普洛斯佩拉（希思科特·威廉姆斯 Heathcote Williams 饰）生性善良喜爱研究魔法，在弟弟安东尼奥（理查德·沃里克 Richard Warwick 饰）和国王阿隆佐（彼得布尔 Peter Bull 饰）的联手迫害之下，普洛斯佩拉不得已带着女儿米兰达（托亚·威尔考克斯 Toyah Willcox 饰）流落孤岛 普洛斯佩拉用魔法收服了岛上的精灵，之后，他召唤来暴风雨，使得安东尼奥和阿隆佐、王子菲尔迪南（大卫·迈耶 David Meyer 饰）乘坐的船遭遇了海难，三人漂流到了普洛斯佩拉所在的岛屿。在荒岛之上，野心勃勃的三人依然在斗心勾角，普洛斯佩拉用魔法让他们懂得了做人的道理，亦懂得了真善美的真谛，最终，普洛斯佩拉夺回了曾经属于他的一切。
Derek Jarman’s unique vision left an indelible imprint on the world of experimental and political cinema. His body of work often challenges orthodoxies, subvert conventions, and plumb into the themes of genderqueer identities and histories. JUBILEE (1978) and THE TEMPEST (1979) - his second and third feature films - offer fascinating insights into Jarman’s radical approach to storytelling, politics, and aesthetic, dripping with decay, anarchy, and unfiltered political commentary.
Made in reference to the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 1977, JUBILEE imagineers an apocalyptic Britain in the throes of nihilism, punk rebellion, and cultural decadence. The film opens with Queen Elizabeth I (Runacre) - along with the occultist John Dee (O’Brien) and spirt Ariel (Brandon), the latter is a borrow from "The Tempest" - being transported into a future where her beloved nation has devolved into a wasteland of disorder, consumerism, and social disillusionment. The juxtaposition of these two royal figures - one historical, the other contemporary - sets the stage for a bitter critique of monarchy, power, and the society at large.
The film’s derelict buildings in London, with their garishly graffiti-covered walls and crumbling facades, are both literal and metaphorical reflections of the decline surrounding Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. They constitute an urban landscape, a built environment, that has been deserted, discarded, just like the film's cohort of rebels, coming running to revolutionize a lawless state in absence of authority.
At the heart of JUBILEE are its young protagonists, a group of punks led by the murderous and volatile Bod (Runacre again, doubling the duty representing two disparate sides of leadership), whose victim including the proto-punk artist Jayne County (playing a glam rock star named Lounge Lizard). Among the fold there are Pamela Rooke aka. Jordan, the protégé of Vivienne Westwood, whose "anti-historian" Amyl Nitrate is a die-hard feminist (who fiercely bastardizes "Rule Britannia”); Nell Campbell’s Crabs is a proto-kinderwhore, and Mad (punk star Toyah Willcox in a color-shifting crew cut), who stands out commendably for her loud imprudence and taunting mannerism. They are angry, disillusioned, unrestrained and willing to do whatever it takes to escape the crushing weight of societal expectations. Their acts of intentional violence and rebellion are not just expressions of teenage angst, they are a profound rejection of the decaying world around them.
Jarman's aesthetic is distinctly 1970s, with its gaudy, low-budget look and shady portrayal of urban entropy. The film’s lack of polish and its rawness is where lies its power, which also entrances audience to a visceral experience that feels at once bizarre and timeless. The nihilistic attitude of the characters makes for a bleak yet strangely droll narrative albeit its slapdash orchestration, majorly courtesy to the film's sense of abandonment. Everything is on the brink of collapse, everyone is disposable (with the police as the symbol of the common cruelty from the invisible Establishment), retribution is sought after with outlandish flourishes, all there is a relentless march toward damnation, a ruination of one's soul. In a sense, JUBILEE is not merely a critique on the erstwhile punk culture, but also a radical defiance against of a society’s structures and the way they trap individuals within them.
In contrast to the anarchic energy of JUBILEE, Jarman's THE TEMPEST takes on a more introspective tone on top of the Bard's time-honored texts, while still engaging with themes of power, control, and illusion on a surreal canvas. This adaptation reimagines the story of the exiled Duke Prospero (Williams), a power magus and his daughter Miranda (Wilcox, charms audience with a meeker aspect of her range here) on an island, where magic and spirits shape the fate of all who land there. The character of Ariel (played by a hauntingly ethereal Johnson), a spirit subjugated to Prospero's puissance, embodies a mystical power and the possibility of transcendence, who can manipulate events and ensnare the human characters in webs of illusion (literalized by a cobwebbed entrapment).
