191 Jubilee
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Gropius
- Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:47 pm
For all the minor objections one might make, I still think Greenaway is the most interesting living British filmmaker with any semi-commercial reputation (not that there is a great deal of competition for that title). And I look forward to making it to the Luper marathon at the NFT this Sunday (it's only been a three year wait). All those digital boxes within boxes, superimpositions, multiple enactments... it's baroque overload.
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colinr0380
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
- Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK
I'm not sure how to describe what changed for me when I rewatched Jubilee last night. I had seen it a number of times before but had not really connected with it, which I think I managed to do on my last viewing. I'm starting to worry that I'm just becoming a contrarian in my old age, trying desperately to find some worth in films reviled by everyone else, but I honestly picked up the DVD of Jubilee last night not expecting to find anything more than I'd found on previous viewings, and I must have seen the film four or five times over the years through previous television showings and when I first watched the Criterion. I don't really expect to change anyone's mind about the film, more just to note what I enjoyed more this time around.
I remember the first few times I saw the film I was almost overwhelmed by the sex and violence - I didn't exactly find it shocking, it was more that instead of demonstrating or adding to a portrait of an anarchistic world they seemed to overwhelm the film too much and became about the act itself as a little set piece moment rather than as a scene in an ongoing film. I remembered the murder of Lounge Lizard or the molotov coktail thrown at the door, or the waitress being wrestled to the floor and sprayed with ketchup, but more as the events themselves rather than for how they connected to the narrative.
My appreciation of the film on earlier viewings became based more on various isolated sequences rather than the way they worked in the film as a whole, and in addition to the more 'shocking' scenes, I have the feeling that the film is structured as a kind of perverse musical with big production numbers such as the Rule Britannia, Plastic Surgery, Jerusalem, Paranoia Paradise and the strangely compelling 'fire ballet' sequences peppered throughout the film. (There are also a few connections to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, from Amyl's motto "Don't dream it, be it" to both Little Nell and Richard O'Brien in the cast). I would agree with zedz that this isn't exactly a punk film, punk was used in it but for Jarman's own purposes, not in a celebratory way of showing how 'great' the music was - indeed while it is a musical, it seems to be one which hates the characters who perform the music - I particularly liked Lounge Lizard's half-remembered singalong in his flat to a video of himself on the television or the way that Kid, after singing Plastic Surgery, responds to the first thing someone says to him by repeating the lyrics from his song, suggesting he is so drained by his performance that he has lost track of where he is and what he is doing, which either suggests he is so committed to his song he is caught up in it, or alternatively that the song doesn't mean anything and he is just responding in a brain dead manner to whatever questions he is asked, repeating the 'controversial' lyrics in his song without much idea of why they are controversial, just that they seem to upset people! Both could be seen as criticisms of the posturing attitude of punk itself, deeply offensive only in a middle-class manner - only getting a shocked response from the most prudish members of the audience who have never heard swearing or anti-monarchist sentiments expressed in public before! (While the upper class manipulates and commodifies the controversy and the working class just shrugs in a 'seen and heard it all before' manner and go back to discussing their private lives with each other over a game of bingo!)
The musical and 'extreme' scenes were the sequences that most stood out to me on previous viewings, but I finally seemed to look at the film as a whole last night and found things to enjoy in the way the film is structured as well.
