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In Sebastiane (1976), British
writers/directors Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress created a
remarkably authentic historical film, and a landmark of gay cinema,
about the martyred fourth century Roman soldier, who was later both
canonized as Saint Sebastian and revered as an enduring gay icon.
The film strikingly balances a cinéma vérité depiction of the
everyday life of common soldiers and a visionary exploration of one
man's defiant growth in faith, even as it subtly questions the
nature of that experience. It was Jarman's first full-length work as
a filmmaker, and it remains the only feature from Humfress, who was
then a director at the BBC.
Jarman and Humfress take some liberties with the
accounts of Saint Sebastian. For instance, there is no record of him
being exiled, no sadistically lovelorn Captain Severus, and
incredibly he was supposed not to have died from the arrows
with which he was famously shot – which is how Emperor Diocletian
ordered him killed, and how the film ends – but rather from a second
execution when he was clubbed to death and dumped in a Roman sewer
in 288 A.D. (a few years earlier than the date given in the film).
Of course, strict historical fidelity is impossible, since the
earliest accounts of his life were written centuries after the fact.
The film Sebastiane works brilliantly
on many levels – cinematic, psychological, spiritual, aesthetic,
even political – but what may strike you first is the vividness of
the ancient world it depicts, captured with an authenticity matched
by few films. Despite a brief, over-the-top prologue at the
glitteringly decadent court of Diocletian (he shuns his "favorite,"
Sebastian, Captain of the Palace Guard, for defending a Christian
accused of arson – similar to canonical accounts), and its subtle
compositional use of famous Renaissance paintings of St. Sebastian
(by Mantegna, Reni, and others), the film feels like lived
experience.
Although it was shot with a microscopic budget
(£25,000, then US $45,000) on location in Sardinia, every well-worn
costume and dusty prop seems genuinely of its time. This is in
striking contrast to the long tradition of big-budget "sword and
sandal" epics – which began in the Silent Era, peaked in the 1950s
with Ben-Hur, and continues today in Ridley Scott's
Gladiator – which, despite their craftsmanship, always
look manufactured and a bit phony. And, as we will look at below,
the homoerotic coyness of so many of those films – well illustrated
by the "oysters and snails" scene in Kubrick's Spartacus,
in which Laurence Olivier comes on to his slave, Tony Curtis, with
the argument that 'all's tasty in love' – is made completely open
and natural in Sebastiane.
The more relevant cinematic inspirations (below we
will look at the film's roots in Renaissance painting) are
then-recent pictures by Pasolini and Fellini. Sebastiane's
opening shot of dancer Lindsay Kemp's savagely painted face – with
his huge tongue wriggling at us – recalls the grotesque "producer"
in the play scene at the beginning of the extraordinary
Fellini Satyricon. But Jarman and Humfress, like Fellini, all
owe a considerable debt to the great filmmaker/author Pier Paolo
Pasolini (visit my
Pasolini
Website), who brought the vérité techniques of Italian
Neorealist cinema to depictions of the ancient world in his riveting
film about Jesus, The Gospel According to St. Matthew
(1964), and his versions of Greek myth, Oedipus Rex
(1967) and Medea (1969). In particular,
Sebastiane's motley band of exiled Roman soldiers seems like
a fleshed out development of the crew of Argonauts in Medea,
who were brought to life by Pasolini's subtle documentary-like
approach.
From stills, you might think that Sebastiane's
cast was chosen for their sculpted bodies. But each of these actors,
even those in supporting roles, fully inhabits their characters and
brings them to life. Leonardo Treviglio (seen most recently in Julie
Taymor's 1999 film, Titus) gives an intensely
restrained, brilliantly nuanced performance in the title role. Neil
Kennedy as Max (a year later he played another memorable character
with that same name in Jarman's Jubilee) brings a
twisted comic energy to his role as the troublemaker extraordinaire.
And Barney James, whose only other film role was as the policeman in
Jubilee, creates a genuinely complex antagonist in his
Captain Severus, smitten with Sebastian and torn between lust, duty,
and love.
These nine exiled soldiers speak the earthy "dog
Latin" of that time with total believability (there are English
subtitles; classics scholar Jack Welch translated Jarman and
Humfress's original script). Rather than a gimmick, this ancient
"street talk" helps capture the texture of their rough daily life in
some godforsaken outpost of the Empire. We see just the kind of
loose camaraderie you would expect under the circumstances –
merciless ribbing of each other, some literally painful practical
jokes, constant questioning of each other's manhood (although
somewhat different from today, since this was historically a society
where gay and bisexual people were part of the accepted norm),
flaring tempers; yet all is forgiven by the next day. This constant
roughhousing gives the film not only verisimilitude, but energy and
unpretentiousness.
