derek jarman
 

not enough is said about him and how good he was. start here.

Yes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3YCTE958tA

Creepy.

A definite hero of mine, but more for the things he stood for than the films he made.

Apart from Jubilee, which isn't that good a movie, i respect and like his movies but you have to be in the mood for them. I've once watched Blue in the open air on a giant screen and with the commentary running through the headphones.

i did enjoy wittgenstein, which was strange but good.

i've been wanting to see caravaggio. caravaggio by the way was the inspiration for the look of guillermo del toro's "blade II". true story.

a friend of mine had a lot of his films on 8mm film and we used to project them in his room and make our own soundtracks. it sounds pretentious but it was really good fun.

I've never really liked his feature films - of which Jubilee is almost definitely the worst. His short films are generally great though. In the Shadow of the Sun is quite beautiful. The videos he made for The Smiths' The Queen is Dead album are also great.

he designed the sets for the massively underated film the devils with oliver reed. good job he did too.

yes his short films are my favourites too.

Yes , i love the mini movie he did for The Smiths, and the video for Suede's So Young is also quite good. The first time i watched Caravaggio it bored me to tears , but when i re-watched it a few years later i thought it was genius.

He was also a real champion of young talent. People like Jon Maybury owe an awful lot to him.

Indeed. Someone i can compare to him in terms of championing decent young talent but in a theatre setting is Mark Ravenhill. Here's Suede's Jarman directed video. If you can ignore Brett Anderson's face it makes for good viewing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxCf9tzLK2M

Pirate Tape
By Derek Jarman

1982, UK, 16 minutes, Color
Original soundtrack: Psychic TV
Cast: William S. Burroughs
Production: James Mackay
Originally filmed on Super 8, reprocessed ?skip frame? shots of William Burroughs in London are accompanied by a looped repetition of him uttering a single phrase.
http://www.greylodge.org/gpc/?p=521

Didn't he do Shopping and Fucking in the 90s?

He did, and he also directed Mother Clap's Molly House, which was fairly bad to be honest. He was also in charge of directing a no-frills nativity at the Barbican last year. Go figure.

Fantastic stuff.

I sort of remember his name being banded around for a while but, not being a regular theatre goer, never really kept up with him.

Caravaggio is a great movie - excellent soundtrack as well.
Shadow of the Sun is also good.
I keep meaning to travel down to Dungeness to see his house and garden, just never seem to get round to it.

Is it still up and running? so to speak.