What do you think?
Rate this book
Derek Jarman's Sketchbooks
Part autobiography and part social history: the acclaimed director’s filmmaking process revealed through his private sketchbooks Legendary filmmaker Derek Jarman recorded his life and work in highly detailed sketchbooks. Encompassing both the private and the professional, these offer a personal view into the life and career of a highly influential filmmaker and artist.
Drawn from the collection of handmade books that Jarman gave to the British Film Institute shortly before his death in 1994, Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks showcases the most insightful and beautiful pages. Each of the original volumes is composed of drawings, photographs, and cuttings; pressed flowers are set beside scrawled ideas, and carefully penned poems accompany typed and edited working scripts. These once-private books are an intimate pictorial record of the detailed planning and research and the creative and emotional engagement behind every scene in Jarman’s films. 200 color illustrations
Drawn from the collection of handmade books that Jarman gave to the British Film Institute shortly before his death in 1994, Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks showcases the most insightful and beautiful pages. Each of the original volumes is composed of drawings, photographs, and cuttings; pressed flowers are set beside scrawled ideas, and carefully penned poems accompany typed and edited working scripts. These once-private books are an intimate pictorial record of the detailed planning and research and the creative and emotional engagement behind every scene in Jarman’s films. 200 color illustrations
256 pages, Hardcover
First published October 21, 2013
3 people are currently reading
232 people want to read
About the author
Derek Jarman
33 books203 followersDerek Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, artist, and writer.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 5, 2021
This book that highlights "Derek Jarman's Sketchbooks" is beautiful. I spent a day with it, reading each writer's commentary, and taking in the richness of his art and life. Toyah Willcox writes about meeting Jarman when she was a young woman and how it started her acting career. He gave her a script and told her to pick the role she wanted, excluding one role that was already taken.
Derek Jarman used these elaborate journals for his work and they are works of art showing the breath of his artistic talent. He is English, an artist, a gardener, a set designer, a poet, a calligrapher, and a gay man who died from AIDS at age 52. He once said, "Knowing your lifespan focuses you." And he focused to produced a legacy of theatrical productions, operas, films, art, and music.
A quote I loved that ends his film Blue (1993): "For our time is like the passing of a shadow, and our lives will run like sparks through the stubble. I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave."By this time he had lost his vision from CMV. This film (which is on You Tube) is solid blue with a sound track, composed music with voice, poetry, and song. It’s a way he comes to terms with loosing his sight. John Cage and Derek Jarman are both experimental with a huge influence, they worked together on an opera and John Cage's work influenced Jarman.
His earlier journals were smaller, but the majority of his journals are a particular large leather bound Italian journal. All of them are art pieces with great care and attention reflecting his intention and life. When he switched to the large notebooks he bought ten at a time from Italy, where he sometimes lived; he then painted them black and added gold leaf art and calligraphy. These journals, also called grimoires, or books of magic and spells, are filled with his art, notes and drawings. He worked on set design for theater, opera, and films. He used his journals to design his garden in Dungeness, where he bought a simple house with no indoor bathroom. These large journals include his poetry, flowers he loved and pressed within the journals. This documentation of his Sketchbooks is a coffee table fine art book that honors and documents his work, interests, and life.
Derek Jarman used these elaborate journals for his work and they are works of art showing the breath of his artistic talent. He is English, an artist, a gardener, a set designer, a poet, a calligrapher, and a gay man who died from AIDS at age 52. He once said, "Knowing your lifespan focuses you." And he focused to produced a legacy of theatrical productions, operas, films, art, and music.
A quote I loved that ends his film Blue (1993): "For our time is like the passing of a shadow, and our lives will run like sparks through the stubble. I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave."By this time he had lost his vision from CMV. This film (which is on You Tube) is solid blue with a sound track, composed music with voice, poetry, and song. It’s a way he comes to terms with loosing his sight. John Cage and Derek Jarman are both experimental with a huge influence, they worked together on an opera and John Cage's work influenced Jarman.
His earlier journals were smaller, but the majority of his journals are a particular large leather bound Italian journal. All of them are art pieces with great care and attention reflecting his intention and life. When he switched to the large notebooks he bought ten at a time from Italy, where he sometimes lived; he then painted them black and added gold leaf art and calligraphy. These journals, also called grimoires, or books of magic and spells, are filled with his art, notes and drawings. He worked on set design for theater, opera, and films. He used his journals to design his garden in Dungeness, where he bought a simple house with no indoor bathroom. These large journals include his poetry, flowers he loved and pressed within the journals. This documentation of his Sketchbooks is a coffee table fine art book that honors and documents his work, interests, and life.
February 12, 2014
I had never heard of Derek Jarman, but the red binding and slew of photos in the book caught my attention as I browsed it in the Ridgway Public Library last week. I couldn't resist. Jarman was an avant guard British filmmaker in the 1970's and 80's, working primarily in Super 8mm films with unknown actors and actresses, popularizing the emerging punk movement. Jarman was an English major at Kings College, later went to art school and worked as a set designer. All his adult life he kept the sketchbooks and made them part of his movie play books, scripts, and drawings. Each chapter in the chronological story of his handwritten sketchbooks was written by a friend who was active with him at the time. The book started out well with an introduction by Tilda Swinton who starred in some of the films.
July 9, 2017
The chance to explore Derek Jarman's process as artist, filmmaker and provocateur is irresistible. This edition gathers notes, storyboard snippets, photos, poetry, and creative ephemera, plus a spare and moving foreword from Tilda Swinton, into a volume that, by its nature, is a graze, not yet a feast.
January 18, 2018
Lovely. Curiosity-enhancing. Gold leaf, italic red ink loveliness. Sadness.
April 2, 2014
Review will post here as soon as it posts at it's published site first.
November 9, 2022
Fascinating look at a talented filmmaker's work. The images are gorgeous, and the text is written by individuals who have worked closely with Jarman on his projects. A book to return to over and over again.
June 7, 2023
“for as long as I knew him, there was always a sketchbook on the go. it was unthinkable that there would not be – like the kettle on the boil, the chain on the bicycle, the shilling in the meter.” - tilda swinton ♡
December 28, 2020
Nice to see the sketchbooks and look behind his creative practice but I felt the writing of other people in the book felt a bit pretentious rather than shedding the same light the sketchbook pages do
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews