Out in the Mountains

 

 

Edward II

A Review

Richard Cornwall

How fast they run to banish him I love!
They would not stir, were it to do me
good.

Why should a king be subject to a priest?

These words are spoken by King Edward
II in the movie as well as in the play by
Christopher Marlowe of the same title.
Not a feel-good film, this is nonetheless
must-see fare for all who have any inter-
est in the tie between the roots in the
14’th century of the war by the Church
against gay and lesbian people and
present events surrounding us. This mo-
vie is especially timely in view of the
front page story on the Vatican’s support
for discrimination against gay people in
Friday’s (7/17/92) Free Press.

Edward II is a masterpiece by the British
filmmaker, Derek Jarman. The dialogue
comes straight from the play by Marlowe
with skillful editing and rearrangement of
particular lines to make this a memorably
jarring movie. Rereading Marlowe’s play
makes clear how close is the quick shift-
ing from scene to scene, with complete
changes of personnel and imagined loca-
tion every other page, to the rapid fire
pace of current movies and TV fare (in
contrast to movies from the 40’s and 50’s
where it takes Jimmy Stewart or Grace
Kelly forever to get to the point so we
wriggle uncomfortably waiting for an ob-
vious development).

Here we never know what to expect. Jar-
man has been true to Marlowe’s text, but
has given us a kaleidoscopic mix of bits
of medieval and modern settings: Coca
Cola, Camel cigarettes and kids’ robot
toys are mixed with frequent “Your High-
nesses,” swords along with helmeted po-
lice in modern riot gear battling strag-
gling friends of the lcing as well as

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battling OutRage (the British equivalent
of ACT UP), the order exiling Edwards’
lover, Piers Gaveston is dated 1991, fol-
lowed by Annie Lennox singing Cole
Porter’s Every Time We Say Goodbye as
Edward and Gaveston say goodbye, sub-
machine guns side-by-side with torches in
stuccoed castle walls. Indeed, the entire
film takes place within the same heavy,
unendingly high walls (except for the dun-
geon) — walls which represent the social
construction of sexuality and gender with-
in which we all still live with startling re-
semblance to the social roles imposed in
the 14’th century.

It is this cinematic collage of the 14’th
and 20’th centuries that makes this such a
feat of movie-making. The language by
Marlowe gives it a pace and precision
and, for us in our Anglo-biased culture, a
tone that contrasts powerfully with its sor-
did reality of queer-bashing, hypocrisy
and treachery. Christopher Marlowe
(1564-93) was born a couple of months
before Shakespeare and they were well
acquainted with each other, both as rivals
for patronage and as colleagues, each, in
his poetry and plays, offering obvious ac-
knowledgement to the work of the other.
Marlowe was the poor son of a cobbler
and debtor in the city of Canterbury. He
attended King’s School in Canterbury on
a scholarship and then got a scholarship to
Corpus Christi College at Cambridge,
spending seven years there. Thus his ed-
ucation ended up much more solid and
classical than Shakespeare’s and he was
unique for verbalizing the tension be-
tween his intellect and his rich imagina-
tion. His death in a bar over the “reck-
oning” over the bar bill at age 29 has been
called by historian A. L. Rowse “the
greatest loss our literature ever suffered.”

Marlowe was anticlerical and un-
abashedly clear about being sexual and
what we now call gay - saying “all they
that loved not tobacco and boys were
fools.” In his refusal to bow to such strong
norms, just as anti-semitism, misogyny
and homophobia were getting their un-
disputed power, Marlowe followed Wil-
liam Rufus (queer son of William the