That latter quality is especially important, because
Jarman and Humfress deal with some dauntingly complex themes, as
important now as seventeen hundred years ago, including the meaning
of spirituality, the place of sexuality in life, and the
contradictory nature of reality. The film's wild streak of humor,
and its sometimes breathtaking visual design, help keep this
profoundly serious work from overdosing on what some people call "heaviosity."
The thematic core, as you might expect in a film
about a man on the road to sainthood, is spirituality. But while the
vision of faith is powerful and deeply moving, it also has many
layers, some of which are provocatively ambiguous.
For some viewers, a central question will be: Is
Sebastian a true Christian or is he a syncretist grafting his
personal version of the new religion on to much older roots? The
film offers different possible answers, not as a dodge, but because
Jarman and Humfress realize how multi-faceted religious experience
is, growing out of social, personal, and spiritual contexts. The
film shows us Sebastian becoming ever more removed from his fellow
soldiers, an outsider among outsiders, as he feels himself drawn
closer to his deity. While Sebastian is being tortured (the first
time) for his intransigence – stripped and staked to the ground (see
the frame above) – he talks with the sweet-natured Justin
(Richard Warwick, who was Antonio in Jarman's The Tempest),
who is in love with him (perhaps more for his beauty than his
faith). At the climax of this scene, Sebastian cries out, referring
to the personification of his growing spirituality, "I love him. He
is beautiful. More beautiful than Adonis." The subtext – at once
spiritual, sadomasochistic, homoerotic, and heartbreakingly tender –
is made apparent when Sebastian, oblivious to Justin's feelings,
says, "He takes me in his arm and caresses my bleeding body." When
Justin shields Sebastian from the sun, he jerks his head away; for
Sebastian, only God can give him solace.
The full nature of Sebastian's ecstatic faith is
subtly questioned. In his delirium, he has mistaken the character
referred to in the credits as the Leopard Boy, presumably a member
of a local tribe, for a manifestation of a god or God. Since we see
the Leopard Boy before Sebastian does – soon after the latter's
arrival in this remote outpost – it is assumed that he is a real
character and neither a figment of Sebastian's imagination nor a
literalized manifestation of deity. So, does this self-delusion
lessen the importance of Sebastian's growing faith?
One of the most remarkable aspects of the film is
that it can be seen as either spiritual or secular; perhaps its deep
strain of humanism is the common link. Sebastiane is
spiritual in that we feel the deep importance of faith to Sebastian,
more so than in most self-styled religious movies. But this film
also offers not only a rational, or secular if you will, reason for
that – Sebastian's world is harsh (betrayed by his beloved
Diocletian) and his life is hard (he lives in a literal and
metaphorical wasteland); it also shows Sebastian's confusion
(misinterpreting the Leopard Boy as a deity, not to mention one
which may be simultaneously, to him, Greco-Roman and/or Christian).
Whether or not Sebastian's faith is based on layers of confusion, we
can fully understand why it is so essential, and nourishing, to him
under the circumstances of his life.
On the other hand, if Sebastiane is
seen as a straightforwardly spiritual film – and some people
consider it so – then there are few other pictures which depict, in
such profoundly real and moving terms, the slow but unshakeable
process of one person embracing a faith fully, to the extent that he
would sacrifice his life for its principles. When Sebastian, a
former commander to the emperor, early on refuses to engage in mock
combat because, as he says in all sincerity, "Christians don't
fight," we know that he is paving the way for his own destruction,
which the film depicts step by inexorable step.
In addition to the depth of its spiritual
probings, Sebastiane can be appreciated aesthetically.
It as an extremely well-made film – dramatically, visually, and
musically – despite its budget of around $250,000 (at the time a
typical Hollywood movie cost 100 times more than that). The
screenplay is deftly structured, with each scene finding the right
length to delineate its characters and expose the necessary
information. This film knows how to balance its oppositions, both
dramatic (from soldierly raunch to spiritual awakening) and visual,
finding beauty in the mysterious depths of water (few films have
such a wealth of seductive water images - note the many relevant
frames throughout this page) and the serenity of the fatal
desert, not to mention its strikingly handsome, but never "model
pretty," cast. As we will see below, the filmmakers also were
remarkably successful in integrating motifs from Renaissance art
(where for centuries Saint Sebastian was one of the two or three
most popular subjects) into the overall realism of the visual
design.
The cinematography by Peter Middleton (who also shot
Jarman's next two films) is exceptional, especially considering that
these powerful images were originally shot in 16mm (before being
blown up to 35mm for theatrical release). The editing by
co-writer/director Paul Humfress is crisp. And Brian Eno's superb
minimalist score (his first work for film) provides both haunting
atmosphere and, in its electronic modernness, just a bit of distance
from the realism of the ancient setting.
