Jubilee: Six Film Scripts

Bob-Up-A-Down

BOB-UP-A-DOWN BOB-UP-A-DOWN I was always a Pre-Raphaelite: William Morris Tennyson. I loved Chaucer, and Piers the Ploughman, what a great film that would make, '. . . and he screamed for grace and I awoke . . .' the unicorn tapestries, Ely, now what can beat Ely? My first grown-up book from a shop in Charing Cross Road: The Cloister and the Hearth - the exquisite bright painting irradiated with pure clear colour. At the risk of givingyou a reading list, before I abandoned the 'sources' for something of my own, I took up with Hildegarde of Bingen, Marjorie Kempe, Richard Rolle and sailed into the cloudy unknown. I spent the whole of the seventies reading. It was a marvellous adventure. I had so little work, and time on my hands - now I'm a dipper again, a jug-jug bird. I worked on the script with Tim Sullivanwho later went to Granada. It was good to be able to bounce ideas back and forth -1 don't think Nico, who commissioned Caravaggio in the years before, particularlyliked the dividedattention and I think he was relieved when I started to write Dancing Ledge. It was a strange moment, the odd pop promo, autobiography, painting again, leather jackets sweaty with vaseline and come, and a medieval anchoress. I'm certain, though I like the story, circumstance liberated me from a worthy film. In any case, it was quite impossible. Should we make it at Dancing Ledge, or in the medieval barn at Avebury?There are no well designedmedievalfilmswith the exception of Dreyer's Joan. 81 DEREK JARMAN In fact costume drama isrubbish and for an eyelike mine, not alleviated by a good story - the Swedishfilm My Sister My Love,incest intheeighteenth century, isverywell done I believe the director Vilgot Sjoman made sex films, something a lot of verygood directors who haven't had the luck to put their foot in the door have done. A good casting for Bob:Nigel Terry, Vanessa Redgrave as the Anchoress, Tilda Swinton as Prophesy, and, of course, Orlando as the Priest. 82 1. EXT. SENTINEL OAK. DAY. TITLE SEQUENCE Silhouetted against a pale midwinter sun, a gnarled oak stands, blasted by the sea gales at the edge of precipitous cliffs which plunge into a storm-tossed sea. Its dark and twisted branches rattle in the wind. A flock of crows wheel around, a black vortex of whirring wings punctuated by ominous insistent cawing. High in the branches of the treea MAN as dark as the crows sits motionless, a black hat pulled down over his dark features, sharp as a bird of prey. In the background there is the insistent cry of a young BOY shouting, which is nearly lost in the roar of the sea, the wind in the branches and the staccato chatter of the crows. 2. EXT. HILL STREAM. DAY WAT, a tussle-haired boy dressed in skimpy rags with bare muddy feet, runs through a rapid and shallow stream which cascades down a steep hillsidein the early morning mists. He is out of breath from running. He splashes the water everywhere, soaking himself. He shouts. WAT: Hollo! Hollo! 3. EXT. SHEEPFOLD. DAY WAT careens through a flock of sheep scattering them on all sides. He shouts at two craggy, weather-beaten SHEPHERDS who sit huddled together against the cold under blankets. They look up angrily from their frugal meal of bread and cheese as he runs past them. Stopping for a moment he laughs and then proudly flicks a silver coin in the air which catches the sunlight. 83 DEREK JARMAN 4. BELFRY. DAY The Belfry is a stark whitewashed room with no furniture. WAT jumps up with as much effort as he can muster to catch the single bell rope which hangs almost beyond his reach. With one last effort he manages to catch it with one hand. He hangs suspended in the air and then throws his other hand up. Catching the bell rope he starts to swing in the air. The bell starts to ring. 5. EXT. OLD STONE WALL. DAY Two PEASANT GIRLS dressed in heavy work clothing sit against an ancient lichen-covered stone wall, plucking chickens. A third girl, PROPHESY, seventeen years old with raven hair and green eyes, is just about to decapitate a chicken with a huge knife on a wooden block when the church bell starts to ring. She...