What do you think?
Blue
Derek Jarman’s Blue weaves a sensory tapestry that serves as both a political call to action and a meditation on illness, dying, and love.
“For Blue there are no boundaries or solutions.” —Derek Jarman
Originally released as a feature film in 1993, the year before the acclaimed artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman’s death due to an AIDS-related illness, Blue is a daring and powerful work of art. The film and its script, as reproduced in this volume, serve as an impassioned response to the lack of political engagement with the AIDS crisis.
Jarman’s Blue moves through myriad scenes, some banal, others fantastical. Stories of quotidian life––getting coffee, reading the newspaper, and walking down the sidewalk––escalate to visions of Marco Polo, the Taj Mahal, or blue fighting yellow. Facing death and a cascade of pills, Jarman presents his illness in delirium and metaphors. He contemplates the physicality of emotions in lyrical prose as he grounds this story in the constant return to Blue—a color, a feeling, a funk. Michael Charlesworth’s compelling introduction brings Blue into conversation with Jarman’s visual paintings.
“For Blue there are no boundaries or solutions.” —Derek Jarman
Originally released as a feature film in 1993, the year before the acclaimed artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman’s death due to an AIDS-related illness, Blue is a daring and powerful work of art. The film and its script, as reproduced in this volume, serve as an impassioned response to the lack of political engagement with the AIDS crisis.
Jarman’s Blue moves through myriad scenes, some banal, others fantastical. Stories of quotidian life––getting coffee, reading the newspaper, and walking down the sidewalk––escalate to visions of Marco Polo, the Taj Mahal, or blue fighting yellow. Facing death and a cascade of pills, Jarman presents his illness in delirium and metaphors. He contemplates the physicality of emotions in lyrical prose as he grounds this story in the constant return to Blue—a color, a feeling, a funk. Michael Charlesworth’s compelling introduction brings Blue into conversation with Jarman’s visual paintings.
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Derek Jarman
34 books223 followersDerek Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, artist, and writer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
July 16, 2023
Let me set the scene: Leaving Hamer hall, full from a Big Mac and Pino, I hop on the crowded tram home. And this book sends me on the biggest emotional, out of body, poetic, literary experience of my LIFE.
The poetry was gorgeous, and heartbreaking, and honest.
It was a lament for the dead, and an affirmation for the living from its author, who was dying of AIDS at the time.
It’s about the colour blue, in its, limitless, platonic, pure sense - the true blue.
Blue is also the name of the ‘main character’.
And the final run of poetry about the sunken Aegean statues sent me.
A new absolute favourite of mine I can see myself comming back to again.
The poetry was gorgeous, and heartbreaking, and honest.
It was a lament for the dead, and an affirmation for the living from its author, who was dying of AIDS at the time.
It’s about the colour blue, in its, limitless, platonic, pure sense - the true blue.
Blue is also the name of the ‘main character’.
And the final run of poetry about the sunken Aegean statues sent me.
A new absolute favourite of mine I can see myself comming back to again.
October 13, 2024
"How did my friends cross the cobalt river, with what did they pay the ferryman? As they set out for the indigo shore under this jet-black sky"
Avant garde in i det sista. Det här är en döende mans desperata dagbok från de mörkaste aidsåren. Jag hade arrangerat en mycket speciell läsmiljö, på Folkestone Beach med konturerna av Dungeness framför mig i bukten. Den omöjliga plats där Derek Jarman hade sin omöjliga trädgård.
Dessutom letade jag upp filmen Blue . Den består av en enda lång blå stillbild. Spelade upp den som en ljudbok medan jag följde med i manuset i boken framför mig. Det hela påminde mig om slutscenen i den franska filmen Le temps qui reste . Lite senare simmade jag lite i den gyllene eftermiddagsljuset och kände mig levande.
Se mer här:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DALVvtBuN...
Har tyckt om allt jag läst av Jarman. Den här är så klart den mörkaste.
Avant garde in i det sista. Det här är en döende mans desperata dagbok från de mörkaste aidsåren. Jag hade arrangerat en mycket speciell läsmiljö, på Folkestone Beach med konturerna av Dungeness framför mig i bukten. Den omöjliga plats där Derek Jarman hade sin omöjliga trädgård.
