Dungeness, at the southeastern tip of Kent, England. A shingled landscape shaped by wind and ocean tides, over which the sun and moon preside. Not sure where exactly Jarman's Prospect Cottage is in this picture, but it's there, like Jarman's spirit is there.
Last night I read the final pages of Jarman's February 1989 journal entries, and oh my if his book doesn't suddenly lift off like Dorothy's house and give us a Toto run of prose. Fitting too that Jarman should mention The Wizard of Oz ("As the black twister hurled the little house in Kansas through the raging clouds to Oz ..."), beginning on "February 24" when he introduces us to the wind and its travelling presence, sharing with us all manner of things, from his periodic ambivalence for film to his increasingly certain future ("I live in borrowed time").
Reading these fine pages brought to mind another film that features a tornado as an agent of change: Harmony Korine's Gummo (1997). A couple years ago I found the DVD in a thrift store and, though I was mesmerized when I saw it in the theatre, found it too insistent the second time around. Funny how that happens. At what point between now and then did a tornado pass through me?
photo: Kim Traynor
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