In the Shadow of the Sun

Derek Jarman shot Super 8 footage between 1972 and 1975. The material stayed with him for years. In 1980 he cut it together into one work. What came out has no story to follow. The images are laid over one another. The method builds something like a dream. Jarman spoke of film joining light and matter as an alchemical conjunction. The title comes from there. The phrase appears in a seventeenth century alchemical text. There it stands for the philosopher’s stone. The film had another name first, English Apocalypse. Throbbing Gristle made the music, recorded in 1980 and released on its own four years later. The film was blown up to 16mm and shown in Berlin in 1981. Karl Bowen and Andrew Logan appear in the fifty four minute film, a British and German production Derek Jarman finished in 1981.