Operating on the twilight zone between reality and fantasy, where their boundary becomes increasingly blurred, THE TEMPEST subsists on a misty, dreamlike setting, alternating between its chiaroscuro interiors and blue-hued exteriors, which serves as a perfect backdrop for a film that is concerned with power grab, enslavement and forgiveness. Its grainy, soft-focus imagery accentuates the sense of dislocation, creating a world where nothing is quite what it seems.
While Prospero must reconcile himself with a betrayal that is the causation of his exile, a theme which feels underwritten in the film, Ariel’s longing for liberation is echoed more potently. In tandem with the farcical rebellion of the humiliated slave Caliban (Birkett, aka. "The Incredible Orlando", histrionically chewing the scenery with every single syllable and guffawing like nobody's business in both films, is quite a revelation to behold), it suggests that even the most powerful forces in the world cannot escape the constraints of their own histories and desires.
Jarman's queer agenda persists in both films, not just in imagery confections. Angel and Sphinx (Charleson and Johnson) in JUBILEE are a pair of bed-sharing, biromantic brothers who cannot escape their persecuted fate and Adam Ant's Kid is brutalized for his androgynous persona. In THE TEMPEST, such outward expression gives way to an undertow touching on Ariel's sadomasochistic subjection to Prospero. A masque with terpischorean sailors gracing a magnificent Welch crooning her signature tune “Stormy Weather” is a hallmark affirmation of diversity, hope and resilience.
While JUBILEE and THE TEMPEST offer two radically different viewing experiences, one is propelled a reckless angst and the other seems to come out of a deity’s afflatus, altogether, they represent the breadth of Jarman’s artistry and legacy: a sophisticated, nonconformist and subcultural explorer of the past, the present, and the unknown futures that lie ahead.
referential entries: Jarman's EDWARD II (1991, 7.0/10); SEBASTIANE (1976, 4.4/10); CARAVAGGIO (1986, 7.5/10).
Jarman的莎士比亚就是Prospero，从小接触莎翁戏剧的Jarman认为The Tempest是莎士比亚最个人化的一部戏剧，在让Prospero实现各种行动时，Will也在自我实现，用Jarman的话说，他们都是old poet at odds with the society in which he lives。Jarman自己也是Prospero，在现实中他如同John Dee不容于严酷的清教束缚一样不为当时的主流所接纳。大胆比较一下，当时的神秘主义宗教就像70年代的同性恋和朋克文化。Jarman是激进的，但也是向后看的，他同样也认同与old poet这一角色，在压抑的时代中掀一场自己脑中的暴风雨。
