Arena — Season 1, Episode 479: Glitterbug
Documentary • 90 min • 3 seasons, 689 episodes • ★ 7.2/10
Episode synopsis
During the 1970s and 1980s Derekjarman kept a Super-8 film diary, chronicling the cultural high life and low life of London. The footage ranges from William Burroughs reading aloud at the nightclub Heaven, to candid behind-the-scenes footage of his most controversial feature films including Jubilee and Sebastiane. The original music is written by his long term collaborator Brian Eno. Glitterbug, his last film, is shown as a tribute to Jarman who died on 19 February.
About Arena
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.