When asked how he felt about the fact he’d received £400,000 to make Caravaggio in 1986, and the director of Chariots of Fire, Hugh Hudson had received 4 million to make his film, Derek Jarman replied, ‘Fortunately, I’m one hundred times more intelligent than Hugh Hudson, so it doesn’t matter.’

It certainly didn’t matter as Jarman’s output, during his 20-year career, pisses from a great height on Hudson’s work. What Jarman would have made of this year’s London Olympics, with its recurring reference to Chariots of Fire, would certainly have been interesting. Yet, Jarman was never fooled by his position as an outsider, he was well aware that there ‘is a complicity between the avant-garde and the establishment, it’s symbiotic, they need each other,’ as he explained to Peter Culshaw in the NME, April, 1986.

‘..all avant-garde gestures have been appropriated by just those people they sought to undermine. Dada was conceived as a full-scale assault and now Dada sells for millions. But what people never point out about me is that I’m probably the most conservative film-maker in the country. I’m not talking about Thatcherite-radical conservatives, who are anti-traditional and destructive, and who see progress as heaven, I mean more like the conservatism of groups like the Green Party.’

The artist Caravaggio fascinated Jarman, because ‘he was the most inspired religious painter of the Middle Ages and was also a murderer.’

‘Imagine if Shakespeare had been a murderer - it would completely alter the way we see his plays. [Caravaggio] was particularly taken to heart by the Romans because he painted real people. The girl next door was Mary Magdalen. Or in Death of a Virgin he painted a well-known prostitute as a virgin. It was the equivalent of Christine Keeler being put up over the high altar at Westminster Abbey.’

Jarman felt a tremendous parallel between Caravaggio and his own life, and he believed that ‘the cinema of the product precludes individual voices…’

‘...and I think unless one can put one’s own voice into a film, then there’s an element of dishonesty in it.’

In this short interview Derek Jarman talks about his life and films, Caravaggio, The Last of England and War Requiem,  taken from Spanish TV’s Metropolis from 1989.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

‘Glitterbug’: Derek Jarman’s final film

Photo-spread of Derek Jarman’s ‘Jubilee’, from 1978

 
Bonus interview of Jarman talking about ‘Caravaggio’, after the jump…
 

 
Incredible images are coming in from Madrid tonight, showing the crowds of over 150,000 people who came out onto the streets to support the striking miners on their Black March.

Tuesday night, the marching miners triumphantly entered the city, having walked halfway across Spain in protest against the government’s austerity cuts and plans to remove subsidies from the coal mining industry.

The miners’ strike has been seen as the People’s Strike, born out of last year’s Indignados demonstrations, and has gained country-wide support as the miners marched form town-to-town, city-to-city.

Tonight’s arrival in Madrid will be the start of larger demonstrations tomorrow against the government’s policies.

While Spain’s mainstream media has ignored tonight’s events, the people of Spain have been sharing photographs and footage on line, of which these are but a small selection.

More can be found here and here. Read more on the story here.
 

 

Video by Juan Luis Sánchez for El Diario, via Socialist Worker.
 
More pictures, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Maria Salavessa Hormigo Guimil, Isabel Mar Almadan and Teresa Carrington
 

 
Made during the last year’s of General Franco’s right-wing dictatorship in Spain, La cabina (The Telephone Box or Phone Booth) is a disturbing little movie, which critiques the insidious potential of technology, and the mass indifference of the public to the plight of the individual.

Originally produced for Spanish television, La cabina was a highly regarded film on its release and deservedly won an Emmy in 1973 for Best Fiction. Directed by Antonio Mercero, who also made the award-winning films Planta 4ª (The 4th Floor) and La hora de los valientes (A Time for Defiance), La cabina contains a superb central performance by José Luis López Vázquez (star of Travels With My Aunt with Maggie Smith), as the hapless victim of a series of increasingly sinister misfortunes.
 

 
With thanks to Neil McDonald
 

 
A is for Ana

Ah wanna tell ya ‘bout a girl…

Ana Lola Roman is a singer, a musician, a dancer, a choreographer, a curator, a writer. She’s talented and beautiful, funny and smart. Has the looks of a silent movie star, a Louise Brooks in a Pabst film, with a hint of Audrey Hepburn, via Maria Callas and and Frida Kahlo. 

