Jubilee: Six Film Scripts

Akenaten

AKENATEN AKENATEN Why did I develop a passion for Ancient Egypt? Some desktop Howard Carter cursed with curiosity, a dream of immortality, the Mummy's Curse. In the early seventies Ispent hours tracking down books in second-hand bookshops until I had over a hundred, from Victorian travel books to an obscure little pamphlet on the construction of a wig. I started to learn the hieroglyphs, but gave up, though I incorporated them into the little slate paintings I was making. Out of my readings the story of the monotheistic sunworshipping heretic stood out. Its side characters Nefretiti and Tutankhamun almost alivein funerary mask and statue - an attempt to murder theoldgods, thehacking away of the name from tomb and temple, and Akenaten himself shaped like a queen bee - so strange. I wrote the script deep in the LeydenPapyrus, and the Old Testament. This would be no Cleopatra. It was to be as simple as butter muslinwith fine white limestone walls, sand and perhaps a gold bracelet or a scarlet ribbon. It was to be low budget. Very low. I had managed £30,000 for Sebastiane ,but my casting ambitions were high - Bowie asthe Pharaoh, maybe Lindsay Kemp as Amenhotep - but the project suddenly lost my interest. I had read myself into and out of the story. It was put on the shelf, though later Philip Glass made his opera. I think if I made it now it would have no real necessity and would bemerely decorative- perhaps not. It isstrange tobe 3 DEREK JARMAN a film director, for work unmade is lost. If these had been plays, and I a playwright they would be considered if not performed. Well, Akenaten was quite a success. It got good reviews and looked stunning. David Bowie's performance was enigmatic and it managed to eschew bombast. The dialogue, though rather poetic somehow fitted the subject, it never grew stilted. It was a good first film, controlled, unlike Sebastiane which wandered off and made itself. 4 The film takes place in Egypt, about 1400 BC. Amenhotep, the richest and most powerful Pharaoh, rules Egypt, at the zenith of its power. The whole known world pays him tribute. One day, Akenaten, the son he has banished since childhood, returns from the desert and the destruction of Egypt's greatest dynasty begins. This is the story of Akenaten, his mother Tiye, his wife Nefretiti and his two sons by Tiye, Smenkhare and Tutankhamun. I.EGYPT The SPHINX at Giza stares into the sun. Tourists pass by taking a photo or two.The voice of the SPHINX is used as a narrator through the film. Or alternatively, where the desert meets the sea, a group of gypsies have stopped. People gather round to watch, including our cameraman, who records the event as if he has just stumbled across it. Various figures are changing into costume, but in the foreground one dressed as the SPHINX announces: SPHINX: [Voice over] I am the Sphinx. I've watched the centuries pass and know their secrets. All history is mirrored in my eyes. The great Pharaohs have prayed before my oracle, but none more terrible has stared mein the eyes than Akenaten, the son of Amenhotep. Like the perfume of myrrh which drifts on a windy day over the waters I remember Amenhotep, richest of all the Pharaohs. He reigned for many years with his wife Tiye, daughter of the charioteer Yu Ya. He built great pylons in the temple of the Sun God Amonra at Thebes, inlaid with lapis, gold and precious stones with flag-polesofelectrum 5 DEREK JARMAN gleaming against the sky. He built a lake of pleasure for Tiye which he filled with golden fish. My story begins on that lake with the Pharaoh's dream of the sun disc Aten, one afternoon among the blue lotus blooms. That day Akenaten, the king's son, was born. A star appeared blood-red in the summer night. The waters of the Nile failed and a great famine fell on Egypt. The Pharaoh consulted Hapu, the oracle of the Sun God Amonra. He prayed to the God, but there was no answer. In the sanctuary, the Nile water in the silver divination bowl curdled. Hapu prostrated himself before Amenhotep and his Queen with all the people of Egypt, and the Pharaoh, seeing the harvest was destroyed by the birth of his son made an offering of the child...