Dessutom letade jag upp filmen Blue . Den består av en enda lång blå stillbild. Spelade upp den som en ljudbok medan jag följde med i manuset i boken framför mig. Det hela påminde mig om slutscenen i den franska filmen Le temps qui reste . Lite senare simmade jag lite i den gyllene eftermiddagsljuset och kände mig levande.
Se mer här:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DALVvtBuN...
Har tyckt om allt jag läst av Jarman. Den här är så klart den mörkaste.
September 19, 2025
More than a book — it’s an experience.
Holding Blue while watching Jarman’s film feels like touching silence itself.
It’s beautiful, aching, and alive in a way language almost resents.
You don’t just read it — you dissolve into it.
Holding Blue while watching Jarman’s film feels like touching silence itself.
It’s beautiful, aching, and alive in a way language almost resents.
You don’t just read it — you dissolve into it.
February 20, 2024
beautiful & heartbreaking; looking forward to seeing the film next month
March 26, 2025
Thanks Sally for letting me borrow the book I gifted to you two years ago 🫶
This is just the script to Jarman’s Blue presented like a poem but damn it if it isn’t an absolute work of genius.
“Our name will be forgotten
In time
No one will remember our work
Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud
And be scattered like
Mist that is chased by the
Rays of the Sun
For our time is the passing of a shadow
And our lives will run like
Sparks through the stubble
I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave.”
:(
This is just the script to Jarman’s Blue presented like a poem but damn it if it isn’t an absolute work of genius.
“Our name will be forgotten
In time
No one will remember our work
Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud
And be scattered like
Mist that is chased by the
Rays of the Sun
For our time is the passing of a shadow
And our lives will run like
Sparks through the stubble
I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave.”
:(
May 2, 2022
Pearl fishers
In azure seas
Deep waters
Washing the isle of the dead
In coral harbours
Amphora
Spill
Gold
Across the still seabed
We lie there
Fanned by the billowing
Sails of forgotten ships
Tossed by the mournful winds
Of the deep
Lost Boys
Sleep forever
In a dear embrace
Salt lips touching
In submarine gardens
Cool marble fingers
Touch an antique smile
Shell sounds
Whisper
Deep love drifting on the tide forever
The smell of him
Dead good looking
In beauty’s summer
His blue jeans
Around his ankles
Bliss in my ghostly eye
Kiss me
On the lips
On the eyes
Our name will be forgotten
In time
No one will remember our work
Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud
And be scattered like
Mist that is chased by the
Rays of the sun
For our time is the passing of a shadow
And our lives will run like
Sparks through the stubble
In azure seas
Deep waters
Washing the isle of the dead
In coral harbours
Amphora
Spill
Gold
Across the still seabed
We lie there
Fanned by the billowing
Sails of forgotten ships
Tossed by the mournful winds
Of the deep
Lost Boys
Sleep forever
In a dear embrace
Salt lips touching
In submarine gardens
Cool marble fingers
Touch an antique smile
Shell sounds
Whisper
Deep love drifting on the tide forever
The smell of him
Dead good looking
In beauty’s summer
His blue jeans
Around his ankles
Bliss in my ghostly eye
Kiss me
On the lips
On the eyes
Our name will be forgotten
In time
No one will remember our work
Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud
And be scattered like
Mist that is chased by the
Rays of the sun
For our time is the passing of a shadow
And our lives will run like
Sparks through the stubble
October 22, 2008
One of the most amazing collections of letters and words the ever impact my emotions. the imagery is stunning and the impact will leave you with scars. for me it was a good thing.
Derek Jarman at his best. This is easily the prize book in my collection.
Derek Jarman at his best. This is easily the prize book in my collection.
March 19, 2025
“Love is life that lasts forever.”
Tragic and transcendental, full of love and life even as it faithfully depicts so much loss.
Tragic and transcendental, full of love and life even as it faithfully depicts so much loss.
