Edward II Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Edward II Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson June 22, 2020

Edward II, Derek Jarman’s follow-up to his collage film The Garden (1990), finds the British auteur adapting another classic story to the setting of a contemporary predicament. Jarman reformulates Christopher Marlowe’s play (set in the fourteenth century) to the present (1991) in order to communicate what author Matt Cook describes as “his anger at the introduction of Clause 28 and the continued peddling of homophobic rhetoric in the late twentieth century.” (In fact Jarman dedicates the film’s published screenplay to the repeal of all anti-gay laws and especially Clause 28.) Jarman also recalibrates the relationship between Edward II (Steven Waddington) and Piers Gaveston (Andrew Tiernan) so it centers on their sexuality. The film argues that England should allow homosexuals to inhabit the emperor’s throne. Indeed, queers should be given their due and perhaps one day receive royal treatment.

Jarman’s film version opens with Edward’s jailer Lightborne (Kevin Collins) reading a postcard from the king addressed to Gaveston who is in France on exile. It informs Gaveston that now that Edward I is deceased, he may join Edward II in England. As Gaveston receives and reads the letter, Jarman stages a sex scene between two incestuous sailors in the rear bedroom. Although Gaveston is relatively oblivious to the nude hustlers, their inclusion is a precursor to the sexual liberation Jarman exploits on the imperial stage. Equally important is that the staging of this scene is a direct challenge to one of the tenets of Clause 28. Had police raided Gaveston’s home, he and the pair of lovers would have been arrested. However, no arrest occurs at the end of the scene and Jarman celebrates the union of flesh between the two sailors. Upon Gaveston’s arrival, Edward, cloaked in a sparkling gold robe, welcomes his lover with open arms. The king holds a sword and bestows upon Gaveston the honorary title of Lord High Chamberlain, Chief Secretary to the State. The early scenes of Edward II often depict two-shots of the pair on the throne together as a way to challenge the model of heteronormativity championed by the haughty bourgeois nobles. In one staggering shot, Gaveston shows Edward’s heir apparent (Jody Graber, the same boy from The Garden) how to play with the State sword as if it were a machine gun. The shot is a sardonic parody of the terrorist-like villains who attempt to bring down the relationship between Edward and Gaveston.

Gaveston and Edward together.

The film’s central antagonists are the militant Mortimer (Nigel Terry) and Edward’s wife, Queen Isabella (Tilda Swinton), each of whom are stand-ins for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government and share an anathema of Gaveston. Jarman scholar Jim Ellis and critic Jonathan Romney have cited that one of Isabella’s real-life composites is indeed PM Thatcher. Additionally, the interior sets’ dungeon-like catacombs are to some extent what Ellis describes as “an externalization of the psychological experience of living in Thatcherite England.” Jarman captures this mood when Edward and Gaveston dance in their prison-like pajamas before the latter is driven from the court. Moreover, Jarman envisages Isabella as a vampiric figure when she bites the neck and the sucks the blood of Edward’s brother, Kent (Jerome Flynn). He more specifically taps into a metadiscourse of violent Vampiras, which essayist Jayne Steel points out borrow deadly attributes of Gothic vampires, “draining the will and feeding off the blood of British soldiers and citizens.” Steel also notes that Thatcher’s "devastating killer instinct" is affiliated with Vampira images in the films of the 1980s. I would argue that Swinton’s Isabella can be added to the pantheon of cinematic vampires in the Nineties. Overall, Edward II is an exemplary allegory for the battles gay activist groups, such as OutRage! (who's shown in the film), had to endure in the face of queer bashings and Thatcherite politics.

Edward II Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Film Movement gives Edward II its North American premiere on Blu-ray on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. The Criterion Collection released Jarman's ninth feature on LaserDisc in 1994 with a letterboxed transfer. Image Entertainment, through a license with New Line, released it on DVD in 2005 with an anamorphic transfer that I deem merely average. Chris Holden of Second Sight Films informed me in a 2010 email that SSF's PAL disc was struck from an HD CAM SR master (1080p/24fps) that Universal prepared using a 35mm interpositive. That restoration dates from the mid-to-late 2000s when Edward II was reissued to play at some film festivals. Film Movement claims that their transfer is sourced from a "new 2K restoration" but this looks like the same one put out by SSF, who never released a Blu-ray. Last year, the BFI released it in a six-disc box set of Jarman's shorts and later features. I've put together a graphical comparison of the two transfers.