I particularly liked the way that Jenny Runacre, playing both Elizabeth I and Bod, is introduced in her role as Bod running down a conservatively dressed, dowdy looking lady of an older generation, strangling her and stealing what is later revealed to be a crown. This is one of the earliest scenes set in the anarchic modern world following the period scene with Queen Elizabeth, and I get the impression that this scene is meant to immediately confront the time travelling monach with one of her regal successors (maybe Elizabeth II herself?(!)) being chased through a wasteland before being murdered for her crown, which in this lawless society doesn't represent power or have any great social significance, but is little more than an ostentatious trinket that Bod can wear to play at being a member of a different world with different values - much as Amyl Nitrate plays at being Britannia, the way that Amyl and Mad have a sword fight near the end of the film (an outdated form of combat, with all the notions of fighting for honour and a noble purpose that having a duel might imply), or the way Amyl is writing her own history of the world to glorify the age in which she is living - a history of how the world woke up to the futility of their actions and let society collapse into glorious anarchy (which has shades of 1984 in the way things that don't fit into this worldview are omitted as Amyl speaks about wishing to compress history more and more until all you need to know is written on a recreational drug ("a mandrax"), which seems to suggest the rewriting, co-opting and forgetting of history in order to passify).
It seemed that the dingy warehouse that the gang are shown in is the twisted equivalent of a royal court, with Bod as the newly crowned Queen; Amyl as the intellect behind the figurehead, seeming to be aloof from the others and more aware of the wider world than her hedonistic companions driven only by a need to satisfy their short-term impulses; Mad as the psychotic brawn of the gang; Viv as the court artist; Chaos of course as the maid; Angel and Sphinx as the court concubines and maybe Crabs as the jester!
Their interactions with Borgia Ginz's record producer, as both Mad and Amyl audition for him and Crabs tries to promote the Kid, suggest that this corrupted version of royalty is deeply subservient to the all-powerful influence of the media (perhaps similar to the way the Crown in times past, despite its seeming control over the country, was never more powerful than the Church and its representatives were?)
(I know I shouldn't stereotype people, but I'll never think of a media boss without thinking of the crazed, stentorian Borgia Ginz! All those reality pop star shows would be much better with him as one of the judges! I'd also like to imagine someone like Rupert Murdoch being a similar insanely cackling character, just with an Australian accent!)
It makes the way that the gang seem to pick the people they kill from the performers they see on the music shows on television quite funny! The murders also seem less arbitrary but a form of political machination, a small way of showing they don't respect Ginz (and the way he isn't picking any of their songs up for success but is instead signing artists like Happy Days and Lounge Lizard) by killing his talent! Of course it is inevitable that they all end up in cahoots together at the end, petty squabbles forgotten as they bask in their success in a giant mansion in a English county surrounded by armed guards against the anarchy that they fostered to make themselves successful! (I thought the addition of a decrepit and somewhat bewildered Hitler to their self-aggrandising group is a funny moment, as even he seems to be a little shocked by how bizarre and extreme their actions are!)
While the core of the group, Amyl, Mad and Bod, all eventually reap the rewards of their lifestyle the rest of their gang seem much more expendable, probably because they have other interests that lie beyond those three. For example Crabs being sex obsessed jumps at every man she sees, but seems to be the kiss of death for all of them! Happy Days seems to be someone she is just using partly so the gang can kill him, but her sad reaction as she, Mad and Bod are dumping the body suggests she is looking for something more than casual sex, which is her downfall, as that is all that is left in this world. She spends the largest amount of the film with Kid (Adam Ant), yet seems to tire of him (not soon enough to prevent him being marked for death though, as he is glassed by a policeman!) and takes up with one of the policemen who she finaly seems to have a connection with (despite their first meeting taking the form of a parody of a jeans commercial set in a laundrette!), yet ironically he is almost immediately killed by Bod and Mad in retribution for the attack on Kid! While I find it funny, it is also a shame for Crabs - the poor girl just can't catch a break!
The other group of characters that break away from the main trio of Mad, Amyl and Bod are Viv, Angel and Sphinx. I've often wondered if it was intentional that Viv spoke in a posher accent than the other gang members - I guess it was as it marks her out as different, just as Crabs' Australian accent seems to suggest that she won't be part of the main gang either.
