Un emozionante documento con la viva voce di Derek Jarman (1942-1994) catturata in audio vérité nel giugno 1992 all'inizio della stesura di Chroma, personalissimo rapporto sulla storia, l'uso e il significato dei colori quando già la sua vista era seriamente deteriorata e ormai sul punto di svanire. Lo ha custodito e ora divulgato Simon Fisher Turner in Life Recordings From Prospect Cottage And The Ness, rendendolo più ampiamente disponibile tramite il berlinese Digital Archive of Tapeworm dopo l'iniziale pubblicazione in poche copie su audiocassetta.
Chroma is a meditation on the color spectrum by the celebrated late artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. From the explosions of image and color in In The Shadow of the Sun, The Last of England, The Garden and Wittgenstein, to the somber blacks of his collages and tar paintings, Jarman has consistently used color in unprecedented ways, making his ideas on the subject of interest to filmmakers, film audiences, artists and students alike. Blue, his most personal and innovative film, consists of a compelling soundtrack accompanied by a monochrome blue image and is, among other things, a comment on Jarman's diminishing eyesight due to AIDS. In his signature style, a lyrical combination of classical theory, anecdote, and poetry, Jarman takes the reader through the spectrum, introducing each color as an embodiment of an emotion, evoking memories or dreams. He explains the use of color in Medieval painting through the Renaissance to the modernists and draws on the great color theorists from Pliny to Leonardo. He writes too about the meanings of color in literature, science, philosophy, psychology, religion and alchemy. Read either as a work on color, or a distillation of Jarman's artistic vision, Chroma presents an exciting perspective on the subject.