Peter Adair: Film History

Peter Adair, Director and Cinematographer

Born at Santa Monica, California in November of 1943, Peter Adair was an award-winning American director and cinematographer. As a documentary film maker, he used the personal stories of ordinary people to record the progress of the gay liberation movement and the effects of the later AIDS epidemic.

Peter Adair was the only son of three children born to John Adair, a distinguished anthropology professor at Cornell University who studied the Zuni and Navaho nations, and Casey Adair, editor for the literary journal “New Mexico Quarterly” and her husband’s many research publications. Peter Adair grew up in New Mexico where he was an outsider, participant and observer of the cultures his father was studying. His venture into making films began with the gift of a movie camera from his parents on his high school graduation.

In 1967 near the end of his academic studies at Antioch College, Adair completed his first major documentary, “Holy Ghost People”. Directed and narrated by Adair, the film documents the church service of a faith-healing and snake-handling Pentecostal community in Scrabble Creek, West Virginia. Recognized by anthropologist Margaret Mead as being one of the best ethnographic films made, “Holy Ghost People” is used in anthropology and documentary film classes.

After recognizing his gay sexual orientation, Peter Adair collaborated with his sister Nancy Adair and four other LBGTQ members of the Mariposa Film Group to direct his production of the 1977 “Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives”. This documentary intercuts interviews with twenty-six people from the United States, ranging in age from eighteen to seventy-seven, who speak of their experiences as gay men or lesbians. Each interviewee shared their experiences of ‘coming out’, falling in love, and their struggles against discrimination, prejudice and stereotypes. In production for five years with over two-hundred interview sessions, “Word is Out” was the first feature-length documentary about lesbian and gay identity made by LBGTQ film makers; it was selected for preservation in the United States Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2022.

Adair worked on a series of projects in 1984, the first of which was his directorial and production work on “Stopping History”, a film for the Public Broadcasting Service, which examined ethical questions centered on nuclear weapons. Documenting the nonviolent blockade at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where most nuclear U.S. nuclear weapons are made, the film asked viewers to consider nuclear war and its incurrable destruction. Later in 1984, Adair acted as consultant and did additional camerawork for Rob Epstein’s “The Times of Harvey Milk”. He also produced a series of tutorial videos for the Project Read adult literacy program of the San Francisco Public Library.

In September of 1984, Theatre Rhinoceros, a San Francisco-based theater company, presented “The AIDS Show: Artists Involved with Death and Survival”, a production that addressed the social impact of HIV/AIDS and the fears it generated on the LBGTQ community. Peter Adair and Rob Epstein collaborated as directors on a 1986 documentary film of the same name that became one of the first to examine the impact of AIDS on the arts community. Along with personal narrations by Adair and Epstein, excerpts from the original play were combined with interviews between the play’s creators and its performers to form a hybrid of drama and documentation.

After learning of his own positive HIV status, Adair wrote and directed the 1991 “Absolutely Positive”, a documentary that examined the uncertainty within which asymptomatic HIV positive people dwell. After interviewing over one-hundred people, Adair and his producer Janet Cole selected eleven people at different stages of the disease. “Absolutely Positive” contains the interviews of these eleven individuals and examines their lives both before and during their illness. In 1995, Adair collaborated with interactive product creator Haney Armstrong to produce an interactive legal drama-adventure game. “In the 1st Degree” was a CD-Rom in which the player examined evidence, interviewed witnesses and presented the case at trial. Noted for its sequences, it became the second-place finalist in Computer Game Review’s 1995 Best FMV of the Year.

In January of 1996, Peter Adair received San Francisco’s The Frameline Award, given to a person who had made a major contribution to LBGTQ representation in film, television or the media arts. Six months later, Adair died at the age of fifty-two from complications of AIDS in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. He was survived by his life partner Rudy Norton, his father John Adair, and sisters Margo and Nancy. Peter Adair was posthumously inducted into the San Francisco Rainbow Honor Walk in 2022. His papers are housed in the James C, Hormel LBGTQIA Center of the San Francisco Public Library.

Notes: The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) has a short article “Remembering Peter Adair” on its website: https://bampfa.org/event/remembering-peter-adair

An on-the-air June 1991 FreshAir interview between PBS host Terry Gross and Peter Adair concerning his HIV-positive status is archived at: https://freshairarchive.org/segments/filmmaker-peter-adair-being-hiv-positive

An article on the production of Peter Adair’s documentary “Absolutely Positive”, written by historian and digital storyteller Brendan McHugh, for Public Broadcasting Service’s station KQED can be found at: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13906624/absolutely-positive-hiv-aids-activism-peter-adair-doris-butler

Milestone Films has an excellent article on the background and production of Peter Adair and Rob Epstein’s “The AIDS Show” film at: https://milestonefilms.com/products/copy-of-common-threads-stories-from-the-quilt

Derek Jarman: Film History Series

Derek Jarman, “Caravaggio”, 1986, Film Scene Gifs, Cinematography Gabriel Beristain, Cinevista (USA)

Born in Northwood, Middlesex in January of 1942, Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English artist, film maker, costume and stage designer, writer and poet, and gay rights activist. His film career began with experimental Super 8mm shorts and developed into such mainstream films as the 1986 historical drama “Caravaggio” and the 1989 “War Requiem”, that featured Laurence Olivier’s last screen performance.