莎士比亚戏剧《暴风雨》的主题是接纳和解，国王普罗斯佩拉被自己的弟弟陷害后，失去了自己的一切，但是在后来，当普洛斯佩拉跟自己的女儿被流放到一个荒岛上之后，他重新活了过来，不仅仅是接收了荒岛上的一切资源，而且还拥有了审判过去的权力，当他操控魔法让这曾经陷害自己的人流落到荒岛上之后，普洛斯佩拉开始面临选择，他是要让这几个人受到惩罚，还是要选择原谅。
1979年的电影《暴风雨》讲述的就是莎士比亚同名戏剧的故事，不过这个故事里，应有的几个角色并不是完全按照之前的设定走的，而是通过电影给予了观众一种新的观感。虽然故事的演绎本身没有太多的问题，但我们同样可以结合当时的时代背景，发出一些疑问。即便是如莎士比亚这样的戏剧家，他所处的时代依旧是蒙蔽了他的创作。
作为文艺复兴时代著名的戏剧家，莎士比亚的作品一定程度上在西方世界被奉为经典，且不容置疑的。而这种不容置疑本身就有问题，这些问题来源于历史，更来源于文艺复兴的定位。通常我们所说的文艺复兴，复兴的是什么？复兴的是人性，但是在当时的时代背景下，人性也分三六九等的，而最普罗大众的人性并没有被复兴，而是被忽视。
为什么这么说，我们可以看看暴风雨中角色的设定究竟是普罗大众还是王公贵族，答案是显而易见的。因此，我们再次面对文艺复兴的时候，一定要明白通晓，文艺复兴复兴的是谁的文艺，如果一味的迎合别人的历史而不明白这种历史的背后跟普通人无关，那么就笑话了。
文艺复兴的本质是反神权王权，突出人权，而通晓魔法的国王普洛斯佩拉本身就是一个集神权与王权于一身的人，而他最后选择的接受和原谅本质上并不完全是一种美好的品德的具体展现，而是不得不去做的一些事情，不得不接受的一种趋势。而我们作为后来的观众，面对着这种趋势演绎之下的故事，不能一味地只是高呼文艺复兴，而不明白文艺复兴代表着什么。
本质上来说，这依旧是一种权力的更迭，上一代的权力被下一代接收，从而完成文化的传承等等。因为文艺复兴本质上属于欧洲中心主义的后来的延伸，因此，不论是莎士比亚的戏剧还是同时代的艺术家的作用，本身就都是后来人为了找一个合理的理由而进行的大范围的编撰。既然是编撰的，那自然而然就带有了一般的意识形态，如果我们谈论文艺复兴而不去思考这背后的意识形态，那就只能看到表面而看不到本质了。
因为文艺复兴本质上是为欧洲中心主义服务的，既然是服务员，那么必然会突出欧洲中心主义的核心观点。《暴风雨》中的国王最后选择了对于自己的敌人的原谅和接纳，本身可以对应到后来欧洲殖民者对于原住民的屠杀之后，如何与自己的历史和解的问题，这样一对应，本片所代表的核心观点就可以想通了。
表面上称颂的是欧洲老贵族的美德，实际上他所说的依旧是一个如何跟新生代和解的故事。自己的仇人的儿子娶了自己的女儿，这是历史的趋势，这种趋势却是人为造成的。老国王无法阻挡历史的潮流，就如同，神权皇权在资本主义浪潮的推动下，无法阻止欧洲从神权社会进阶到资本主义社会一样。
潮流的涌动被用这样一种文艺的方式来表达，本身代表着欧洲中心主义文化之下的伪善以及双重标准，假装用自己的道德来为自己脱身，实际上，这并非自己的道德，而是自己无法扭转历史趋势的无奈。普洛斯佩拉本身这个角色也是很有趣的，大家可以想象，当他流落到一个荒岛上，通过魔法征服了荒岛上的精灵的时候，甚至于将荒岛上的卡利班收归奴隶的时候，这是高水准的道德体现吗？很显然，不是的，而这段故事并没有被大书特书，反倒是一个殖民者在自己的故乡被排斥，后来在自己的殖民地打赢了反击战，再通过自己的虚伪的道德为自己获得了声誉。这一套东西跟西方中心主义之下的现代秩序有什么不同？
通过血腥屠杀和殖民获得了大量的土地，然后将土地上的原住民掠为奴隶，后来在面对自己曾经的故土的时候，选择的是原谅和解，实际上，曾经的贵族城堡似的生活早已经回不去。而后假惺惺的用文明道德包装自己，最终呈现给世人的是一个大度包容的形象，如果真的包容大度，在整个欧洲中心主义为指导的殖民主义之下，他们为什么要杀人？
这一切解释不通，唯一的解释就是他们用各种各样的文艺作品为自己粉饰太平，为自己洗白，然后让广大被侵略国家接受欧洲文化才是世界中心文化这种设定，然后站在这个设定之上去看待欧洲殖民主义血腥历史，自然得到的是道德跟包容，实际上，他们才最血腥。
……
你好，再见
让我想起了《第七封印》。
只不过前者的故事由沉重转为明快最终是安详，而后者一直很肃穆而压抑（偶尔有短暂的轻松）。当然这是不同的主题决定的，前者是死亡，后者是原谅。
Ariel让我想起了剪刀手爱德华。
暴风雨结束了，Prospero获得了心灵的平静。还有多少人饱受心灵的折磨呢？
Derek Jarman’s unique vision left an indelible imprint on the world of experimental and political cinema. His body of work often challenges orthodoxies, subvert conventions, and plumb into the themes of genderqueer identities and histories. JUBILEE (1978) and THE TEMPEST (1979) - his second and third feature films - offer fascinating insights into Jarman’s radical approach to storytelling, politics, and aesthetic, dripping with decay, anarchy, and unfiltered political commentary.