I even liked the scenes with Elizabeth I surveying this anarchistic world with her lady in waiting and John Dee while the angel Ariel, an inhuman being of ambiguous form, guides them through the vision (Strange that Prospero's Books was brought up in this thread as wasn't Ariel one of the main characters in The Tempest?). Much of the dialogue in those scenes felt used like poetry than as narrative, for the way the lines of dialogue sounded and the images they conjure up more than for what was said itself (but that might just be because most of the dialogue in those scenes went over my head so I just enjoyed listening to the sounds and placements of the words rather than trying to fully understand their meaning!)
I felt the acting, although unpolished and uncertain in many places, seemed to fit well with the grimy, crude portrait of the world of the film itself, so I wouldn't criticise the film for the performances.
In a similar way to The Element of Crime, while I really liked the extra features on the Criterion disc, which went into great detail about the making of the film and its reception, I didn't think the extra features helped make the film itself any more understandable and accessible, which may have been a bit of a mistake. However, what is included is very good, even if I think they are overstating Toyah Wilcox's contribution to British culture as being a 'household name' - I mean The Good Sex Guide and Teletubbies series were well known but did they really make her a household name?
I remember the first few times I saw the film I was almost overwhelmed by the sex and violence - I didn't exactly find it shocking, it was more that instead of demonstrating or adding to a portrait of an anarchistic world they seemed to overwhelm the film too much and became about the act itself as a little set piece moment rather than as a scene in an ongoing film. I remembered the murder of Lounge Lizard or the molotov coktail thrown at the door, or the waitress being wrestled to the floor and sprayed with ketchup, but more as the events themselves rather than for how they connected to the narrative.
My appreciation of the film on earlier viewings became based more on various isolated sequences rather than the way they worked in the film as a whole, and in addition to the more 'shocking' scenes, I have the feeling that the film is structured as a kind of perverse musical with big production numbers such as the Rule Britannia, Plastic Surgery, Jerusalem, Paranoia Paradise and the strangely compelling 'fire ballet' sequences peppered throughout the film. (There are also a few connections to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, from Amyl's motto "Don't dream it, be it" to both Little Nell and Richard O'Brien in the cast). I would agree with zedz that this isn't exactly a punk film, punk was used in it but for Jarman's own purposes, not in a celebratory way of showing how 'great' the music was - indeed while it is a musical, it seems to be one which hates the characters who perform the music - I particularly liked Lounge Lizard's half-remembered singalong in his flat to a video of himself on the television or the way that Kid, after singing Plastic Surgery, responds to the first thing someone says to him by repeating the lyrics from his song, suggesting he is so drained by his performance that he has lost track of where he is and what he is doing, which either suggests he is so committed to his song he is caught up in it, or alternatively that the song doesn't mean anything and he is just responding in a brain dead manner to whatever questions he is asked, repeating the 'controversial' lyrics in his song without much idea of why they are controversial, just that they seem to upset people! Both could be seen as criticisms of the posturing attitude of punk itself, deeply offensive only in a middle-class manner - only getting a shocked response from the most prudish members of the audience who have never heard swearing or anti-monarchist sentiments expressed in public before! (While the upper class manipulates and commodifies the controversy and the working class just shrugs in a 'seen and heard it all before' manner and go back to discussing their private lives with each other over a game of bingo!)
The musical and 'extreme' scenes were the sequences that most stood out to me on previous viewings, but I finally seemed to look at the film as a whole last night and found things to enjoy in the way the film is structured as well.