As an author, Jarman published several works: a poetry collection entitled “A Finger in the Fishes Mouth”; two diaries, “Modern Nature” and “Smiling in Slow Motion”; two treatises on his art and films, “Chroma” and “The Last of England (aka Kicking the Pricks)”; and the 1984 “Dancing Ledge”, an autobiography of his life until the age of forty.

The son of Royal Air Force officer Lancelot Elworthy Jarman and Elizabeth Evelyn Puttock, Derek Jarman received his elementary education at the preparatory Walhampton School and Dorset’s Cranford School, a progressive boarding and day institution. Beginning in 1960, he studied Art and English at King’s College, London, which was followed in 1963 by four years of study at University College London’s Slade School of Fine Art. In the 1970s, Jarman embraced his homosexuality and became a public figure for the gay rights campaign.

Jarman’s first venture in film making was a series of experimental shorts filmed with Super 8mm film, a format he used frequently throughout his career. Among these films are the 1984 “Imagining October, an examination of art and politics at the end of the Cold War; 1985 “The Angelic Conversation”, an arthouse drama of homoerotic images combined with Judi Dench’s readings of Shakespeare sonnets; and 1990 “The Garden”, an arthouse allegory that examined the suffering and ostracism of a gay male couple during the AIDS crisis. “The Garden” was entered in 1991 into the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.

As a stage set and costume designer, Derek Jarman did the design work for the 1968 Sadler’s Wells Opera production of “Don Giovanni” at London’s newly renovated Coliseum in the West End. He was chosen as the production designer for director Ken Russell’s 1971 historical horror-drama “The Devil’s”, a controversial film for which Russell received the Best Foreign Director Award at the 1972 Venice Film Festival. Jarman’s work with this film, as well as his work on Russell’s 1972 “Savage Messiah”, gave him a transition into mainstream narrative filmmaking.

Jarman’s debut film was the 1976 “Sebastiane”, a story spoken in ancient Latin dialogue about the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. This film featured some of the first positive images of gay sexuality in British films. “Sebastiane” was influenced by films from the Italian arthouse oeuvre, particularly the cinematic style of Frederico Fellini. In 1977, Jarman began shooting scenes for the 1978 “Jubilee”, a heavily punk-influenced film that transports Queen Elizabeth I forward in time to an England troubled by the unemployment and rising inflation of the 1970s. Now considered a cult classic, the film was adapted in 2017 as a play for the Manchester Royal Exchange Theater.

After several years of preparation, Derek Jarman directed his next film, the 1979 adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”. His original adaptation was intended for a stage play; however, he ultimately decided to proceed with a film adaptation. Seeking a balance between the aspects of theater and film, Jarman reworked the text so it would capture the mystery of the original without the theatrics. Inspired by films produced by Hammer Film Productions, Jarman utilized voice-over narration, costumes from muliple eras, sounds of heavy breathing, and blue camera filters to create a film that was well received upon its release.

Jarman learned his HIV-positive diagnosis on the twenty-second of December in 1986. An outspoken advocate of gay rights, he openly spoke publicly about his condition and his struggle with the virus. Despite his illness, Jarman continued making both mainstream films and Super 8mm shorts. In 1987, his arthouse film “The Last of England” was released. This film dealt with the loss of English culture in the 1980s and the formation of the Section 28 Local Government Act that banned any “promotion” or discussion of homosexuality and thus stifled LGBT support groups.

Derek Jarman’s 1989 “War Requiem”, produced by Scottish novelist and director Don Boyd, brought Laurence Olivier out of retirement for his last screen appearance. For its soundtrack, the film used noted composer Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem”, a work he wrote for the consecration of the Coventry Cathedral. Violent war footage and poetry written by war hero Wilfred Owen were overlaid on the score. While filming his 1990 “The Garden”, Jarman became seriously ill but managed to complete the work. This arthouse film was loosely based on Christ’s crucifixion; however, the film’s protagonist is a gay male couple whose idealistic existence is interrupted by arrest, humiliation, torture and death.