The BFI state in its thick booklet that 1.78:1 is the movie's original aspect ratio. That's also the same framing on Film Movement's disc, which comes with a translucent BD snapper keep case. The picture is quite dark since it was all shot on one set with gray walls and key light filled in by cinematographer Ian Wilson. Sandy Powell's costumes looks colorful and scintillating in HD. Only some sporadic tiny white speckles pop up on the screen. The grain structure is very consistent throughout. There are no image stability problems. The Film Movement encodes the main feature at a mean video bitrate of 35985 kbps. (The BFI's transfer averages 31913 kbps.)

Screenshots 1-16, 18, 20, 22, 24, & 26 = Film Movement 2018 BD-50
Screenshots 17, 19, 21, 23, & 25 = Jarman Volume 2 1987-1994 BFI Box Set

Twelve scene selections accompany the hour-and-a-half film.

Edward II Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Film Movement supplies an LPCM 2.0 Stereo mix (2304 kbps, 24-bit). The master is in excellent shape. Most dialogue is comprehensible, although Marlowe's Shakespearean prose (adapted by Jarman and two other writers) can take some time and effort to process and understand. The police's truncheons clatter with some force along the front speakers. Jarman adds a rainstorm for Gaeston's exile and this supplies some thunderous f/x. Jarman's regular composer Simon Fisher-Turner brings together chamber music, pop tunes, and noise effects for his eclectic score. Mute Records released this on CD in the UK with twelve tracks and it's now available as a digital album. Annie Lenox's lithe voice sounds lucid on this track as she performs a rendition of Cole Porter's "Every Time We Say Goodbye" within the film. (The song is not on the soundtrack album, however.)

Film Movement provides optional English SDH.

Edward II Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Derek's Edward (23:40, 480i) - a retrospective mini-doc that Severin Films produced for Second Sight's R2 DVD. Producers Steve Clark-Hall and Antony Root discuss the funding difficulties of getting Edward II made. Steven Waddington is also on hand to reflect on playing the title role. Director of photography Ian Wilson talks about his lighting approach. Human rights activist Peter Tatchell makes some shrewd historical observations about the Gay Lib movement and how Jarman wanted to infuse esprit de corps into the film. In English, not subtitled.

• Edward II Trailer (1:32, 1080p) - this is a re-release trailer likely done ca. 2010. It looks sharp and includes reviewers' accolades.

• Bonus Trailers - other Film Movement trailers, which include The Marquise of O, The Pillow Book, The Best Intentions, Kamikaze '89, Full Moon in Paris, and Antonia's Line.

• NEW Booklet - a 20-page booklet with full and thumbnail-size images from Edward II's production. Tilda Swinton wrote a new "Prologue" about Jarman. Bruce LaBruce's piece, "Queenie Queens on Top," delivers a fairly detailed analysis of the film. I noticed a few typos; Film Movement should proofread better next time.

Edward II Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Derek Jarman's Edward II fuses a hybrid of English medieval classicism and postmodernity based on Christopher Marlowe's 1594 play. The film delivers a provocative meditation on power and sexuality that excoriates the church and state. Jarman's historical anachronisms and multifarious representations of queers don't aim for political correctness, which make the film all the more fresh today. The Film Movement sources an older 2K restoration that looks very organic and authentic to the picture's intended appearance. The Blu-ray is missing the tribute that Tilda Swinton read about Jarman's legacy at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (this is on the Image disc). The BFI's disc has a couple of Jarman's short films, a long interview with Jarman, three interviews with his collaborators/friends, a video essay, and a photo gallery. Edward II hasn't been released individually on BD in the UK, however, so the FM remains the only single edition. A VERY STRONG RECOMMENDATION for one of Jarman's later works.