Sebastiane | |
---|---|
Directed by | Derek Jarman Paul Humfress |
Written by | Derek Jarman Paul Humfress James Whaley |
Produced by | Howard Malin James Whaley |
Starring | Leonardo Treviglio Barney James Richard Warwick Neil Kennedy |
Cinematography | Peter Middleton |
Edited by | Paul Humfress |
Music by | Brian Eno Andrew Thomas Wilson |
Distributed by | Cinegate |
Release date |
|
Running time | 85 minutes [1] |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | Latin |
Sebastiane is a 1976 Latin-language British historical film directed by Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress and written by Jarman, Humfress and James Whaley. It portrays the events of the life of Saint Sebastian, including his iconic martyrdom by arrows. The film, which was aimed at a gay audience, was controversial for the homoeroticism portrayed between the soldiers and for having dialogue entirely in Latin.
In the third century AD, Sebastian is a member of the Emperor Diocletian's personal guard. When he tries to intervene to stop one of the Emperor's catamites from being strangled by one of his bodyguards, Sebastian is exiled to a remote coastal garrison and reduced in rank to private. Although thought to be an early Christian, Sebastian is a worshipper of the Roman sun god Phoebus Apollo and sublimates his desire for his male companions into worship of his deity and pacifism. Both incense Severus, the commanding officer of the garrison, who becomes increasingly obsessed with Sebastian, tries to assault him, and ultimately presides over his summary execution for refusing to take up arms in defence of the Roman Empire. Justin, one of his comrades in arms, is also in love with Sebastian, albeit necessarily unrequited, but he forms a friendship with the stubborn celibate pacifist. Adrian and Anthony, two of Sebastian's fellow soldiers, are gay and obviously in love with one another.
The emperor's guests included such notables as Peter Hinwood, Nell Campbell, and Patricia Quinn (all of Rocky Horror fame), Jordan, Philip Sayer, Charlotte Barnes, Nicholas de Jongh, Duggie Fields, Christopher Hobbs, Andrew Logan, and Johnny Rozsa.
Margaret Walters, author of The Nude Male, commented that Sebastiane, "where male nudes in various stages of ecstasy positively littered the screen", was "successfully aimed at a very specialized homosexual audience." [2]
The film was released on DVD in the UK and the U.S. A Blu-ray disc was released in the U.S. on August 7, 2012. [3]
Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander was a Roman emperor, who reigned from 222 until 235. He was the last emperor from the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222. Alexander himself was eventually assassinated, and his death marked the beginning of the events of the Third Century Crisis, which included nearly fifty years of civil war, foreign invasion, and the collapse of the monetary economy.
Lucius Septimius Severus was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of the emperor Pertinax in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors.
The Severan dynasty was a Roman imperial dynasty that ruled the Roman Empire between 193 and 235, during the Roman imperial period. The dynasty was founded by the emperor Septimius Severus, who rose to power after the Year of the Five Emperors as the victor of the civil war of 193–197, and his wife, Julia Domna. After the short reigns and assassinations of their two sons, Caracalla and Geta, who succeeded their father in the government of the empire, Julia Domna's relatives themselves assumed power by raising Elagabalus and then Severus Alexander to the imperial office.
The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293 to govern the ancient Roman Empire by dividing it between two senior emperors, the augusti, and their juniors and designated successors, the caesares. This marked the end of the Crisis of the Third Century.
The 300s decade ran from January 1, 300, to December 31, 309.
Numerian was Roman emperor from 283 to 284 with his older brother Carinus. They were sons of Carus, a general raised to the office of praetorian prefect under Emperor Probus in 282.
Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius was a Roman emperor, who reigned from 306 until his death in 312. Despite ruling in Italy and North Africa, and having the recognition of the Senate in Rome, he was not recognized as a legitimate emperor by his fellow emperors.