I particularly liked the way that Jenny Runacre, playing both Elizabeth I and Bod, is introduced in her role as Bod running down a conservatively dressed, dowdy looking lady of an older generation, strangling her and stealing what is later revealed to be a crown. This is one of the earliest scenes set in the anarchic modern world following the period scene with Queen Elizabeth, and I get the impression that this scene is meant to immediately confront the time travelling monach with one of her regal successors (maybe Elizabeth II herself?(!)) being chased through a wasteland before being murdered for her crown, which in this lawless society doesn't represent power or have any great social significance, but is little more than an ostentatious trinket that Bod can wear to play at being a member of a different world with different values - much as Amyl Nitrate plays at being Britannia, the way that Amyl and Mad have a sword fight near the end of the film (an outdated form of combat, with all the notions of fighting for honour and a noble purpose that having a duel might imply), or the way Amyl is writing her own history of the world to glorify the age in which she is living - a history of how the world woke up to the futility of their actions and let society collapse into glorious anarchy (which has shades of 1984 in the way things that don't fit into this worldview are omitted as Amyl speaks about wishing to compress history more and more until all you need to know is written on a recreational drug ("a mandrax"), which seems to suggest the rewriting, co-opting and forgetting of history in order to passify).
It seemed that the dingy warehouse that the gang are shown in is the twisted equivalent of a royal court, with Bod as the newly crowned Queen; Amyl as the intellect behind the figurehead, seeming to be aloof from the others and more aware of the wider world than her hedonistic companions driven only by a need to satisfy their short-term impulses; Mad as the psychotic brawn of the gang; Viv as the court artist; Chaos of course as the maid; Angel and Sphinx as the court concubines and maybe Crabs as the jester!
Their interactions with Borgia Ginz's record producer, as both Mad and Amyl audition for him and Crabs tries to promote the Kid, suggest that this corrupted version of royalty is deeply subservient to the all-powerful influence of the media (perhaps similar to the way the Crown in times past, despite its seeming control over the country, was never more powerful than the Church and its representatives were?)
(I know I shouldn't stereotype people, but I'll never think of a media boss without thinking of the crazed, stentorian Borgia Ginz! All those reality pop star shows would be much better with him as one of the judges! I'd also like to imagine someone like Rupert Murdoch being a similar insanely cackling character, just with an Australian accent!)
It makes the way that the gang seem to pick the people they kill from the performers they see on the music shows on television quite funny! The murders also seem less arbitrary but a form of political machination, a small way of showing they don't respect Ginz (and the way he isn't picking any of their songs up for success but is instead signing artists like Happy Days and Lounge Lizard) by killing his talent! Of course it is inevitable that they all end up in cahoots together at the end, petty squabbles forgotten as they bask in their success in a giant mansion in a English county surrounded by armed guards against the anarchy that they fostered to make themselves successful! (I thought the addition of a decrepit and somewhat bewildered Hitler to their self-aggrandising group is a funny moment, as even he seems to be a little shocked by how bizarre and extreme their actions are!)
While the core of the group, Amyl, Mad and Bod, all eventually reap the rewards of their lifestyle the rest of their gang seem much more expendable, probably because they have other interests that lie beyond those three. For example Crabs being sex obsessed jumps at every man she sees, but seems to be the kiss of death for all of them! Happy Days seems to be someone she is just using partly so the gang can kill him, but her sad reaction as she, Mad and Bod are dumping the body suggests she is looking for something more than casual sex, which is her downfall, as that is all that is left in this world. She spends the largest amount of the film with Kid (Adam Ant), yet seems to tire of him (not soon enough to prevent him being marked for death though, as he is glassed by a policeman!) and takes up with one of the policemen who she finaly seems to have a connection with (despite their first meeting taking the form of a parody of a jeans commercial set in a laundrette!), yet ironically he is almost immediately killed by Bod and Mad in retribution for the attack on Kid! While I find it funny, it is also a shame for Crabs - the poor girl just can't catch a break!
The other group of characters that break away from the main trio of Mad, Amyl and Bod are Viv, Angel and Sphinx. I've often wondered if it was intentional that Viv spoke in a posher accent than the other gang members - I guess it was as it marks her out as different, just as Crabs' Australian accent seems to suggest that she won't be part of the main gang either.