July 13, 2025
It's funny how you kind of expect a novel to give you more than its film adaptation, but this screenplay of Derek Jarman's final film did exactly the same for me. There is so much in this short book, and it has definitely made me want to rewatch the film. Moving, funny and enough to make you angry once more over what life was like then.
February 23, 2021
Krzysztof Kieslowski, Yavuz Cetin & Kerim Capli, and finally Derek Jarman. They all associate the color blue with blues, interpreting it with the inability (and unwillingness) to adapt to society, the inevitable feeling of social exclusion and the experience of being near-death.
It’s such a calming color, yet has a complex idea in itself. Blue is the color of infinity, the terrestrial paradise, of the sky and the oceans, and the Earth we live on. But on the other hand, it's the color of the mourning, losing sight and unbearable pain of being alive.
After reading this poetic farewell letter and listening to Derek Jarman's inner voice between life and death against Yves Klein's blue, my mind opened to endless associations. Now all shades of blue remind me of an emotional journey in the world that involves the joyous and painful aspects of life.
-
"To be an astronaut of the void, leave the comfortable house that imprisons you with reassurance. Remember,
To be going and to have are not eternal-fight the fear that engenders the beginning, the middle and the end.
For Blue, there are no boundaries or solutions."
It’s such a calming color, yet has a complex idea in itself. Blue is the color of infinity, the terrestrial paradise, of the sky and the oceans, and the Earth we live on. But on the other hand, it's the color of the mourning, losing sight and unbearable pain of being alive.
After reading this poetic farewell letter and listening to Derek Jarman's inner voice between life and death against Yves Klein's blue, my mind opened to endless associations. Now all shades of blue remind me of an emotional journey in the world that involves the joyous and painful aspects of life.
-
"To be an astronaut of the void, leave the comfortable house that imprisons you with reassurance. Remember,
To be going and to have are not eternal-fight the fear that engenders the beginning, the middle and the end.
For Blue, there are no boundaries or solutions."
January 2, 2024
Een stukje uit het boek:
“I fill this room with the echo of many voices
Who passed time here
Voices unlocked from the blue of the long dried painting”
Derek Jarman weet mij iedere keer te ontroeren met zijn poëtische zinnen en diepe belevingswereld. In ieder werk is zijn liefde voor zijn tuin en bloemen terug te vinden, zo ook hier.
Ik merkte dat ik nog niet klaar was om de film ‘Blue’ te kijken, maar dit boek, met een introductie en het script zelf, is een fijne inleiding voor de film.
Ik ben wederom achtergelaten met onwijs veel inspiratie.
“I fill this room with the echo of many voices
Who passed time here
Voices unlocked from the blue of the long dried painting”
Derek Jarman weet mij iedere keer te ontroeren met zijn poëtische zinnen en diepe belevingswereld. In ieder werk is zijn liefde voor zijn tuin en bloemen terug te vinden, zo ook hier.
Ik merkte dat ik nog niet klaar was om de film ‘Blue’ te kijken, maar dit boek, met een introductie en het script zelf, is een fijne inleiding voor de film.
Ik ben wederom achtergelaten met onwijs veel inspiratie.
October 17, 2024
Se filmen eller læs manuskriptet, du bliver nødt til at opleve mesterværket om at være døende.
Jarman var en stor kunstner.
Jarman var en stor kunstner.
December 26, 2025
Such an incredibly moving piece my god. So vulnerable and raw. A subject handled with such care and a delicate yet fierce nature. Its ugly, its beautiful and its powerful. Jarman deserves all the praise for this.
Also blue being one of my favourite colours, it was so fascinating reading about it in such an abstract way. Loved it!!
Also blue being one of my favourite colours, it was so fascinating reading about it in such an abstract way. Loved it!!
August 2, 2025
It isn’t summer unless I have at least one book about AIDS in the rotation. God, Jarman was a goddamn genius. There’s really nothing else to say.
Singular and stunning.
Singular and stunning.