Marcus Aurelius Carinus was Roman emperor from 283 to 285. The elder son of emperor Carus, he was first appointed Caesar and in the beginning of 283 co-emperor of the western portion of the empire by his father. Official accounts of his character and career, which portray him as debauched and incapable, have been filtered through the propaganda of his successful opponent, Diocletian.
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, author and gay rights activist.
Flavius Valerius Severus, was a Roman emperor from 306 to the moment of his death, in September 307. After failing to besiege Rome, he fled to Ravenna. It is thought that he was killed there or executed near Rome.
Saint Sebastian was an early Christian saint and martyr. According to traditional belief, he was killed during the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians. He was initially tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows, though this did not kill him. He was, according to tradition, rescued and healed by Saint Irene of Rome, which became a popular subject in 17th-century painting. In all versions of the story, shortly after his recovery he went to Diocletian to warn him about his sins, and as a result was clubbed to death. He is venerated in the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.
Sebastian may refer to:
Egypt was a subdivision of the Roman Empire from Rome's annexation of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in 30 BC to its loss by the Byzantine Empire to the Islamic conquests in AD 641. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai, and was bordered by the provinces of Crete and Cyrenaica to the west and Judea, later Arabia Petraea, to the East. Egypt came to serve as a major producer of grain for the empire and had a highly developed urban economy. Aegyptus was by far the wealthiest Eastern Roman province, and by far the wealthiest Roman province outside of Italy. The population of Roman Egypt is unknown, although estimates vary from 4 to 8 million. In Alexandria, its capital, it possessed the largest port, and was the second largest city of the Roman Empire.
The Dominate, also known as the late Roman Empire is the name sometimes given to the "despotic" later phase of imperial government, following the earlier period known as the "Principate", in the ancient Roman Empire. Until the empire was reunited in 313, this phase is more often called the Tetrarchy.
The Battle of Lugdunum, also called the Battle of Lyon, was fought on 19 February 197 at Lugdunum, between the armies of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus and of the Roman usurper Clodius Albinus. Severus' victory finally established him as the sole emperor of the Roman Empire following the Year of the Five Emperors and immediate aftermath.
The Garden is a 1990 British arthouse film directed by Derek Jarman and produced by James Mackay for Basilisk Communications, in association with Channel 4, British Screen, and ZDF. It focuses on non-binary gender identities sometimes expressed within the, even then, barely acceptable conventions of its time including homosexuality and the internal conflicts felt by some LGBT+ people with a world view influenced predominantly by Christianity set against a backdrop of Prospect Cottage, Jarman's bleak coastal home of Dungeness in Kent, and his garden and the nearby landscape surrounding a nuclear power station, a setting Jarman compares to the Garden of Eden or Garden of Gethsemenae. The film was entered into the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.
The Four Crowned Martyrs or Four Holy Crowned Ones were nine individuals who are venerated as martyrs and saints of Early Christianity. The nine saints are divided into two groups:
The Tempest is a 1979 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name. Directed by Derek Jarman, produced by Don Boyd, with Heathcote Williams as Prospero, it also stars Toyah Willcox, Jack Birkett, Karl Johnson and Helen Wellington-Lloyd from Jarman's previous feature, Jubilee (1977).
Sebastiane Award is a prize delivered in September, since 2000, to a film or documentary screened during San Sebastián International Film Festival that best reflects the values and reality of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.
Saint Sebastian is a 1610–1614 oil on canvas painting by El Greco, the last of his three portrayals of Saint Sebastian. It survives in two large fragments, both of which are in the Prado Museum; the top half was donated by the Countess of Mora y Aragón in 1959 and the lower half was acquired in 1987.
Filmed entirely in vulgar Latin, this experimental film recounts the life of Sebastiane, a puritanical but beautiful Christian soldier in the Roman Imperial troops who is martyred when he refuses the homosexual advances of his pagan captain. When this film was released, it was the only English-made film to have required English subtitles, and it is an early film by the noted experimental and outspokenly homosexual director Derek Jarman, who died in 1994.