I even liked the scenes with Elizabeth I surveying this anarchistic world with her lady in waiting and John Dee while the angel Ariel, an inhuman being of ambiguous form, guides them through the vision (Strange that Prospero's Books was brought up in this thread as wasn't Ariel one of the main characters in The Tempest?). Much of the dialogue in those scenes felt used like poetry than as narrative, for the way the lines of dialogue sounded and the images they conjure up more than for what was said itself (but that might just be because most of the dialogue in those scenes went over my head so I just enjoyed listening to the sounds and placements of the words rather than trying to fully understand their meaning!)
I felt the acting, although unpolished and uncertain in many places, seemed to fit well with the grimy, crude portrait of the world of the film itself, so I wouldn't criticise the film for the performances.
In a similar way to The Element of Crime, while I really liked the extra features on the Criterion disc, which went into great detail about the making of the film and its reception, I didn't think the extra features helped make the film itself any more understandable and accessible, which may have been a bit of a mistake. However, what is included is very good, even if I think they are overstating Toyah Wilcox's contribution to British culture as being a 'household name' - I mean The Good Sex Guide and Teletubbies series were well known but did they really make her a household name?
Last edited by colinr0380 on Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:01 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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gubbelsj
- Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:44 pm
- Location: San Diego
That's a fantastic analysis. Jubilee is a film I disliked heartily the first few times I viewed it, but I've since realized that key scenes and moments from it have stayed with me in a way that many other films have not. I still am a little uncomfortable with Jarman's art-school appropriation of punk's working class origins, but then again, there was plenty of art school in British punk (or at least post-punk - Wire, Public Image Limited, Magazine, even the Adverts). And Jarman's thoughts on media manipulation and control have come to seem eerily prescient. In the end, I still find Jubilee to work better in theory than in practice, and have a suspicion the film succeeds best when approached through a textual treatment, like colin's. It can be more fun to read about than actually sit through. But at any rate, thanks for the essay - it's always interesting to see initial impressions wrestled with.
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Jean-Luc Garbo
- Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:55 am
- Contact:
Thanks for posting, colinr0380. I'm glad that someone here (and someone outside of the Jarman texts) has something intelligent to say. True, it is a better film in theory, but you stood outside that for a moment for some good evaluation. Now, if anyone wants terrible Jarman, take your cudgels to The Last of England - yeesh.
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Tommaso
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am
Perfect and most appreciated post, Colin! I never actually thought of "Jubilee" as a musical, but your analysis is most to the point. If it's a musical, it brings the film more into a kind of theatrical vein. Perhaps that's why I never really found the sex and violence shocking, as I tended to see it as just a part of a 'performance' (somewhat similar to Greenaway's "Prospero" or "Macon" in that respect), the film being ABOUT the times, not actually 'presenting' them. Which is indeed quite unlike "The Last of England", which at my first viewing I found almost unbearable in its darkness and intensity, though that film has some of Jarman's most beautiful and striking moments (just think of that final sequence with Tilda Swinton and Diamanda Galas' music).
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Jean-Luc Garbo
- Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:55 am
- Contact:
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colinr0380
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
- Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK
I'd agree with that, and it might be another factor that could be said to alienate an audience used to films that try to be a definitive statement on their subject when they are faced with a punk film that doesn't try to encapsulate the subject but instead presents a very personal and contrarian take on that cultural movement. It could also be a very anti-marketing move, flirting with a subject that might attract outside interest but at the same time continuing to make what seem to be very personal statements most likely with an idea that people might react badly to them when they saw the film for the first time, which perhaps was the real sign of punkish rebellion by Jarman!Tommaso wrote:Perhaps that's why I never really found the sex and violence shocking, as I tended to see it as just a part of a 'performance' (somewhat similar to Greenaway's "Prospero" or "Macon" in that respect), the film being ABOUT the times, not actually 'presenting' them.
I wonder if those scenes where Bod and the rest form a strange parody of a royal court had any influence on My Own Private Idaho? Probably not, but I guess they'd make a good double bill!
