HiBROW - Aria - Depuis Le Jour

CREDITS

DURATION:

00:11:27

Writter & Director:
Derek Jarman

Music:
Depuis Le Jour, Gustave Charpentier

Soloist:
Leontyne Price

Orchestra:
RCA Itasliana Orchestra

Conductor:
Francesco Molinari-Pradelli

Producer:
Don Boyd

Cast:
Tilda Swinton, Spencer Leigh, Amy Johnson, John Hurt (as Enrico Caruso), Sophie Ward

Director of Photography:
Mike Southon
Christopher Hughes
Gabriel Beristain

Production Designer:
Christopher Hobbs

Editors:
Peter Cartwright
Angus Cook

Costume Designers:
Sandy Powell
Alison Chitty

Special Still Photography:
Angus McBean

Thanks:
Teatro Ponchielli in Cremona, Italy

DESCRIPTION

In 1986, the director and producer Don Boyd approached ten of the world’s greatest directors and invited them to make a short film set to an operatic aria of their choice. The directors included Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Ken Russell and Nicolas Roeg. The many actors who joined the project included Tilda Swinton and John Hurt. Here, HiBROW presents one of the ten films that make up Aria. This segment belongs to Derek Jarman, the radical filmmaker who shook up British cinema of the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s with films such as The Last of England, Jubilee, Caravaggio and Wittgenstein.

In this entrancing and most beautiful film, Jarman takes as his inspiration the aria ‘Depuis Le Jour’ from Gustave Charpentier’s opera, Louise. We watch as a veteran opera singer gives her last performance and see 8mm home movies of an earlier romance in her life. The film stars Jarman’s muse and regular collaborator, Tilda Swinton, who has since gone on to become one of the world's most daring and challenging film performers.

CLOSE X