Glitterbug

Derek Jarman came up in conversation on these pages yesterday and with an hour to spare earlier I revisited the 1994 film Glitterbug, a fantastic 53min compendium of footage culled from Derek's Super 8 films. I first saw the film in March '94, just three weeks after Jarman's death when it was screened on BBC2 as part of the Arena series. The film was preceded by an interview with Jarman discussing his Super 8 work, but more crucially, the Arena broadcast included captions which identified some of the more substantial Super 8 fragments ("1972 Andrew Logan's Alternative Miss World competition" and so on). Unfortunately, these captions were omitted from Glitterbug's subsequent Raro and Artificial Eye DVD editions but I see the Arena broadcast has made it to youtube, complete with prologue and captions. Check it out here

top row left: filming Sebastiane in Sardinia, 1976,

top row right: footage from Marianne Faithfull promo Broken English, 1979

bottom row left: William Burroughs in London after filming a cameo appearance for Klaus Maeck's film Decoder, 1982

bottom row right: Throbbing Gristle at Heaven nightclub on 23rd December 1980, part of the T.G Psychic Rally In Heaven film