Playing in The Garden: Sound, Performance, and Images of Persecution

Argues how the soundtrack can offer a unity of discourse in British filmmaker Derek Jarman's "The Garden" (1990). Notes that the central, (thought nonlinear) narrative is based loosely on the story of the Passion, in which a gay couple are substituted for the traditional Jesus figure on several occasions. Suggests that a gap is exposed between sound and image, creating a space in which the soundtrack is able to speak its own voice, liberated from slavery to the image. Explains that "The Garden" presents a damning criticism - embodied in the form of the image and the camera - of the British tabloid press's renewed vigor in their persecution of homosexuals since the AIDS crisis. Describes how the soundtrack would redeem the film's message.