January 1, 2025
heartbreakingly beautiful
August 18, 2020
This review is really a note to self: this film is amazing; the script is amazing; I'm sure the Overlook Books publication is gorgeous and I wish I had a copy; it feels somewhat silly to give five stars to 11 sheets of paper printed from the Internet, but the text deserves nothing less. N.B., Magical Goodreads Fairy: please grant my wish to acquire a proper copy of this text.
Update (December 2024): this book/work is the best shit I have ever read, without exaggeration (dysphemism aside).
Update (December 2024): this book/work is the best shit I have ever read, without exaggeration (dysphemism aside).
November 26, 2024
“I have walked behind the sky.
For what are you seeking?
The fathomless blue of Bliss.
To be an astronaut of the void, leave the comfortable house that imprisons you with reassurance.
Remember,
To be going and to have are not eternal - fight the fear that engenders the beginning, the middle and the end.
For Blue there are no boundaries or solution.
Time is what keeps the light from reaching us.”
For what are you seeking?
The fathomless blue of Bliss.
To be an astronaut of the void, leave the comfortable house that imprisons you with reassurance.
Remember,
To be going and to have are not eternal - fight the fear that engenders the beginning, the middle and the end.
For Blue there are no boundaries or solution.
Time is what keeps the light from reaching us.”
January 9, 2026
This reminded me of Guillaume Dustan’s Dans ma chambre (though much less explicit) - both texts are incredibly sad, which goes without saying, but are charged with an unwavering rebellion in defiance of death. Jarman was dying as he wrote this, and includes graphic accounts of his end of life treatment and the banal routine this entails, but also makes room for intense, poetic musings where he daydreams, reminisces and mourns. He mourns his loss of vision, and of course he mourns lovers and friends: “The virus rages fierce. I have no friends now who are not dead or dying. Like a blue frost it caught them. At work, at the cinema, on marches and beaches. In churches on their knees, running, flying, silent or shouting protest.” He mourns his own imminent death: “I caught myself looking at shoes in a shop window. I thought of going in and buying a pair, but stopped myself. The shoes I am wearing at the moment should be sufficient to walk me out of life.” However, like Dustan, Jarman also unapologetically blasts reminders that love, sex, sexual pleasure, friendship and family are also part of being gay, and that being HIV+ and having a sex drive are not mutually exclusive…all of which are undeniably rebellious moments of celebration during the AIDS crisis. Need to watch the film now.
August 2, 2024
"I am a mannish
Muff diving
Size queen
With bad attitude
An arse licking
Psychofag
Molesting the flies of privacy
Balling lesbian boys
A perverted heterodemon
Crossing purpose with death
I am a cock sucking
Straight acting
Lesbian man
With ball crushing bad manners
Laddish nymphomaniac politics
Spunky sexist desires
Of incestuous inversion and
Incorrect terminology
I am a Not Gay"
Primita de la Sanda <3
Muff diving
Size queen
With bad attitude
An arse licking
Psychofag
Molesting the flies of privacy
Balling lesbian boys
A perverted heterodemon
Crossing purpose with death
I am a cock sucking
Straight acting
Lesbian man
With ball crushing bad manners
Laddish nymphomaniac politics
Spunky sexist desires
Of incestuous inversion and
Incorrect terminology
I am a Not Gay"
Primita de la Sanda <3
August 25, 2025
"I shall not win the battle against the virus – in spite of the slogans like 'Living with AIDS'. The virus was appropriated by the well – so we have to live with AIDS while they spread the quilt for the moths of Ithaca across the wine dark sea. / Awareness is heightened by this, but something else is lost. A sense of reality drowned in theatre."
Read
August 18, 2026Every line this man ever wrote is my definition of heartache… “For our time is the passing of a shadow / And our lives will run like / Sparks through the stubble / I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave.”
June 29, 2026
Gut wrenching
March 17, 2019
A film entirely in blue. Personal yet isolated. I was able to acquire the compact disc, the audio from the film. The feeling in Blue is one of loss and hope.
April 3, 2026
When he sees some shoes in a store and stops himself from buying them as he realizes: "The shoes I am wearing at the moment should be sufficient to walk me out of life"
What a devastating little book
What a devastating little book
July 12, 2026
Love is life that lasts forever, even now, at the end of times. An f-u to everyone complicit in the institutionalized epidemics.
