of England (1988): A dark meditation on London under Thatcher. Jubilee (1978): Queen Elizabeth I visits late twentieth century Britain to discover a confronting civilisation. Sebastiane (1976): In Rome, 300 A.D, a man is exiled to a remote outpost populated exclusively by men. War Requiem (1989): A stirring visual representation of Benjamin Brittens famed work.
