‘Audio-Visual Biography: Music and Image in Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio’

Rogers, Holly. 2008. ‘Audio-Visual Biography: Music and Image in Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio’. The Journal of Musicological Research, 27(2), pp. 134-168. ISSN 0141-1896 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Working beyond mainstream practice, Derek Jarman creates films that are unusually musical. Caravaggio, a biography of the artist, is a case in point. Jarman's collaboration with composer Simon Fischer Turner from the start of the filmmaking process enables music to assume a structural role, a procedure that turns common music-image interaction on its head in two ways. First, rather than strive for the audio-visual fusion common to many mainstream films, music and image are here juxtaposed. Second, as music becomes audible, the film's illusion of realism is destroyed. This article explores how Jarman's challenge to conventional filmmaking procedure can expose the fragility of reception history by comparing visual, literary, and musical versions of Caravaggio's biography.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1080/01411890801989570

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Music

Dates:

DateEvent
2008Published

Item ID:

15479

Date Deposited:

16 Dec 2015 11:06

Last Modified:

30 Jun 2017 09:52

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/15479

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