April 20, 2023
I really wouldn’t care if I felt BLUE all the time…….if it made me feel like I did when I read this book…..INCREDIBLY FABULOUS….THE LEGEND that is and always will be DEREK JARMAN ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
November 13, 2022
Easily one of the most depressing yet stunningly pieces of media I have ever encountered.
I stumbled with Derek Jarman’s work because of the music videos he made for The Smiths and three days ago I decided to watch “Caravaggio”, main reasons being my curiosity towards the painter and my love for Tilda Swinton’s performances, since I loved the movie, of course I had to investigate everything about everyone involved in the film and I started to enter into Jerman’s filmography, and Blue (1993) caught my attention immediately by finding out the context of the film, a narration of his experiences with AIDS where the only visual is a blue screen that is accompanied by an astonishing soundtrack that creates the ambience of the text.
I could not find the full version of the film so I had to settle with only a few scenes, but I did find the transcript, that’s why I’m logging it in here. I read it while I listened to the few scenes that I had found and the other parts I read them aloud to my mom, since she was also invested in the film.
I cannot believe that a text of 30 pages left me completely heartbroken, my voice cracked every time i read aloud, my chest ached and tears began to fall from my eyes. Reading and listening to someone talking about how they are experiencing death leaves a hole in your heart that I don’t think it would fill again.
I’m thankful for the amount of progress society has made towards the lgbt+ community, but I believe that it’s important to never forget the ones who died during this specific period of time, stories like this matter so much because it humanizes them, they were not victims but poets, artists, engineers, musicians, human beings that had lives, loved ones and stories to share.
This film now holds a very special place in my heart.
Note from the future me: I can’t believe that this is still impregnated in my mind days after
I stumbled with Derek Jarman’s work because of the music videos he made for The Smiths and three days ago I decided to watch “Caravaggio”, main reasons being my curiosity towards the painter and my love for Tilda Swinton’s performances, since I loved the movie, of course I had to investigate everything about everyone involved in the film and I started to enter into Jerman’s filmography, and Blue (1993) caught my attention immediately by finding out the context of the film, a narration of his experiences with AIDS where the only visual is a blue screen that is accompanied by an astonishing soundtrack that creates the ambience of the text.
I could not find the full version of the film so I had to settle with only a few scenes, but I did find the transcript, that’s why I’m logging it in here. I read it while I listened to the few scenes that I had found and the other parts I read them aloud to my mom, since she was also invested in the film.
I cannot believe that a text of 30 pages left me completely heartbroken, my voice cracked every time i read aloud, my chest ached and tears began to fall from my eyes. Reading and listening to someone talking about how they are experiencing death leaves a hole in your heart that I don’t think it would fill again.
I’m thankful for the amount of progress society has made towards the lgbt+ community, but I believe that it’s important to never forget the ones who died during this specific period of time, stories like this matter so much because it humanizes them, they were not victims but poets, artists, engineers, musicians, human beings that had lives, loved ones and stories to share.
This film now holds a very special place in my heart.
Note from the future me: I can’t believe that this is still impregnated in my mind days after
June 16, 2023
I've seen the original film of this and reading the transcript of it reminded me of how incredibly special it is. On paper it's a poem that barely reaches 20 pages, going back and forth between complete lucidity about his daily experiences as an AIDS patient steadily losing his eyesight (by the time he was writing this he could only see in shades of blue, so the film is just a solid blue screen with this text read in voiceover by him and his friends like Tilda Swinton, plus music by Brian Eno and a few others) and these more abstract dreamlike stretches more like a stream of images associated with and evoked by the color blue-- underwater cities, Marco Polo on a lapis throne, blue bottle flies. It's so simple and short but it feels like an entire life summed up and thousands of other lives mourned, an act of protest but also a pretty naked outpouring of emotion and love for his friends who he's lost and friends who are going to lose him soon. In a very uniquely Derek Jarman way, he transfigures all this suffering and indignity into something glimmering and haunting and always slightly out of reach.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews