Representations of AIDS in film - Danny & Blue

During tonight’s screening, the most noticeable shared aspect of these films was the fact that there was very little in terms of visuals for the viewer to focus on. The fact that both films had a sense of sparseness brought up many thoughts. First, since the topic of these films (AIDS) has been very stigmatized in society, I don’t find it surprising that there seemed to be a reluctance to reveal much to the viewer. I feel the relationship of the creator of the film to the subject of the film impacted the way information was presented (though perhaps for different motives). With Danny, the filmmaker was a close friend of Danny’s, the film’s subject. With Blue, the majority of the audio consists of the director’s, Derek Jarman, very personal thoughts. Since Danny seemed like a tribute film, and the creator had such a personal relationship with Danny, there seemed to be a withholding of showing the viewer how Danny really moved about in life. All action is shown in stills and thus only the creator of the film really has a sense of who Danny was. There appeared to be a glorification (or sexualization) of Danny that kept the creator from using too much movement in the film perhaps as a way to preserve Danny and keep him from being judged by us, the viewers. The use of only a blue shot in Blue seemed to me to stem from a similar sentiment. While the blue screen seemed to parallel Jarman’s loss of sight, it also seemed like a way to preserve himself. While I could look up more about Jarman and see what he looked like, if my only knowledge of Jarman stemmed from this film, it is harder for me to judge him. I may be able to form opinions about him but I can’t direct them at anyone. I wouldn’t know Jarman if I passed him on the street. He remains a mystery.

The relationship between subject and capturer is also described in Crimps’ “Portraits of People with AIDS.” And here, I found an interesting difference between how the photographer described in the article (Nixon) and the two filmmakers believed could be evoked from a photograph. Nixon wanted a trusting relationship with his subjects because he believed this helped them reveal their “true selves” to the camera. However, by not showing many (or any) images, I believe these films show how an image is not needed to represent powerful emotions. The images Nixon took were suppose to evoke a response from the viewer, but these two films tonight did the same thing and neither of them let us really get to linger on a photograph of the subject. In fact, although Nixon probably would’ve argued that he was capturing emotion, it took the viewer’s interactions with his photos for these emotions to surface.