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Talks & Events
Book Launch

Book Launch- publication of Derek Jarman's unrealised film treatment

7 Jun 2025 4-7pm

Amanda Wilkinson
London EC1M 3JB

Overview

The Assassination of Pier Paulo Pasolini in the Garden of Earthly Delights
Derek Jarman
Published by Pilot Press

Perfect bound
148x190mm
96pp
Published in the U.K. by Pilot Press
ISBN: 978-1-0687586-3-8

On the occasion of the opening of this exhibition Pilot Press will launch the publication of Derek Jarman's unrealised film treatment, The Assassination of Pier Paulo Pasolini in the Garden of Earthly Delights, 1984. For the first time, the final draft of the film’s treatment is presented alongside reproductions from the film’s workbook, which show Jarman’s calligraphic notes towards the film’s sequences, themes, cinematography, lighting, sound, costume, casting and props.

Jarman’s treatment takes as its subject matter the events leading up to and including the 1975 murder of the Italian film director, Pier Paulo Pasolini, following the making of his controversial last film Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975. The setting of the film takes as its inspiration Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1490-1500, a painting that depicts both the joys and dangers of temptation, and which Jarman encountered on a visit to the Museo de Prado in Madrid the year he began working on the project.