Inspiration

When I was still in the closet and living in Houston, I would go to Blockbuster and rent any gay movie I could get my hands on. However it was Derek Jarman's Edward II that really blew my mind and made me feel like, as a gay person, I would one day exist on a higher plateau—some ethereal, romantic space reserved for those of us who knew the power and the beauty that two men shared between them when they loved. I decided then and there I would name my first son Gaveston (we would all call him Gavey for short) after Edward's star-crossed lover.

And it was a reminder, a wake up call really, to see Isaac Julien's documentary Derek. The film is a rare glimpse at the life and work of Jarman—a kind of poetic mix up of his ideas, his early films, his personal oration direct to camera evaluating himself and his legacy on the brink of his own death, and mostly an homage. The film is written by Tilda Swinton, Jarman's longtime muse and collaborator, and is structured as a letter from her to him, as she thinks back to what he has meant to her. But it is also about what Jarman mean to culture, queer or otherwise.

As Tilda took the stage for the Q&A following the world premiere, she stressed the feeling that Jarman's work represented the rough edges, the playful artistic endeavor and everything that Sundance use to mean. She also talked about how culture has shifted to a sleek ("there is a lot of finish on things") corporate ("Main St. in Sundance has become a shopping mall") soulless enterprise. Basically the product, the look and feel, in her view, is trumping the idea, the attempt. And it was for this reason Swinton and Julian felt it was time to bring Derek Jarman back to culture and introduce him to a new generation that has perhaps never heard of his work. Her message of hope is that Jarman was part of a chain, the spirit of which cannot be broken and that she and all of us are responsible for taking it back up.

[My digital camera died but the good people at Kodak were good enough to loan me one for the festival, a Kodak Easyshare V1253. Unfortunately I had not yet learned how to work it. Here are Tilda Swinton and B. Ruby Rich at dinner.]

The evening was a historic one. It was 16 years ago that Jarman brought Edward II to Sundance along with Gregg Araki with The Living End, Isaac Julien with Young Soul Rebels, and Tom Kalin with Swoon. When these films screened at the festival, critic B. Ruby Rich proclaimed it the advent of "New Queer Cinema." And now they were all back. The Living End had screened on Friday with a totally remastered print. Kalin had brought his real life murder story Savage Grace (starring Julianne Moore and being released by IFC in May) and Julian has brought back Jarman, in a way.

They were all gathered, along with controversial director Bruce LaBruce, at the Windy Ridge Cafe for a dinner I attended. James Shamus of Focus, Jonathan Sehring of IFC, Marcus Hu of Strand, and Christine Vachon were also in attendance. They toasted, they reminisced, and speech after speech talked about the changes that had occurred since they were all last in the same place at the same time. But no one seemed really to know what was next.

I was star struck, as so many of these people were my childhood idols and inspired me to go to film school study them. Also Tilda Swinton is probably the most beautiful woman in the world not to mention intimidatingly aloof and distant, and then when asked to speak, articulate, warm, and inspirational. Still it felt like the toast of things gone by and I envied them their past and being a part of something so amazing, but was saddened by the fact that I was not a part of "New New Queer Cinema."

Still there was hope. Savage Grace, which I screened earlier in the day, was magnificent. Kalin constructed an elaborate world in which a domineering Julian Moore playing real life Barbara Baekland, slowly drives her husband away only to replace him with her son. Her son Tony is played by young Eddie Redmayne, who I had the pleasure of meeting. He was wearing a very cute sweater actually for someone who could speak fluently about playing incest.

[Redymane with director Tom Kalin]

And of course Gregg Araki was there and there is hope that his next film could be another step in the right direction.

[Araki very reluctantly letting me take his picture.]

And then there was going to be Otto: Up With Dead People, Bruce LaBruce's latest, which I would see the next day.