An only child born in the early 1980s into a large Spanish family, that had emigrated to America, “during the whole Iranian Revolution Post-Oil Boom Era” in the late 1970s. The first 5 years were spent in a ghetto of Del City, on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. The family worked hard, worked harder, until they settled into a middle class suburb of OKC.

Her home life was European by nature, American by inclination. A heady mix of European sophistication and American pop, which informed her musical influences.

‘I’d have to say my first influences were a heaping helping of various flamenco singers listened to while in the back of my Grandmother’s Cadillac. It was a weird mix of environments and influences. Gracia Montes and Lola Flores…well, these women had soul, heartache, moxie, and power.

‘Mixed with that and the impending sensations of early MTV. I fell in love with David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” video when I was only 5 years old, developed a keen fascination with Numan’s “Cars”, and felt delightfully inappropriate when I witnessed Billy Idol’s curved lip.

‘I was only 5 years old when these things happened to me. And I knew right then that I wasn’t going to last long where I was. I was going to be restless for the rest of my life and end up somewhere as crazy as New York or Berlin.’

‘Then of course being 10 years old and seeing Siouxsie….that’s when everything fell apart and got worse, then I felt bitten by the vampire when Joy Division came along. That was the end of the road for my Oklahoma Journey.’
 

 
More from Ana Lola Roman, after the jump…
 

 
The sound quality is a bit rough and the picture rather watery, but there are still plenty of interesting things going on in this ‘lost’ interview with Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker and Russell Senior from 1995.

Recorded during Pulp’s first tour of Spain, the interview was conducted by writer and poet, Bruno Galindo, who asked Jarvis & Senior about the band, their career, their lives, the success of the album Different Class, and easy-listening music.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

This is Hardcore: Jarvis Cocker talks Pulp at Glastonbury 1995

 
“I’m making this film to exorcise a pain in my soul that just won’t go away, like oil stains. I wash my clothes with movies.” — Alex de la Iglesia

Friday at Cinefamily in Los Angeles, there is a special FREE midnight screening of Alex de la Iglesia’s new film, The Last Circus. This looks amazing:

From the hyperdrive mind of one of Europe’s most ruthless cinematic satirists comes The Last Circus: a wicked tragicomic deconstruction of the terribly bloody Spanish Civil War as seen through the eyes of a benevolent-turned-psychotic Sad Clown vs. an evil alcoholic wifebeating Happy Clown! Alex de la Iglesia uses his nation’s greatest historical horror as the backdrop for an uncompromising tale of two equally damaged circus performers manically vying for the heart and soul of their joint obsession: their circus’s alluring female acrobat. Hysterically funny without watering down even a fraction of its harrowing message, the film matches its operatic, wildly unpredictable twists with the equally chaotic reality of life under Franco’s dictatorial rule of Spain in the 1970s. Equal parts Saving Private Ryan and Santa Sangre, The Last Circus is one helluva unique and thrilling time. 35mm, 107 min.

Register for the free Cinefamily screening of The Last Circus here. And make sure you get there on time. Seriously.
 

 
The civil unrest in Spain is taking a distinctly uncivil turn as the police get nasty before the big football match (or at least that is the excuse) and try to forcibly remove the up to 25,000 people who have camped out in Barcelona’s Plaza Catalunya. Is it just me or is it only the “business media” in America who seem to be reporting on what’s going on in Spain? As if there is no other box it can be fit into?

Nevertheless, this just in via Business Insider:

Police in Barcelona have attacked protesters that have been camped out since May 15 in the city’s Plaza Catalunya. The protesters originally were trying to apply pressure to the public to not vote in last weekend’s local Spanish elections. Those elections resulted in sharp losses for the country’s Socialist Party government.

Protesters have remained in squares across Spain since the election, demanding government reforms and renewed attention to the country’s unemployment crisis.

The forceful move against the protesters today in Barcelona was staged to clear the square out ahead of FC Barcelona’s Champions League final match against Manchester United tomorrow evening. But to many, it may just appear the beginning of a government crackdown on the country’s protesters.