Made in reference to the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 1977, JUBILEE imagineers an apocalyptic Britain in the throes of nihilism, punk rebellion, and cultural decadence. The film opens with Queen Elizabeth I (Runacre) - along with the occultist John Dee (O’Brien) and spirt Ariel (Brandon), the latter is a borrow from "The Tempest" - being transported into a future where her beloved nation has devolved into a wasteland of disorder, consumerism, and social disillusionment. The juxtaposition of these two royal figures - one historical, the other contemporary - sets the stage for a bitter critique of monarchy, power, and the society at large.
The film’s derelict buildings in London, with their garishly graffiti-covered walls and crumbling facades, are both literal and metaphorical reflections of the decline surrounding Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. They constitute an urban landscape, a built environment, that has been deserted, discarded, just like the film's cohort of rebels, coming running to revolutionize a lawless state in absence of authority.
At the heart of JUBILEE are its young protagonists, a group of punks led by the murderous and volatile Bod (Runacre again, doubling the duty representing two disparate sides of leadership), whose victim including the proto-punk artist Jayne County (playing a glam rock star named Lounge Lizard). Among the fold there are Pamela Rooke aka. Jordan, the protégé of Vivienne Westwood, whose "anti-historian" Amyl Nitrate is a die-hard feminist (who fiercely bastardizes "Rule Britannia”); Nell Campbell’s Crabs is a proto-kinderwhore, and Mad (punk star Toyah Willcox in a color-shifting crew cut), who stands out commendably for her loud imprudence and taunting mannerism. They are angry, disillusioned, unrestrained and willing to do whatever it takes to escape the crushing weight of societal expectations. Their acts of intentional violence and rebellion are not just expressions of teenage angst, they are a profound rejection of the decaying world around them.
Jarman's aesthetic is distinctly 1970s, with its gaudy, low-budget look and shady portrayal of urban entropy. The film’s lack of polish and its rawness is where lies its power, which also entrances audience to a visceral experience that feels at once bizarre and timeless. The nihilistic attitude of the characters makes for a bleak yet strangely droll narrative albeit its slapdash orchestration, majorly courtesy to the film's sense of abandonment. Everything is on the brink of collapse, everyone is disposable (with the police as the symbol of the common cruelty from the invisible Establishment), retribution is sought after with outlandish flourishes, all there is a relentless march toward damnation, a ruination of one's soul. In a sense, JUBILEE is not merely a critique on the erstwhile punk culture, but also a radical defiance against of a society’s structures and the way they trap individuals within them.
In contrast to the anarchic energy of JUBILEE, Jarman's THE TEMPEST takes on a more introspective tone on top of the Bard's time-honored texts, while still engaging with themes of power, control, and illusion on a surreal canvas. This adaptation reimagines the story of the exiled Duke Prospero (Williams), a power magus and his daughter Miranda (Wilcox, charms audience with a meeker aspect of her range here) on an island, where magic and spirits shape the fate of all who land there. The character of Ariel (played by a hauntingly ethereal Johnson), a spirit subjugated to Prospero's puissance, embodies a mystical power and the possibility of transcendence, who can manipulate events and ensnare the human characters in webs of illusion (literalized by a cobwebbed entrapment).
Operating on the twilight zone between reality and fantasy, where their boundary becomes increasingly blurred, THE TEMPEST subsists on a misty, dreamlike setting, alternating between its chiaroscuro interiors and blue-hued exteriors, which serves as a perfect backdrop for a film that is concerned with power grab, enslavement and forgiveness. Its grainy, soft-focus imagery accentuates the sense of dislocation, creating a world where nothing is quite what it seems.
While Prospero must reconcile himself with a betrayal that is the causation of his exile, a theme which feels underwritten in the film, Ariel’s longing for liberation is echoed more potently. In tandem with the farcical rebellion of the humiliated slave Caliban (Birkett, aka. "The Incredible Orlando", histrionically chewing the scenery with every single syllable and guffawing like nobody's business in both films, is quite a revelation to behold), it suggests that even the most powerful forces in the world cannot escape the constraints of their own histories and desires.
Jarman's queer agenda persists in both films, not just in imagery confections. Angel and Sphinx (Charleson and Johnson) in JUBILEE are a pair of bed-sharing, biromantic brothers who cannot escape their persecuted fate and Adam Ant's Kid is brutalized for his androgynous persona. In THE TEMPEST, such outward expression gives way to an undertow touching on Ariel's sadomasochistic subjection to Prospero. A masque with terpischorean sailors gracing a magnificent Welch crooning her signature tune “Stormy Weather” is a hallmark affirmation of diversity, hope and resilience.