There is also great beauty in the English of Jarman
and Humfress' subtitles (alas, I am not fluent in dog Latin). In
radiant contrast to the soldiers' tart slang is Sebastian's
mystically beautiful hymns of praise to his deity and its world. I
was especially moved by his singling out, as an example of God's
handiwork, "That beauty that made all colors different.... The
heavens and earth are united in gold." (see the two frames above)
At times Sebastiane achieves genuine cinematic poetry,
uniting word, image, and sound, which adds not only another rich
texture to a many-layered film, but still more depth to Sebastian's
evolving character.
While looking at language, let's take a brief look
at the name behind the title. Sebastianus was what the man
would have been called in ancient Rome, but the subtitles modernize
it as Sebastian. The form of the name in the title,
Sebastiane, is in the Latin vocative case – which indicates the
person being spoken to – and translates as O Sebastian. In
other words, the Latin grammatical form of the title indicates that
the filmmakers, and we, are directly addressing the character, and
all that that implies: seeing the man as if he and his world were
with us now.
But this film is no mere exercise in historical
recreation. It is a work of flesh and blood, which in its depiction
of the collision course of Sebastian's religious fervor and
Severus's uncontrollable desire cuts through the disastrously
tangled knot of desire and power. For millennia that theme has been
a staple of both art (such as Aeschylus's Oresteia
trilogy in 458 B.C., Shakespeare's 1606 play Antony and
Cleopatra) and countless works of popular culture, but of a
distinctly heterosexual strain. Here, the theme is explored from the
dual perspective of spirituality, as seen above, and gay life. And
that brings us to another reason why Sebastiane is such
an extraordinary film.
Paradoxically, much of the film's power as a
specifically gay-themed work comes from the fact that the
homoeroticism is not only unselfconscious but in the background. It
is just another aspect of these men's lives, and one which their
larger society takes for granted. They reveal, through their jibes,
that a man may just as likely be attracted to a woman as to another
man. This is a place where guys can taunt each other about their
interest in both Vestal Virgins and popular female whores (we catch
a glimpse of the infamous Mammea Morgana, whom the guys love to joke
about – and who resembles the Amyl Nitrate character in Jarman's
next film, Jubilee – in the prologue at Diocletian's
palace) and, equally, about their interest in members of the same
sex. This is still one of the only films to present a world which is
both credible and completely accepting of same-sex relationships;
where sexual orientation is a non-issue. That vision must have been
extraordinarily gratifying to gay audiences a mere quarter of a
century ago (which also explains Sebastiane's great
success at the box office, which surprised many people), at a time
when movies and books offered only the most hopeless depiction of
trapped, doomed homosexual existence (which, on one level, the
Sebastian/Severus plot strand reflects).
But Sebastiane also contains some of
the most genuinely tender and loving moments of any gay-themed film
up to that time, especially in the budding relationship of the minor
characters Adrian (whom the other men tease about being a virgin)
and Anthony. Their scene together in the water, shot in slow motion,
may look like some soft-core fantasy (gay or straight) – with the
camera lingering over (almost) every inch of their sculpted bodies –
but the emotional connection between them seems every bit as real as
their physical desire (which we do not see consummated). Earlier in
the film there was a comparably overt scene, consisting of Sebastian
pouring water over his nude body and rubbing himself clean. What
makes these scenes of central importance is that they highlight one
of the film's most interesting layers. They are both clearly from
the point of view of Severus, the repressed but passionate captain
of these outcast soldiers. In other words, these sensual, beautiful
and moving images are all from the antagonist's point of view.
But then, Severus is much more than a traditional
villain. In a comparable story of this type he would be the closeted
'homosexual heavy,' like the diabolical Claggart in Melville's 1891
final novella, Billy Budd, or the officer in Carson
McCullers' 1941 novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye.
Severus is more complex than that, both psychologically and in his
key role in the narrative structure. He has such resonance because
of the depth of Jarman and Humfress's filmmaking, as well as Barney
James's engrossing performance.
Severus seems to be equally divided between raw lust
and genuine love for Sebastian. But Sebastian is no simple martyr in
this film. He is portrayed simultaneously as a young man with the
beauty of a Greek god but with the fierce piety of a
saint-in-training, yet one who is not adverse to teasingly close
physical contact with his friend Justin. And it is all too clear how
he contributes to Severus's monumental frustration, which ultimately
leads to the visceral climax. Before that, and Severus's final
seduction attempt, we have an intimate moment with him. This scene,
with Severus drunk, alone in his narrow quarters and going mad with
desire for Sebastian, is so powerful in part because our voyeuristic
interest in his "private life" is being fulfilled. Even more, Jarman
and Humfress provide a fascinating, subtle visual gloss on the
action and emotion. They shoot the scene from overhead – perhaps
from the ironic perspective of, say, a low-flying god – which makes
the claustrophobia of Severus's space, and life, all the more vivid.