Videos are now surfacing of the police assault. The video includes violence on unarmed protesters

 
Forget the Rapture, Spain is where the action is, as tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the street for a sixth day. In Madrid, some 25,000 protesters occupied the Puerta del Sol Square, while others gathered in Barcelona, Valencia and Seville.

The protests, which started last Sunday, are against the the austerity measures implemented by the current government, the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party (PSOE), in May 2010. The government’s policies have been blamed for the steep rise in the country’s unemployment to 21.3%, and for the calamitous state of the economy.

The demonstrations come ahead of the May 22 Municipal and Regional Elections, when it is expected the ruling Socialist Party will take a “drubbing”. Political rallies are banned under Spanish law on the day before elections, in order to allow a “day of reflection”. Though a police crackdown was feared by some protesters, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the police were “not going to resolve one problem by creating another”.

The main issue with the protesters is a desire for change:

One of the protesters, Carlos Gomez told the BBC:

This is an historic moment. Thousands of people have been camping in Sol since last Sunday with no flags or affiliation to any party.

Young people, old people, families, it does not matter. Everything is organised. There are tents to place your suggestions to the movement.
There are tents with food, where people are giving to the campers, tents with political debates, even one for childcare. We are not just asking for jobs. We are asking for a change in the political system.

We have no option but to vote for the two biggest parties in Spain, who are more or less the same. They are unable to solve any problem, it is just a nest of corruption.We are tired. In short, we want a working democracy. We want a change..

Paco, Valencia:

The protests are not really anti-government, but rather anti-big political parties, both the one in power and the main ones in opposition.

It’s an anti-capitalism, anti-market ruled society, anti-banks, anti-political corruption, anti-failed democracy, anti-degraded democracy and pro-real democracy protest.

It’s a protest that wants a better, real future, not the future that the government or parties in opposition seem to be able to provide.

The manifestos and proposals are quite left-leaning ideologically, but not linked to any political party, because right now, most of us don’t feel represented by them.

Paula, Vigo, Spain:

The protests began against Spanish electoral law, as we want that to change.

Then other movements started joining in and many political parties tried to make the protests their own.

But this movement is affiliated to no political party whatsoever.

There are young people, old people, unemployed, civil servants, pensioners, immigrants, campaigners for local languages, freelancers, right-wingers and left-wingers all taking part.

It is a beautiful movement.

The protests have brought comparisons with the recent pro-democracy demonstrations in Egypt and Tunisia. However, there is a major difference - Spain’s economy is tied into the Eurozone, which means if the country is bailed out, they will be “owned” by the EU. Where previously Spain could have devalued their currency, this is no longer possible as the Eurozone, which is made up of 17 member states including Spain, has one shared currency - the Euro. Deputy Prime Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcalba has said Spain won’t be another domino (like Greece, Ireland and Portugal) but a “dam protecting the eurozone.”  It may all be just wishful thinking on the government’s behalf, but whatever happens next, tomorrow’s Municipal and Regional Elections will be the first small step towards change; and while demonstrations may be nothing new in Spain, it will be interesting to see where this one goes over the coming days.

More pictures from the protest in Madrid here.

Live stream from Puerta del Sol Square in Madrid, here
 

 
Vlog from inside Madrid’s Puerta del Sol Square, after the jump…
 

 
The global metropolis is seeing a golden age of street art nowadays, as seen in the evolution from spraycan through stencil/wheatpaste and on to other outdoor installations. The Luzinterruptus crew from Madrid has been doing some amazing light-work lately with some compelling underlying themes.
Their latest, Ejército de platillos volantes desechables (above), saw them land an army of disposable flying saucers in Parque del Oeste, the home of the rebuilt ancient Egyptian Temple of Debod.
 

 
Before that, the Luz’ers’ Publicidad herida de muerte (Mortally Wounded Advertising) commented on the thick layer of posters that cover the city’s walls by making them bleed fire.
 

 
Some months ago, curator Sebastian Buck in Good Magazine surfaced Luz’s Tanta Policía, para tan Poca Gente… (Lots of Cops for So Few People), in which the crew protested the increased police presence in their East Villagesque Malasana neighborhood by decorating 50 random cars with homemade replicas of the city’s official blue siren.