Queer Edward II

The humdrum but magical business of making a low-budget film – lugging sets around, pulling off fake lashes, haggling with extras, cobbling together the cash to pay for it all – is perfectly captured in this intimate, joyful and politically-edged doc about the making of Derek Jarman’s queer 1991 period drama Edward II. 

Seamus McGarvey is now a twice Oscar-nominated cinematographer who has worked with Greta Gerwig, Joe Wright, Lynne Ramsay and others. Back in 1991, he was an aspiring DP who scored an access-all-areas invite to film Jarman as he shot Edward II over five weeks at Bray Studios. Using this hitherto unseen material, debut director Theo Rollason does a fine job stitching together an effervescent making-of doc with a social history of the gay rights movement, AIDS-era Britain and the repressive policies of ’80s and ’90s governments. 

Were he still alive, the treatment would no doubt have made excellent sense to Jarman. The great British artist and filmmaker, who would die of an AIDS-related illness three years after making the film, had already forged a punky vision of contemporary Britain with Jubilee (1978) and a violent, anachronistic period piece in Caravaggio (1986), With Edward II, he’d merge the two ideas together. A modernised take on the Christopher Marlowe play, it spoke to the homophobic and politically repressive state of the day. For Jarman, there was no hard boundary between art and politics or basic human rights. He’s filming by day, protesting against Section 28 and unequal consent laws at night. 

If you love a movie about the movies, this one is a gem

Captured in full flow are Jarman’s muse Tilda Swinton as the Queen of France, his frequent collaborator Nigel Terry as the villainous, Steven Waddington as a lithe and lusty King Edward and Andrew Tiernan as his lover, Piers Gaveston. There’s glimpses of a young Sandy Powell, now a legendary costumer designer. McGarvey’s footage of Annie Lennox performing the film’s Cole Porter tune, ‘Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye’, is a pin-drop moment.

If you love a movie about the movies, this one is a gem – a sort of non-fiction Day for Night that takes in everything from high art to moments of eye-rubbing farce. The arrival of a bus load of OutRage! activists to act as extras ends in an attempted forced outing of Cliff Richard in an adjacent studio and Status Quo’s cars covered in stickers. Tabloid headlines follow and the threat of ruinous legal action hangs over the production. OutRage! figurehead Peter Tatchell, looking like a smacked puppy, is summoned for a ticking off. Jarman? Jaunty as ever.

Is Queer Edward II crammed full of explosive tensions and on-set carnage in the manner of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse? Not really. (Although at one point a pack of beagles threatens some tail-wagging chaos.) But what a tribute to Jarman, a benevolent and playful presence throughout, who managed to create a piece of art without anyone losing their minds – and all on a shoestring budget. 

Queer Edward II premiered at the Venice Film Festival.