You can see Severus's duality – which stands at the
center of a film filled with dualities yoked together – in the
climactic note-quite rape scene with Sebastian (see the frames
to the right). Note that Sebastian is dark, even a bit
menacing, with the underlighting and the "devilish" beard; while
Severus – hair ringed with golden light – looks like a Renaissance
image of a Greek god, Apollo or Adonis, the very deities which
not-quite-fully-Christian Sebastian longed for. The complex and
contradictory role of Severus becomes even more intriguing when you
realize that he implicates us viewers in his voyeuristic and
disturbing, yet undeniably beautiful, gazing at radiant young men
(if this were a "heterosexually-oriented" film, the gender of the
objects of desire would change, but not the emotional warp). This
character forces us to sort through our own responses, whatever they
might be and whatever our sexual orientation, even as we realize
that what we are seeing is the radical ambiguity of his point of
view.
The film adds still another layer of narrative
complexity by forcing us to ask, Who is telling this story? At the
end of the brief prologue at Diocletian's court, the wily, and
increasingly mad, Max turns to the camera – his nose hidden by a
black pouch to cover its syphilitic decay – and addresses us
directly. True, he provides additional details about the action
– which were not covered in the historical background text at the
very beginning – but he never returns to his role as narrator. Is
Max a point-of-view red herring? It would seem so, because the
style, tone, and pacing of the film all change substantially once we
reach the desert outpost, just a few minutes into the picture. It
then adopts a much more direct narrative stance (despite the lyrical
moments when Sebastian is evolving his faith) than you could expect
from the twisted perspective of Max. And yet, it is hard to forget
his brief appearance, and it does color, however slightly, our
perceptions of the rest of the film.
Perhaps an even more subtle influence on the film's
tone is its rich connections to art, as well as gay, history. Jarman,
of course, was already both an acclaimed painter and impassioned gay
rights advocate before becoming a filmmaker. Saint Sebastian was an
inspired subject for him to explore, as you can immediately see by
comparing two of the most influential paintings on the subject with
the visceral frames from Sebastiane (see the table
to the left; all paintings and frames are in the same
proportions/aspect ratios as the originals). Historically,
Saint Sebastian with his muscular physique (tied to a pillar,
drilled with arrows – the embodiment of intense but safely-bound
desire) and soulful eyes, became not only one of the most
frequently-painted subjects in Renaissance art but an enduring,
albeit sadomasochistic, gay icon.
His martyrdom was famously depicted by such
Renaissance and Baroque artists – several of whom were gay (see my
list of GLBT
artists) – as Bernini, Tintoretto, Botticelli, Bazzi ("Il Sodoma"),
Mantegna (his 1480 version – the best-known of his many
paintings of Saint Sebastian – is in the lower left), Reni (his
1615 version is in the upper left), Giorgione, Perugino, and El
Greco, as well as the nineteenth century French painters Redon and
Moreau (who reflected their "Decadent" era's interest in androgynous
male beauty), among many others, including several modern artists.
In literature, here is a list of just the best-known gay and
bisexual authors who have written about Saint Sebastian: Pater,
Wilde, Cocteau, Eliot, Kafka, Thomas Mann, Auden, and Mishima, who
in his autobiographical 1949 novel Confessions of a Mask,
the narrator dates his gay awakening to the discovery of Reni's
painting of St. Sebastian. (For a more comprehensive
overview of Saint Sebastian's evolving role in gay art and
literature, read this
essay.) Saint Sebastian has had a recent revival in this time of
AIDS, perhaps because of his dual role as icon of tortured male
beauty and as the patron saint of – even more than soldiers,
athletes, and archers (!) – sufferers of the plague.
Jarman and Humfress's visionary film makes a
fascinating, and perhaps even the most aesthetically and emotionally
complex, addition to the long tradition of works about Saint
Sebastian. For some, its matter-of-fact depiction of a world,
although ancient, free of homophobia may also be compelling.
People familiar with Jarman's final testament on
film, Blue (1993) – made when he was blind and near
death from AIDS, it presents an unchanging field of color
accompanied by a montage of voices, sounds and music – may find that
the blank blue screens which begin and end Sebastiane,
to the accompaniment of Brian Eno's elegiac music, have a special
poignance.
From
Jim's
Film Website
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