#nihilistic

Released in UK cinemas on this day (3 February 1978): Derek Jarman’s twisted, nihilistic and divisive art-punk epic Jubilee (1978). Tagline: “The film that Clockwork Orange promised to be … but wasn’t!” As per the tagline, Jubilee is best approached as an anarchic female version of A Clockwork Orange, with the “droogs” replaced by a vicious girl gang rampaging through dystopian derelict London. Quick thoughts: I loved the casual male nudity (Gene October's bare ass!). The links to Rocky Horror Picture Show (someone quotes “don’t dream it, be it”; the presence of cast members Little Nell and Richard O’Brien). There are teasing ultra-brief glimpses of Siouxsie and the Banshees (performing "Love in a Void" on a flickering TV screen) and The Slits (vandalizing a car). The whole cast is exciting (Jayne / Wayne County as Lounge Lizard, Lindsay Kemp, pre-fame Toyah Willcox and Adam Ant), but Jordan (aka Pamela Rooke, one of the pioneering “faces” of early UK punk, a muse to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren and the original one-woman Sex Pistol) dominates as Amyl Nitrate. We see Jordan ballet dancing in a white tutu around a bonfire in a scrubby apocalyptic wasteland, shockingly declaring that Myra Hindley was “my childhood hero” and a “true artist” while wearing a pink twinset and pearls and most memorably snarling / ineptly lip-synching her way through a crotch-thrusting, panty-flashing performance of “Rule Britannia” clad in a novelty plastic union flag tabard. In conclusion: time has not mellowed Jubilee!

Interpretation for J.L. Borges' 1941 Short Story: The Library of Babel

—Brent Weeks

It’s no wonder I’ve learned peace in apathy Life’s just easier when you just don’t care And it’s impossible to win a fight with me Because I’ll never let you get under my skin Sticks and stones and all that

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