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gubbelsj
- Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:44 pm
- Location: San Diego
There may be some connection. Van Sant is clearly aware of Jarman's work. Senses of Cinema featured this piece on Jarman, which includes a nice bibliography at the end, with the following piece appearing the year before Jarman's death, although I haven't read the work itself:colinr0380 wrote:I wonder if those scenes where Bod and the rest form a strange parody of a royal court had any influence on My Own Private Idaho? Probably not, but I guess they'd make a good double bill!
Gus Van Sant, “'Freewheelin': Gus Van Sant Converses with Derek Jarmanâ€
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thebedbreakinkid
- Joined: Wed May 17, 2006 3:32 am
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Jean-Luc Garbo
- Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:55 am
- Contact:
I've seen seven of Jarman's films and for me The Last of England is at the bottom. Right above it is The Garden btw. (And right above that is Jubilee.)The Last of England is way too scattered for me and I didn't feel it the way I felt War Requiem or Edward II. It's been four years since I saw it, but I can't say I care for it much. Once that Zeitgeist box comes out then I can at least put it in a more comprehensive standing.Tommaso wrote:Huh? What's your problem with "The Last of England"? I always assumed general consensus (whatever that means) regarded this as one of his very best movies?
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klee13
- Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:33 pm
- Location: NYC
I rented this film the other day, and though I don't think it's a great movie, (I would rank it at about the same place as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in terms of quality though it doesn't really have the 'so-bad-it's-good' angle Dolls possesses) I also don't think it's quite the pile of human excrement among other Criterion titles other people have called it on this thread. Obviously they haven't seen Salo. (Even if you like that movie you have to admit it holds that honor.) If you go into it expecting anything other then an art film (it is by Jarman after all) you are definitely going to hate it though. It is essentially plotless, something all dystopian films are at risk off becoming. Actually, I'm not really sure if this movie depicts a dystopia or a utopia. (A punk utopia would be quite paradoxical indeed!) I like the idea of the Borgia Ginz character being the record producer/owner of all artistic markets/some sort of megalomaniac because it's an interesting way of depicting the relationship between musician and music producer from an extreme, dystopian point of view. (An interesting side note that I discovered is that the actor, Jack Birkett is blind.) I did wish that this film had devoted a bit more time to its soundtrack. What was there was good, but I just wish there was more of it. It would have been interesting to see what this movie would have been like if it were made five years later when the 80's Hardcore movement had taken hold of the medium.
Wow, that's a lot of parentheses.[/i]
Wow, that's a lot of parentheses.[/i]
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Cold Bishop
- Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
- Location: Portland, OR
I don't follow you...Klaylock wrote:I rented this film the other day, and though I don't think it's a great movie, (I would rank it at about the same place as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in terms of quality though it doesn't really have the 'so-bad-it's-good' angle Dolls possesses) I also don't think it's quite the pile of human excrement among other Criterion titles other people have called it on this thread. Obviously they haven't seen Salo. (Even if you like that movie you have to admit it holds that honor.)
A) Beyond the Valley... is a great film.
B) What exactly is wrong with Salo now?
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klee13
- Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:33 pm
- Location: NYC
Yes, I recognize that. But if you took away the satirical elements from Beyond the Valley you would arrive at around what this movie is- Not great, but interesting. It plays with late 70's Punk culture the same way that Dolls did with the culture of the 60's.Cold Bishop wrote:I don't follow you...
A) Beyond the Valley... is a great film.
Nothing... Except that it's a really disgusting movie. Okay, that's only my opinion, but I'm just saying that a lot of people have described this as some sort of dirty travesty among the other pristine Criterion titles. I'm pointing out that there's at least one other movie in the Collection that some people might consider objectionable. Also, on a more basic level I was playing with Salo's predilection towards well, shit.Cold Bishop wrote:B) What exactly is wrong with Salo now?