Now working in a simpler format due to his failing health, Jarman directed his 1991 “Edward II”, a romantic historical drama based on Christopher Marlowe’s 1594 play of the same name. This was followed by the 1993 experimental comedic-drama “Wittgenstein” based on the life of philosopher and professor Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose life and career were affected by periods of depression. By 1993, Jarman was dying of AIDS-related complications that had already rendered him partially blind and only able to see in shades of blue.

Despite his advancing illness, Derek Jarman completed his 1993 “Blue”, a single screenshot of saturated blue color with a background soundtrack by Simon Fisher Turner. Over the soundtrack, Jarman and some of his long-time collaborators described Jarman’s life and artistic vision. “Blue” made its debut at the 1993 Venice Biennale and later became part of the collections at the Centre Georges Pompidou, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Collection, and the Walker Art Institute in Minneapolis. Jarman’s final film was the 1994 “Glitterbug”, a documentary of his life as seen through home movies, that was posthumously aired on BBC Two’s episodic television show “Arena”.

Jarman died on the nineteenth of February in 1994 at the age of fifty-two at London’s St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. His body is interned in the graveyard at St. Clement’s Church, Old Romney, Kent. A blue English Heritage plaque honoring Derek Jarman’s life was placed at the site of his live-in studio at London’s Butler’s Wharf in 2019.

Notes: After his HIV-positive diagnosis, Jarman made the decision to leave London for a period and bought a small fisherman’s cabin, Prospect Cottage, on the beaches of Dungeness, Kent, with an inheritance received from his father. Using his creative energy, Jarman created a sculpture garden from discarded metal engine parts and local coastal plants. After his death, Prospect Cottage was purchased in 2020 through an Art Fund campaign and is now a public site overseen by the UK charity Creative Folkestone. Jarman’s archives from the cottage were placed on a long-term loan to the Tate Museum Archive.

An 2023 article by artist and curator Robert Priseman for “ART UK”, entitled “Derek Jarman’s Garden: A Heart of Creativity”, examines Jarman’s life at Prospect Cottage: https://artuk.org/discover/stories/derek-jarmans-garden-a-heart-of-creativity

“FILM London” has a short 2024 article on Jarman’s life and the Jarman Award for emerging artist filmmakers that was instituted in 2008: https://filmlondon.org.uk/flamin/about-derek-jarman

Alastair Curtis wrote an excellent 2023 article for “FRIEZE’ magazine on Derek Jarman’s final film “Blue” and its adaptation into a stage production: https://www.frieze.com/article/derek-jarman-blue-now-2023

Top Insert Image: Trevor Leighton, “Derek Jarman”, 1990, Bromide Fibre Print, 36.7 x 29 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London

Second Insert Image: Derek Jarman, “Caravaggio”, 1986, Cinematography Gabriel Beristain, Cinevista (USA), Umbrella Entertainment (Australia)

Third Insert Image: Steve Pyke, “Derek Jarman”, 1983, Bromide Print, 37.6 x 38 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London

Fourth Insert Image: Derek Jarman, “Sebastiane”, 1976, Cinematography Peter Middleton, Cinegate Ltd

Fifth Insert Image: David Thompson, “Derek Jarman”, 1992, Toned Archival Print on Kentmere Paper, 34.5 x 27.7 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London

Bottom Insert Image: Derek Jarman, “Jubilee”, 1978, Cinematography Peter Middleton, Cinegate Ltd

Anthony Asquith: Film History Series

Alexander Bassano, “Anthony Asquith”, 1927, Whole Plate Glass Negative, National Portrait Gallery, London

Born in November of 1902 in London, Anthony Asquith was an English film director. He was the son of Margot Asquith and Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. Along with Alfred Hitchcock, Carol Reed and David Lean, Anthony Asquith was one of the internationally acclaimed British film directors at the top of the profession in the 1950s and 1960s.

A reluctant aristocrat, Anthony Asquith was educated at the private Eaton House, Winchester College in Hampshire and, from 1921 to 1925, Balliol College, Oxford. Although he was interested in music, he decided to pursue a career in the rapidly growing British film industry. Asquith traveled in 1920 to Hollywood to observe American film production techniques. In England, he made his debut as a silent film director with the 1927 British black comedy “Shooting Stars”. Asquith followed the comedy with the 1928 drama “Underground”, a story of four lives that intersect in London’s underground tube network.

Asquith’s work in silent film was influenced by the German Expressionist film movement and was experimental in nature. This can be seen in his best-known silent film, the 1930 “A Cottage on Dartmoor”, known for its meticulous and emotional frame composition. Asquith’s tense, shocking thriller, which stylistically brings to mind the early work of Alfred Hitchcock, is filled with innovative camera work by Stanley Ridwell and fast editing work to produce an eerie and unpredictable atmosphere. In his role of director, Asquith was a master of atmosphere and extracted the most emotion from dramatic situations. He became known as an actor’s director and was able to get some of the finest performances from Britain’s greatest actors.

