Zeitgeist Films

Our own Adrian Curry happened upon this at the Victoria & Albert Museum last week:

Here’s the actual model itself:

Though Derek Jarman began his career as a set designer, he soon began working in film, eventually directing many features and shorts of his own. The first of his features, Sebastiane (1975) was recorded entirely in Latin - the first film of its kind. 

Jarman also collaborated with The Smiths on several occasions, shooting their music video for The Queen is Dead. 

One of his most well-known films, Caravaggio (1986),

is full of names you’re sure to know (but maybe wouldn’t have in the year of its release). Robbie “Rubeus Hagrid” Coltrane, Michael “Alfred Pennyworth” Gough, Sean “Winter is coming” Bean, and Tilda “I was totally going to kill my baby brother” Swinton all feature in the film about the (in)famous painter. Coltrane rocks a mustache so curly as to make all of Williamsburg lower its head in shame. And Bean… so young, so blonde! He kind of reminds us of Sting in David Lynch’s Dune (the guiltiest pleasure there is):

As for Caravaggio (the man, not the film) - according to Wikipedia, the dude spent all of his non-painting hours brawling. In 1606, the incorrigible brawler actually killed another man… which makes it all the more disappointing to find out that he died of fever at the age of 38 (no doubt regretting he hadn’t brawled more).

Jarman’s version of Caravaggio is pretty true to this character, wielding knives on several occasions throughout the film (see above photo).

You can learn more about Jarman in the 2008 documentary by Isaac Julien, OR you can pick up Caravaggio (among some of his other films) on our site.

Whatever you do, please keep the brawling to a minimum.