Bliss #2

Derek Jarman mainstay actor Tilda Swinton improvises during an unplanned reading to the sound of the live score by composer Simon Fisher Turner and Giuseppe Doronzo, against an entirely blue background inspired by Yves Klein.

Bliss was performed twice before Jarman got the opportunity to make a version for the cinema. By then, he was suffering the effects of AIDS, was partially blind and seeing blue forms. The film is a reflection on love and loss, his struggle with AIDS and his approaching death.

Derek Jarman (1942-1994) was a British artist, filmmaker, costume designer, scenographer, writer, poet and gay activist. He achieved renown mainly as a film director for his Romantic (in the sense of grand and compelling) underground films. Jarman is seen as an innovator of British film and a leading light of queer cinema. Among his best-known films are Blue (1993), The Garden (1990) and Caravaggio (1986), a dramatic biography of the tormented sixteenth-century painter. Tilda Swinton made her film acting debut in Caravaggio.