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Tommaso
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am
Well, at the time the film was made it certainly was dystopian, but looking at it from today, I'd almost call it 'visionary'. Look at the music industry nowadays: there are three or four major companies left who completely control the market, work in other media (dvd, TV etc.) as well, don't care a shit for their artists (see the recent news about EMI being about to cancel hundreds of musicians' contracts and kicking out 2000 people alltogether) and setting up/casting artificial 'new bands' which are dropped after they've been milked to the utmost, and so on. Jarman's vision may have been bleak, but it has always been to the point, not just in "Jubilee", but even more so in "The Last of England" (which is one of the reasons why I enjoy both films so much).Klaylock wrote: I like the idea of the Borgia Ginz character being the record producer/owner of all artistic markets/some sort of megalomaniac because it's an interesting way of depicting the relationship between musician and music producer from an extreme, dystopian point of view. (An interesting side note that I discovered is that the actor, Jack Birkett is blind.).
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Chull
- Joined: Wed Sep 12, 2007 11:17 pm
Re: 191 Jubilee
Wow. It's pretty rare that I give up watching a film, but 30 minutes in, I just couldn't take it anymore. I haven't hated a criterion disc so much since Border Radio.
The only thing worse than a terrible actor is a terrible actor with a lisp. The only thing worse than that is two of 'em. (Not that I have anything against people with lisps, mind you.)
The only thing worse than a terrible actor is a terrible actor with a lisp. The only thing worse than that is two of 'em. (Not that I have anything against people with lisps, mind you.)
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Napier
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:48 am
- Location: The Shire
Re: 191 Jubilee
The rock opera performance with Adam Ant and the viking tranny at the end make it totally worth it though.
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manicsounds
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:58 pm
- Location: Tokyo, Japan
Re: 191 Jubilee
so, why was this film warranted the higher price tag?
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Napier
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:48 am
- Location: The Shire
Re: 191 Jubilee
Gratuitous nudity and Amyl nitrate.manicsounds wrote:so, why was this film warranted the higher price tag?
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cana7cl
- Joined: Sun May 27, 2007 4:44 pm
- Contact:
Re: 191 Jubilee
Jubilee is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. An excelent choice for Criterion.
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bigP
- Joined: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:59 am
- Location: Reading, UK
Re: 191 Jubilee
Jarman's beautiful video made for and projected up during Suede's 'Pantomime Horse' during their Dog Man Star tour.
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HarryLong
- Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:39 pm
- Location: Lebanon, PA
Re: 191 Jubilee
They include the amyl in the packaging ... ?Napier wrote:Gratuitous nudity and Amyl nitrate.manicsounds wrote:so, why was this film warranted the higher price tag?
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Magic Hate Ball
- Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2007 6:15 pm
- Location: Seattle, WA
Re: 191 Jubilee
Haha, wow, I went into this movie blind and loved it. It's absolutely a musical, or at least musical-esque - even without the actual musical interludes, it has a tempo, every few minutes there's a new, invigorating setpiece. The world felt really organic, I dug all the little ideas peppered in, like the guy with the plastic garden, or the one who lived in a tower growing up and didn't see the ground until he was four. You get a definite sense of oppression, fear, and claustrophobia, which ties in really well to the theme of time passing. Everyone wants to get on TV, but what do you do after that? You watch yourself having been on TV. At the end, the gang celebrates their apex, drinking champagne in a mansion with a music producer, but what next? They'll be like Hitler, slumped on the couch in his pop art jacket, watching his old speeches.
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colinr0380
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
- Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK
Re: 191 Jubilee
Jubilee is apparently getting a stage musical version!
Of course we know that the most eye-opening scene works on stage! But the big question is whether a film about a post-apocalyptic Britain in thrall to the past on the one hand and music talent shows on the other would be relevant to today's times?
Of course we know that the most eye-opening scene works on stage! But the big question is whether a film about a post-apocalyptic Britain in thrall to the past on the one hand and music talent shows on the other would be relevant to today's times?