While JUBILEE and THE TEMPEST offer two radically different viewing experiences, one is propelled a reckless angst and the other seems to come out of a deity’s afflatus, altogether, they represent the breadth of Jarman’s artistry and legacy: a sophisticated, nonconformist and subcultural explorer of the past, the present, and the unknown futures that lie ahead.
referential entries: Jarman's EDWARD II (1991, 7.0/10); SEBASTIANE (1976, 4.4/10); CARAVAGGIO (1986, 7.5/10).
很难想象的是Jarman看上了这部剧的原谅主题和和解结局。他说，这个主题感染了他，这种在现代社会近乎绝迹的品质，知道谁是你的敌人，却接受他们，以礼相待，共盼未来（= =）。在和主流文化完全对立的时候，Jarman显出了他温柔和纯净的一面，就像那句著名的“我希望有一天，所有的男孩爱上男孩，所有的女孩爱女孩，永不改变…”在暴烈的Jubilee之后，Jarman像是在自己寻找和社会的一种和解，虽然只是一厢情愿，但影片高潮的极度和谐的歌舞盛宴，似乎就是 Jarman的理想结局。半是自我营造，半是传达给主流一种讯息。狭隘的人或许会认为成的恶搞，扭曲，甚至阴谋。在这点上，Jarman应该也为此得意，并在心态上蔑视可笑的anti-gay的撒切尔政权。
事实上这是Jarman最收敛的一部影片。我愿意解读成他在不放弃独立精神的前提下的和解姿态，以及他关于纯真，快乐，和忧愁的梦境。更悲观的解读是他也在逃避，和Prospero一样在逆境中意淫。
Jarman的莎士比亚是保守和怀旧的。The Tempest写于1611年，为詹姆斯一世的宫廷而作，而在众多评论家的眼中，Prospero的原型，是伊丽莎白女王的亲信，神秘主义哲学家John Dee，这个被新国王放逐，和女儿一起孤独穷困度过余生的人。这就是所谓的莎士比亚的Elizabethan Revival。不管对于莎士比亚还是Jarman，这样的浪漫喜剧都不可能如此简单，Jarman认为它恰恰反映了这个时代深层的不安感和由此而来的保守倾向。
Jarman的莎士比亚就是Prospero，从小接触莎翁戏剧的Jarman认为The Tempest是莎士比亚最个人化的一部戏剧，在让Prospero实现各种行动时，Will也在自我实现，用Jarman的话说，他们都是old poet at odds with the society in which he lives。Jarman自己也是Prospero，在现实中他如同John Dee不容于严酷的清教束缚一样不为当时的主流所接纳。大胆比较一下，当时的神秘主义宗教就像70年代的同性恋和朋克文化。Jarman是激进的，但也是向后看的，他同样也认同与old poet这一角色，在压抑的时代中掀一场自己脑中的暴风雨。
他也比戏剧更突出地将整个情节当作一个梦。影片从头至尾都没有跳出过这个梦境。面对当时的宗教情形，莎士比亚只能让Prospero扔掉他的书籍放弃他的魔法，如果可以进一步阐释，Prospero要丢掉他的书来讨好看戏的王公贵族们，莎士比亚也在创作完此剧后扔掉了他的魔法，告别了戏剧和城市生活，一方面是讨好，一方面是归隐，矛盾地在一起。在Greenaway版的Prospero中，最后的抛弃书是一个非常重要的情节，而Jarman的影片中只止于梦，根本不会出现这一幕。因为Jarman根本不用讨好任何人，也没有放弃他的电影，直到生命的最后一刻。
而面对明显讨好的Ferdinand和Miranda的Happy Ending，Jarman定然不会吃这套，因为异性恋婚姻在这个时代已经不能解决问题了。所以他把这场婚礼变成了华丽欢快的大聚会，主角是一群年轻漂亮的水手们，让一对异性恋couple来欣赏男人的美，让同性恋来成就这场异性恋婚礼，让这一切变成Ariel对Prospero的挽歌。在别人质疑他对莎士比亚的背叛时，Jarman肯定暗自高兴，知道莎士比亚本人一定会更喜欢这样的结局。