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Blue (1993 film)

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Blue
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDerek Jarman
Written byDerek Jarman
Produced byJames Mackay
Takashi Asai
Narrated byDerek Jarman
Tilda Swinton
Nigel Terry
John Quentin
Music bySimon Fisher Turner
John Balance
Momus
Peter Christopherson
Karol Szymanowski
Erik Satie
Brian Eno
Production
companies
Distributed byZeitgeist Films (USA)
Basilisk Communications Ltd
Release dates
Venice Biennale, June 1993, Edinburgh International Film Festival, August 1993, 3 October 1993
(New York Film Festival)
Running time
79 min.
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Blue is the twelfth and final feature film by director Derek Jarman, released four months before his death from AIDS-related complications. Such complications had already rendered him partially blind at the time of the film's release.

The film was his last testament as a film-maker, and consists of a single shot of saturated blue colour filling the screen, as background to a soundtrack where Jarman's and some of his favourite actors' narration describes his life and vision.

A blue field like that in the film.

On its premiere, on 19 September 1993,[1] Channel 4 and BBC Radio 3 collaborated on a simultaneous broadcast so viewers could enjoy a stereo soundtrack. Radio 3 subsequently broadcast the soundtrack separately as a radio play and it was later released as a CD.

The film has been released on DVD in Germany and in Italy. On 23 July 2007 British distributor Artificial Eye released DVD tying Blue together with Glitterbug, a collage of Jarman's Super 8 footage.

Cinematographer Christopher Doyle has called Blue one of his favourite films, calling it "one of the most intimate films I've ever seen."[2]

See also

References