Derek Jarman’s Flaccid Directorial Debut
Gay director Derek Jarman’s directorial debut is set in Rome in AD 303 during Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians. Sebastian is a member of the Emperor’s personal guard. When he tries to intervene to stop one of the Emperor’s catamites (prepubescent boys whose sole purpose is sex) from being strangled by one of his bodyguards, Sebastian is exiled to a remote coastal garrison and reduced in rank to private. He is an early Christian and celibate despite all those naked Roman soldiers swarming around him. Severus, the commanding officer of the garrison, who becomes increasingly obsessed with Sebastian, tries to rape him and ultimately presides over his execution by a phalanx of arrows for refusing to take up arms in defense of the Roman Empire – echoing the iconic imagery that made him a gay icon in art history.
It’s a start. However, what seemed revolutionary in 1976 now looks rather mediocre. The film is more of a series of tableaux vivants than a narrative feature, and its mostly British cast makes a sad substitution for a sexy Roman garrison. Jarman seems to want to be erotic and anti-erotic, at the same time, having his cake and eating it too. The whole misguided adventure is an exercise in hypocrisy. And the (minimal) Latin dialogue. Oh My! Maybe it would have worked better as a short film?
Jarman was clearly finding his way here, co-directing with Paul Humfress and cowriting with Humfress and James Whaley. Always a somewhat precious filmmaker, he would go on to better things—and give the world, for better or for worse, the phenomenon known as Tilda Swinton—before his life was tragically cut short by AIDS at the age of 52.
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Seventy Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (1934-1967)
https://thebrownees.net/seventy-queer-films-of-the-new-hollywood-1967-1981
