This year we celebrate the 75th birthday of British filmmaker Derek Jarman. Jarman was born on January 31, 1942. I’m always discovering and then keeping tabs on these timely anniversaries of our countercultural forebears, and I’m happy to highlight this one even if I’m getting to it about 7 months too late. The good news is that now we’ve got 4 more months to celebrate the groundbreaking filmmaker and his intense, chromatic, radical cinema. Jarman died of an AIDS-related illness in London in 1994, but not before creating a body of work that has only grown its audience since the filmmaker’s death.

Here are Open Culture’s words on Jarman’s 1978 punk rock film, Jubilee…

Derek Jarman was too old and too accomplished to be a punk. By 1977, the openly gay filmmaker and artist was already 36 and had an impressive CV that included doing set design for Ken Russell’s The Devils and directing Sebastiane, a landmark in gay cinema, notable for not only its frank depiction of the male body but also for its dialogue which was entirely in Latin. Nonetheless, Jarman gathered together notables from London’s burgeoning punk scene, including a young, lithe Adam Ant, to create Jubilee –the first and, arguably best, punk movie ever. You can watch it above.

The plot, as such, centers on Queen Elizabeth I who, with the help of court occultist John Dee (played by Rocky Horror Picture Show’s Richard O’Brien), sees her land 400 years into the future. It’s a Britain filled with garbage and plagued with crime. Queen Elizabeth II, for instance, was killed in a mugging. As Queen Elizabeth I wanders around the wreckage of the British Empire, she encounters a bunch of leather-clad toughs including Amyl Nitrite (played by Malcolm McLaren protégé Jordan), Crabs (Little Nell, also from Rocky Horror) and Mad (Toyah Willcox, who would later go on to delight a generation of toddlers by voicing The Teletubbies). The highpoint of the movie is, without a doubt, is when Jordan performs a risqué dance to a glammed up version of Rule Britannia.

Jarman tapped into the same feelings of anger, disillusionment, and nihilism that the Sex Pistols articulated. As Jarman told The Guardian in 1978, “We have now seen all established authority, all political systems, fail to provide any solution – they no longer ring true.” Jubilee feels like a John Waters movie without the gross-out gags. A Paul Morrissey movie but with a clear sense of political purpose. It’s giddy, uninhibited, violent and occasionally quite disturbing.

Here’s Jarman’s Jubilee…

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One last Clash post to finish off the week and to remind readers that I’ll be on Edward Brinson’s Eigthties/Schmeighties show on WXNA radio in Nashville today to celebrate Joe Strummer’s birthday. We’ll hit the air this morning at 11 AM Central Time.

Tune in here, and enjoy a fun look back at Joe and the band. We’ll be playing songs from The Clash, from Joe’s post-Clash career, and from other bands that influenced the boys while we chat about the impact of punk from the 1970′s until now.

Warm up here with this full concert featuring The Clash live from Japan in 1982…

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The Clash’s eponymous first album was a classic that didn’t get released in America until after their second album was released here. Give ‘em Enough Rope is generally considered a slick, American produced sophomore jinx of an album, but I’ll be posting about that soon. The band loses their manager and heads back to London, balanced on the edge of legendary status, but needing to prove themselves with a third record. They hole up in a rehearsal space in a warehouse, and proceed to do nearly nothing but play soccer and play music. As they slowly write a new collection of songs they also play the pop, folk and old rock ‘n’ roll classics that they all love, abandoning punk rock’s “Year Zero” aesthetics to simply revel in their love of music. They write. They rehearse. And they record one of the greatest albums of all time, London Calling.

Today’s post continues our look back at 30 years since the end of The Clash with The Last Testament: The Making of London Calling…

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Fascism never sounded so good.

Also, check out the third installment of the BBC’s Seven Ages of Rock. This chapter is entitled “The Blank Generation” and it covers the punk revolution on both sides of the Atlantic. We’re particularly taken with the great Patti Smith footage that starts at about 16 minutes in. Enjoy!

Space monkey.

Check out this great book Patti Smith wrote about her friendship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Purchase books from The Sleepless Bookstore and support this site! Also, check out the great music player below.

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Joe Nolan <3