Arguments could perhaps be made that Derek Jarman is or was or however you want to put it the most important gay film maker in history to date. I’m not wholly convinced that such a claim would really be true, but it feels like something that one could make a compelling case for if they were so inclined. Certainly, at least so far as British cinematic history is concerned, he’s well up there though. It’s kind of difficult to think of many others for whom it informed their work so much, or at least ones who enjoyed the same measure of success despite (or maybe because of) the homosexual… I hesitate to say ‘themes’ because it doesn’t seem like a strong enough word in regards to Jarman’s work, but that particular je ne sais quoi that pervades their oeuvre. Obviously, there are a fair few prominent gay film makers and a fair few prominent films about homosexuality, but the two are perhaps less intrinsically linked than you might expect. Major (British) films that use it as subject matter, such Victim (1961), Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971) and My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), aren’t especially indicative of their directors’ careers, and anyway only the director of one of those films was gay. Also I might be overstating how ‘major’ those films were in their time, even if they’re deemed muy important now.

Well, anyway, Sebastiane is Jarman’s first film as director, or his first full length one at any rate; he did a ton of short films prior. Its status on that front is actually kind of weird, mind you. He actually shares the directing (and writing, for that matter) credit with Paul Humfress, the man’s sole directing (and writing)* credit (most of his work is as an editor), with Humfress getting credited in the role before Jarman, which may or may not mean something. They might have just done it alphabetically for all I know. This only really applies to the film itself, with most marketing material and video packaging and that just giving Jarman’s name outside the billing block (and one I saw even within); the BFI’s recent-ish release is pretty much the only edition I’ve seen to include Humfress’ name, albeit with the two names’ order swapped, and seemingly that was a late decision, given as the ease of finding pre-release mock-ups of its sleeve online which only mention Jarman. That’s not to say it isn’t a ‘real’ Jarman film somehow; hell, given as one of the first titles to appear in the credits, before the name of the film itself even, is “Derek Jarman’s film”, we can probably infer that it was primarily his baby.** I just thought it was an odd bit of trivia.

Yes, well… Sebastiane is a film of the story of St Sebastian. Well, more or less. St Sebastian being as he is or was or whatever the gayest of saint. I’d say I’m not sure why exactly, but, eh, I expect we all kind of know, even if those reasons have little to do with the story or possibly, like, reality. Check out all that Renaissance art, where it’s all just an excuse to depict a bound scantily clad man getting stuck with phallic objects and being not as bothered by it as one might expect. Then again, a lot of art of Christian martyrs seems to show them taking it rather well.

I like the El Greco one. It looks like he’s contemplating what to have for dinner while arrows are piercing his lungs.

Anyway, yeah, so the film… after the setting is laid by means of a text crawl and by Lindsay Kemp and co. doing a dance that could be called ‘suggestive’ if you’re into understatement (it involves giant papier-mâché willies and a whole load of flour paste spunk), we get to the crux of the matter; at this here Natalis Solis Invicti bacchanal, Sebastian (Leonardo Treviglio), the rabidly anti-Christian emperor’s favourite and captain of his personal guard, gets in the way of all this glorious hedonism when he tries, though seemingly not very hard, to stop some spur of the moment Christian slaughter in the midst of the revelry. This meddling apparently outs him as a Christian, which was a no go at the time, and he’s stripped of his fancy rank and sent off to a crappy garrison on some godforsaken rock. While there, his sexy lame-o act intrigues and/or infuriates the other soldiers, in particular Severus (Barney James), the commanding officer, who expends great effort to destroy Sebastian… or fuck him… or both. It’s not really a spoiler at this point to say that it all ends in Sebastian getting shot with arrows a whole bunch, being sentenced to summary execution on account of his general reluctance to take up arms for the glory of the empire and that. One somewhat ponders how he got into the royal guard if he’s such a raging pacifist, but I suppose that’s how favouritism works.