The majority of Anthony Asquith’s oeuvre was divided between semi-documentaries and the adaptation of plays and novels. These he staged in a stylistically restrained, tasteful, but nuanced manner. In collaboration with English playwright Terence Rattigan as screenplay writer, Asquith directed film adaptations of ten famous plays written by Rattigan. Among these adaptations were the 1948 “The Winslow Boy”, “The Browning Version” in 1951, and the 1940 “French Without Tears”, Rattigan’s first successful play which premiered in 1936.

One of Asquith’s best known films is the 1938 “Pygmalion”, an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 stage play, which Asquith co-directed with its star Leslie Howard. A critical success even in the United States, the film received multiple Academy Award nominations; Bernard Shaw won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. Asquith’s most successful postwar film was probably his 1952 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Ernest”; it still remains today, after seventy years, the best adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s work.

In the 1960’s, Anthony Asquith was directing lavish all-star productions. He was one of only three British directors who were directing major international motion picture productions in that time period. Asquith directed the 1963 British comedy-drama film “The V,I.P.s” with a large cast that included Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Maggie Smith, Rod Taylor, Orson Welles and Margaret Rutherford, among others. The film, shot from a screenplay by Terence Rattigan, was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Margaret Rutherford, cast as the Duchess of Brighton, won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Asquith’s next project was the 1964 “The Yellow Rolls-Royce” with a screenplay by Rattigan and production by Anatole de Grunwald. The twenty-three member cast of this drama included such stars as Rex Harrison, Ingrid Bergman, Shirley MacLaine, Omar Sharif and George C. Scott. In the early part of 1967, Asquith was signed to direct the 1968 big screen adaptation of Australian author Morris West’s “The Shoes of the Fisherman”. This American political drama of Vatican and Cold War intrigue included a major cast with such stars as Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn. Due to ill health in November of 1967, Asquith dropped out of its production.

The Honorable Anthony Asquith died in February of 1968 of cancer, at the age of sixty-five, in London, England. He was buried at All Saints Churchyard, Sutton Courtenay in Berkshire, England. Over the course of his career, Asquith directed forty-two films and was instrumental in the formation of the London Film Society. In his honor, the British Academy Award for Best Music is named the Anthony Asquith Award.

“Although I was sparing with the big individual close-ups, I was tempted in the scene where Edith Evan’s voice goes up three octaves on a single syllable when she says the word “hanndb-a-g”. On films, as you know, voices haven’t need to be raised to reach the back of the gallery. We take care of that, and actors and actresses keep their voices right down. In the case of (the character) Lady Bracknell, however, it was different: she is a monster anyway and she is more than life-size, and certainly Edith Evans IS life-size. I didn’t try to modify her performance in any way, because it seemed to me to be splendid.” —Anthony Asquith on directing “The Importance of Being Ernest”

Notes: It was Asquith’s father, Herbert Henry Asquith, serving as Home Secretary, who ordered Oscar Wilde’s arrest for his homosexual behavior. This arrest for indecent behavior led to Wilde’s incarceration in the Reading Jail and personally destroyed the playwright. The arrest and imprisonment of Wilde affected gay culture in Britain for most of the twentieth-century. The irony of Herbert Henry Asquith’s participation in this event is that Anthony Asquith, his youngest son, was gay.

English theatrical actress Edith Evans is considered the greatest actress on the English stage in the twentieth-century. Over a career of more than fifty years, she appeared in modern and classical roles in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York City. In 1946, Edith Evans was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knighthood.

Film historian Peter Cowie, a specialist in Swedish cinema, wrote an excellent article for the Criterion Channel on the Anthony Asquith’s life and his major film adaptations. The article can be found on the Criterion Channel’s website located at: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4495-anthony-asquith

Top Insert Image: Howard Coster, “Anthony Asquith”, 1935, Bromide Print, 15.8 x 11.2 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London

Second Insert Image: Anthony Asquith, “A Cottage on Dartmoor”, (Hans Adalbert Schiettow and Norah Baring), 1921, Cinematography Stanley Rodwell

Third Insert Image: Anthony Asquith, “Libel”, 1959, Film Pster, Cinematography Robert Krasker

Fourth Insert Image: Anthony Asquith, “The Net”, (James Donald and Phyllis Calvert), 1953, Cinematography Desmond Dickinson

Bottom Insert Image: Ernest Cyril Stanborough, “Anthony Asquith”, 1930s, Bromide Print, 22.7 x 17.7 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London