Derek Jarman rarely hedged a question, he answered each one as truthfully as he could. From the opening question in this interview with Jeremy Isaacs, Jarman’s candor and honesty is refreshing:

Jeremy Isaacs:
Derek Jarman, painter, writer, film maker; and in my view one of the most distinguished of our time, gardener. When you discovered at the end of nineteen eighty six that you were HIV positive you decided to let that be known; why?

Derek Jarman:
Jerry, I did it for myself, really for my own self respect because my whole life had been a struggle to actually make my life open and acceptable. I found myself potentially in a form of a ghetto, really, of frightened and unhappy people, who felt that they couldn’t actually tell the truth about themselves. So I did it for my own self respect. I didn’t do it for anyone else. If it was any help for anyone else I’d be delighted.

Jeremy Isaacs:
Have you always been able to be open about your sexuality?

Derek Jarman:
No, definitely not. I think it’s something that I actually struggled to be open with. Certainly when I was a young man in the fifties, in the sixties it was very, very difficult and I think that gave me a sort of a slight edge you know. It was difficult finding the whole centre of one’s life really; illegal in fact ‘till I was twenty five, so it was difficult, particularly difficult with parents, maybe not amongst friends. Eventually at twenty two I met people, and then after that it was a sort of a clique if you like, a gay Mafia.

Jarman goes on to talk about his childhood, his parents, his work as a painter, a set designer (on Ken Russell’s The Devils), to his own films, his garden, and how he would like to be remembered:

Jeremy Isaacs:
How do you want us to remember you?

Derek Jarman:
Well, I think it would be marvellous to evaporate. I wish I could take all my works with me; that’s what I’d like to happen, to just disappear completely.

Originally aired in March 1993, this version of Face to Face was re-shown after Jarman’s death, and has a beautiful eulogy from Isaacs at the beginning.