Despite the arrow thing being the bit people know about St Sebastian, that’s traditionally the miracle bit rather than the martyrdom bit; in the official church sanctioned story, he miraculously gets better from having been shot through a whole bunch and proceeds to immediately go and remartyr himself by having a go at the emperor, who has him beaten to death and dumped in the sewer. It’s all a lot less glamourous, so I guess that’s why artists stick to the bit about him getting more pricks than a dartboard (*fnar*).

What to say? Famously the film is entirely in Latin. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the Latin as I’m from after that point when we felt it was entirely necessary to learn Latin at school just because, and I’ve seen a few comments that suggests it’s not great, though on the other hand the old Monthly Film Bulletin review claims it to be “surprisingly credible as a vernacular”, so… yeah, I don’t know. I’d presume that Latin As She Is Spoke™ was actually quite different to the Latin that people are actually taught, mind you; consider things like Vulgar Latin and the Romance languages that are descended from it. Latin has perhaps never sounded so earthy as it does in this film… well, since it was spoken as a matter of course, anyway. It also allows for subtitle-based jokes; the most famous of which being its rendering of ‘Oedipus’ as ‘motherfucker’. Ironically, despite the Latin thing, it’s quite probably one of Jarman’s more accessible films by virtue of it telling a definite story with a beginning, a middle and an end in a fairly uncomplicated manner.

The film is all very slow-paced and meditative when it’s not flagrantly eroticising everything, though really it often is even then. As the film seemingly posits, ol’ Sebastian channels his latent homosexuality into his love of god… but perhaps not the one you’re thinking of, as his worship all seems to be skew rather Apollonian in its approach, or Mithraic perhaps. This all to the chagrin of the sadistic commander who wants to bang him; there’s also the suggestion that Seb rather masochistically adores his own suffering. Take it all as you will. For all the flesh on display (and that opening dance bit), this isn’t a case of arthouse smut however. Indeed, you might be somewhat disappointed if you’re looking for that, as for all its eroticisation of the male body, you’re not going to see much in the way of actual sex scenes. Bear in mind that one of the key themes of the story that Jarman presents is not ‘sex’ so much as ‘desire’. Instead there’s much more in the way of dialogue, as the characters discuss various topics relevant to them and generally sort of hang out around their station in the middle of nowhere. Severus’ relationship with Sebastian is contrasted with that of Justin (Richard Warwick), who’s also homoerotically enamoured with the future martyr but on a more intellectual level rather than physical desire.

Made on a tight £30k, there’s not all that much room for spectacle. Indeed, the inevitable arrow scene falls apart if you look too closely. However, the film nonetheless looks quite handsome with a lot of artistic shot compositions, befitting, perhaps, given Jarman’s history as an artist. One ponders how much of the budget went on the location shooting; Jarman did claim that the reason for the copious nudity was because they couldn’t afford much in the way of costuming (hmm, I believe you, thousands wouldn’t). The bulk of the film was shot in Sardinia, with only the cameo laden opening bacchanal being shot in studio (though not really a film one; specifically, it was the Butler’s Wharf studio of artist Andrew Logan). This means you don’t get much of the idiosyncratic set design that you see Jarman’s later films, but you do get some stunning vistas and natural scenery depicted with a painterly eye. Frankly, it’s almost worth the admission itself.

In a bid to ruin this for everyone, here’s a note I made: a lot of sequences that feel like set ups for sex scenes that aren’t forthcoming? Military men in states of undress frolicking together in the sand and waves? It’s proto-Top Gun! BAM! Can’t unsee it now!

* Unless we’re counting script associates as such. He worked in such a capacity on cult favourite Schalcken the Painter (1979).



** Rowland Wymer claims in his review of the film that Jarman requested Humfress assist with the film’s direction and editing, being as he was an “experienced BBC film maker” (Wymer), though as I say, this is Humfress’ sole directorial credit (he did have a handful of earlier editing credits however). Presumably this had something to do with the project being considerably grander in scope than his shorts work.