Some films are about more than what you see on the screen. Their social context, impact and influence can become diluted or lost when they are seen so many years later. Sebastiane is such a film which, upon viewing some 40 plus years since its release, gives little indication of the big deal it was back in 1976, or what a huge figure in independent cinema Derek Jarman would become. As such, it’s a film that can’t be reviewed in isolation from other considerations.
Roman soldier Sebastiane is exiled for refusing to give up Christian beliefs. In an isolated outpost, his fellow all-male exiles allow sexual frustrations to become both lustful and loving acts. But when Sebastiane refuses to either fight with or have sex with Centurian Severus, he is tortured and becomes a martyr.
Made in 1976 as a direct challenge to the way films were being financed and made, Sebastiane was completed in just three weeks, financed by Jarman himself and funds raised from wealthy gay men. Jarman had made his name as a designer on films such as Ken Russell’s 1971 film The Devils, and had the contacts, clout and desire to make the sort of film he wanted to without compromise.
As such it’s a largely improvised affair with a ponderous pace, its dialogue spoken entirely in Latin, almost no plot and some dodgy acting. But it also displays occasional beauty, a fantastic score by Brian Eno, a genuine punk spirit and what was, for its time, an absolutely astonishing display of homosexuality.
Younger readers may find it hard to picture a time when gay men on screen were rarer than honest politicians. Rarer still were ones who were young, beautiful and, look away do, actually having sex! At a time when gay men and women were struggling for any form of recognition or equality, in a period when AIDS and Section 28 had yet to happen, and when homosexuals in film were either pervs or queens, the films of Derek Jarman, who would go on to give us Jubilee, Caravaggio, Edward II and Tilda Swinton, were made by gay people for a gay audience, and that was revolutionary, making Sebastiane an important film rather than a particularly enjoyable one.
Extras on this BFI Blu-ray include what’s described as a ‘making of’ but which is actually more ‘home movie’ footage of the shoot, a short interview with one of the extras from an orgy scene and, most interestingly, Sebastiane – a Work In Progress, which is basically Jarman’s incomplete rough-cut of the film.
SEBASTIANE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: DEREK JARMAN, PAUL HUMFRESS / SCREENPLAY: DEREK JARMAN, PAUL HUMFRESS / STARRING: LEONARDO TREVIGLIO, BARNEY JAMES, NEIL KENNEDY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
