Blue

by Derek Jarman, Michael Charlesworth (Introduction)

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.

Genres: Poetry, Art, Queer, Film, Nonfiction, London, Disability

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Derek Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, artist, and writer.

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful & heartbreaking; looking forward to seeing the film next month

[Mind the Book · Rating 5 out of 5]

"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.

[Sam Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.”

:(

[Abdulaziz · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[3z13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Sally Elhennawy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Love is life that lasts forever.”

Tragic and transcendental, full of love and life even as it faithfully depicts so much loss.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Aylin · Rating 4 out of 5]

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."

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Erofili · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!!

[Will Speros · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Sien Van de Wouwer · Rating 4 out of 5]

heartbreakingly beautiful

[Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

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).

[Marius · Rating 4 out of 5]

"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

[Coco Goran · Rating 5 out of 5]

“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.”

[Ginny Darke · Rating 5 out of 5]

"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."

[Lewis Isbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

blue

[J.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Christopher Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[alexa ˚୨୧⋆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[AJ Lonski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This publication contains the spoken words in the film “Blue.” On its own, it is poetry/prose—in context of “Blue,” it is a reflection of an individual’s life/impending death due to HIV/AIDS.

I was captivated—read it if you can.

[cypher · Rating 3 out of 5]

this edition contains an introduction by Michael Charlesworth and the text/script (with poems) from the 1993 motion picture “Blue” by Derek Jarman, a short book, of about 60 pages total.
the introduction: very useful and helps in preparation to understand the text of "Blue".
"Blue" text: heavily edited to be artsy, and using chromatic symbolism to translate human emotions like depression, fear, hope and universal concepts like life and death, the script/movie focuses on the thoughts and experiences of a man shadowed by illness, more specifically AIDS/HIV, drawn from the author’s personal experience (himself and acquaintances). another major theme found is acceptance towards one's sexual orientation, on an individual and cultural level, and placed in relation to AIDS/HIV.
overall, i felt the work was a bit too much articulated to be “art”, by using diluted, often confusing, depictions of ideas (the “artsy” feel) and got transformed into something more cryptic and layered than it needed to be, especially since the subject requires more directness to evolve knowledge, culture and society. this also needs to be looked at as a potential incompatibility of format, "Blue" was more suitable in its visual representation, as it was originally designed by the author, and not as text (where we are missing the main elements meant to capture an audience's attention).

as part of the book collection named "Ekphrasis" ("defined as the literary representation of a work of visual art", "interpreted as one art form, whether it be writing, visual art, music, or film, that is used to define and describe another art form, in order to bring to an audience the experimental and visceral impact of the subject"), this book definitely fits in. as described in the introduction, the movie "Blue has become an internationally acclaimed work (...) the film's stature as a monument to the approximatively forty million people who have died of AIDS-related illnesses has only grown, and its importance has deepened in the years since it was made", especially since the world is still battling this problem in the present and attention needs to be brought towards it, a cause which art (and film) can serve.
books bringing attention to films which bring attention to problems in society, will always be better than no investment of effort whatsoever.

some quotes from the book:
"
Blue protects white from innocence
Blue drags black with it
Blue is darkness made visible
"

"
As I slept a jet slammed into a tower block. The jet was almost empty, but two hundred people were fried in their sleep.
The earth is dying and we do not notice it.
"

"
I caught myself looking at shoes in a shop window. I thought of going in a buying a pair, but stopped myself. The shoes I am wearing at the moment should be sufficient to walk me out of life.
"

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Blue is the universal love in which man bathes — it is the terrestrial paradise.” Continuing my recent blue streak I had to read Derek Jarman’s Blue, a reproduction of the script to the iconic final film by Jarman, which I’ve seen in pieces in galleries in the past. The script is an abstract poem meandering through the ugliness of AIDS/HIV and Jarman’s experience, in the final years of his life, of suffering through the illness and its early treatments. “I step into a blue funk.” But it is also interspersed with flashes of love and life, all in the lens of blue, an echo of blindness: “Singing the blues / Quiet and slowly / Blue of my heart / Blue of my dreams / Slow blue love”; “In the pandemonium of image / I present you with the universal Blue”. In places unspeakably painful, it weeps with grief over what has been lost, what will be left behind: “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.” “The virus rages fierce. I have no friends now who are not dead or dying. Like a blue frost it caught them.” The question “How am I going to walk away from this?” is especially plaintive and affecting.

[Joey Shapiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Javier Janer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the screenplay and i really appreciated the analytical introduction to the works of derek jarman (this is the david zwimer edition of the screenplay) and i would really love to read more of this style of work (ekpharasis). I really want to watch the visual version even though it does not provide more visual details but the color but i would love to hear the choices of intonation and speed of some of the sections of the screenplay. There were some moments where i was slightly confused albeit i think it adds to the idea of confronting death and there were some very poignant and beautifully sad and intimate moments of poetry.

[vini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lendo depois de assistir o filme. Obviamente é uma experiência bem diferente do audiovisual, que de visual não tem muita coisa por ser só uma tela azul... Mas todo o multimodal que há no filme deixa o texto muito mais triste do que ele já é.
Eu acho que esse tema sempre vai me deixar triste, eu não consigo enxergar nenhuma positividade no fato de morrer aos poucos, de perder o brilho dos olhos e se tornar só um corpo frio, decadente, maribundo, azul...

[Rafa Montón · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Love is life that lasts forever'

Mencioné que esta podría ser la combinación de palabras más bella y simple posible, a lo que Sergi contestó "tan simple que parece que lleva escrita desde siempre".

Las verdades y las cosas bellas suelen estarlo, Derek sabía tanto de ambas.

[iamazoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

this rating is really for the film (which is nothing short of legendary) #iykyk