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Consider, for a moment, the cupboard — maybe in the spirit of irreverence we should term it a closet — in which, for 30-odd years, lay undisturbed the footage that future star cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (“Atonement,”
“Die, My Love”) shot behind the scenes of Derek Jarman’s 1991 movie “Edward II”. Consider then, the opening of that closet and the discovery of what it contained. For a certain type of cinephile, spooling through those rushes for the first time and realizing that they essentially open up a wormhole to the past as lived in the present tense, it must have been like finding Narnia, with Jarman a puckish, charming, proudly queer Aslan.
Theo Rollason, director of the resulting documentary “Queer Edward II” is clearly that certain type of cinephile; he understands innately the value of this trove of material, and makes the smart decision to, as much as possible, get out of its way. He resists the temptation to shoot new interviews and have talking heads reminiscing about the good-bad old days, even though, given the many luminaries credited as executive producers who would doubtless have participated if asked, the temptation must have been great. That’s not to say he adds nothing at all to this fiercely affectionate on-the-fly portrait of the New Queer Cinema pioneer. While shaping McGarvey’s material into a fluid, fast-paced narrative alongside co-editor Nicole Hálová with input from editing maven Joe Bini, Rollason also folds in carefully chosen contemporaneous footage.
There are magazine talk shows (remember those?) and arts programs (remember those?), in which Jarman is unfailingly charming and polite, even when the condescension and sometimes outright hostility of the host is so apparent it sets one’s modern teeth on edge. And there are ripped-from-the-headlines-style news reports about the gay rights movement that was giving the conservative British establishment such conniptions around that time, and to which Jarman was passionately committed. The way Rollason works in this deep-research archival footage is often quite inspired. At one point, he intersperses shots of Jarman mounting the riot scene in “Edward II” — for which members of gay-rights activist group Outrage were used as extras — with shots of a real-life protest against the government’s latest attempt to pass ever more draconian anti-gay legislation. Jarman’s film, which this doc will inevitably send you scrambling to rewatch, already is a gorgeously arch and stylized modernization of Christopher Marlowe’s play; the addition of this meta-on-meta layer makes the process of its creation feel even more knitted into the socio-political fabric of early ’90s Britain.
Conversely, there’s a moment where the production itself makes the news, when some of those Outrage-affiliated extras — including the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an order of “gay male nuns” who sport in wimples and habits and dub Jarman “Saint Derek of Dungeness” — invade the studio next door to the set, where Cliff Richard is recording an album, chanting slogans demanding the singer come out as gay. Jarman remains relatively unruffled. Indeed, his offhandedly supportive comments about outing gay celebrities against their will, is perhaps the only aspect of his activism that dates him, as it’s an approach that would be censured today, although with those being very different times, perhaps his mild militancy here is understandable. (At this point Jarman had been living with his HIV/AIDs diagnosis for over five years, and the Tory power stranglehold, in place all through the repressive Thatcher years, would not be broken until much later that decade.)
In the event, the resulting media kerfuffle turns out to be more of a squall than a storm, but for the overworked and thinly stretched production office, alongside unionized extras demanding additional expenses and the usual logistical and budgetary challenges, it’s yet another headache. Occasionally, historians of the British film industry can wax understandably nostalgic for this period, when public funding, via the BBC, could be channelled toward such edgy and experimental projects and their creators. “Queer Edward II” in some ways puts a check on those tendencies: for sure it was remarkable that Jarman was given the support and the freedom to make his unapologetically avant-garde movies, but the funding was hardly lavish, and required a significant make-do-and-mend attitude on the part of producers and crew.
Which is also not to say that “Queer Edward II” has zero nostalgia value: the fashions and gizmos and chunky beige telephones of the end of the analogue era do impart a little throwback thrill. As does spotting the array of nascent on- and offscreen stars who got their start as part of Jarman’s troupe. Future Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell hovers in the background and gives a brief interview, looking absurdly young. Ditto singer Annie Lennox, whose rendition of Cole Porter’s “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” from “Edward II” is filmed in full, with the entire crew gathered behind the camera like they’re at a concert. Quibblers could point out that Jarman’s most famous protegee, Tilda Swinton (who played Queen Isabella in “Edward II”) looks radiant and regal in this footage, and she looks radiant and regal still, so no big change there. And that is true, but when again are we likely to see her regal radiance having false eyelashes pulled off in a dingy make-up room in Berkshire where drying tights dangle from wire coat hangers in the window?
Immersive, often joyful and ultimately very moving, “Queer Edward II” reminds us that you can be profoundly influential as a political figure and as an artist making extraordinary, visionary work and not be a dick about it. And so it functions as an aide-memoir for today’s rights activists, particularly those in the LGBTQ community, about how to carry a spirit of irreverence and optimism into the work of resisting injustice and oppression and how never to regard a lost battle — against a government, an organisation, or a disease — as a reason to give up on a good struggle. Jarman was gone far too soon, just a couple of years after the release of “Edward II” during which time he completed two further features. But Rollason’s spritely, unsentimental film doesn’t write a eulogy or erect a statue to all that we lost the day he died. Instead, for a brisk, potent and utterly absorbing 97 minutes that generations of filmmakers and film lovers can revisit whenever we want, it gives him back to us, so very alive.
