outrage
by
Douglas Messerli
Ken
Butler, Derek Jarman, and Stephen McBride (screenplay, based on the play by
Christopher Marlowe), Derek
Jarman (director) Edward II / 1991
Somewhat
like his 1976 Sebastiane Derek Jarman’s
Edward II is a film about gay men who
were martyred for their love. In both films the language used is from other
times, the first presented in Latin, the second using the language of Elizabethan
playwright Christopher Marlowe. And both of the movies juxtapose scenes of the
period with postmodern intrusions, particularly in Edward, in
which characters sometimes appear in Elizabethan garb,
but just as often appear in modern suits and dresses. Furthermore, overlaying
the Marlowe work are scenes of contemporary gay protestors and a singer (Annie Lennox)
performing Cole Porter’s "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye." Yet, even with these
clashes of purposeful anachronisms, there is something lean and spare about
Jarman’s direction, allowing us to focus on the language itself.
The film begins with the death of Edward’s
father, and Edward (Steven Waddington) calling home his lover, Piers Gaveston
(Andrew Tiernan) who has been banned from England by the Bishop of Winchester
(Dudley Sutton) for his relationship with the then-Prince. Now, after being
given several royal titles and full use of the exchequer, Gaveston tortures the
Bishop with a mock sex orgy and targets various barons and other royals who
long disdained him with imitative monkey-like gestures. He is a rather
unlikeable fellow, whom only Edward loves because of his unequivocal love of
the King.
One of Gaveston’s most mocked targets is
Isabella (Tilda Swinton), the wife Edward married in France, who hurries back to
the castle and hopefully to her husband’s bed the moment he is crowned. Edward rejects
her, while replacing her position in bed with his male lover.
In revenge, Isabella joins up with the chief
of the army’s forces, Mortimer (Nigel Terry) in the hope to agitate among the
royals and citizens for the ouster of Gaveston and her return to the Edward’s
favor.
If, at first, their attempts to disrupt the
homosexual relationship, seem to fail, they ultimately get the barons, the
bitter Bishop, and others to sign a document demanding Gaveston’s banishment once
again. In order to retain his power, Edward is forced to sign, saying goodbye
to his lover in the beautiful Porter ballad with a final dance, one of the most
lovely and peaceful scenes in the film. Porter might have been proud.
Isabella, who now hopes to regain her
proper role, is rejected even more thoroughly by Edward, and in the hope of maintaining
any power, allows Gaveston to return. But when this still has no effect, a bit
like Sebastian’s Serveus she plots Edward’s and Gaveston’s deaths.
We soon discover this has actually been
Edward’s nightmare, and when his executioner actually does arrive, he simply
kisses the King.
If Isabella and Mortimer might now hope
to enjoy their power-grab, it is short-lived. In the last scene of the film we
see them both in metal cages, above which Isabella’s, child, Edward III, dances
with his Walkman, dressed in his mother’s earrings, heels, and hat. The basically
ignored child, who had perhaps seen too much of the palace intrigues, becomes,
in this version, a “girl boy,” the moniker which Mortimer had attributed to
Spencer. Although, in reality Edward III was more of a warrior and loyalist
than a sexual rebel, he did rise to power at an early age to take the rule away
from Mortimer and his minions.
If Edward
II is not as sumptuous and beautiful as Sebastiane
and Caravaggio, it stands as the most
straight-forward and Brechtian statements of Jarman’s beliefs. The Isle of Man
rejected its sodomy laws only a year later. Three years after this film, the
director sadly died of AIDS.
Los Angeles, July
8, 2018
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2018).
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2018).
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