Queer Edward II_“Ev’ry time we say goodbye, I die a little” is the opening line of one of Cole Porter’s most exquisite standards. Written in 1944 for a short-lived Broadway revue, it is a ballad of lovers parting, built on deceptively simple lyrics draped over the harmonic sophistication and subtle chromaticisms that are Porter’s signature.
Annie Lennox performs it during the farewell scene between Edward II and his favorite, Piers Gaveston. Edward must sign the decree exiling Gaveston from the realm. “I will sign it not with ink, but with my tears,” he laments. Lennox delivers a crystalline, unadorned rendition. The year before Jarman shot the film, she had parted ways with Dave Stewart, and Eurythmics had ceased to exist. In the sequence, Lennox sings with her head resting against a bare wall, her image intercut with the two lovers locked in a dance—their last. She hits the final note, turns, and disappears down a black tunnel. A heartbeat later, Jarman himself appears, following her into the shadows. Before he vanishes, he makes a small gesture—touching his throat, if memory serves—and you can tell he is moved.
We are moved as well, yet a tinge of regret settles in. In a film celebrating such a volatile blend of genius, identity politics, and radical militancy, it feels as though there is no room for her—for the singer who, in all her raw fragility and defiance, embodied that era better than almost anyone. Sinéad…
Then we rise from our seats in the Sala Grande as the end credits begin to roll, and instantly those unmistakable guitar chords ring out, followed by that voice—at once lacerating and celestial. It is Jerusalem. It is her. It is Sinéad!
Whether Jarman loved Sinéad O’Connor or not, I do not know, nor do I care. But I know that end credits—as Nanni Moretti has always insisted—are an inseparable part of the film itself. And rarely has there been a more luminous proof of that than the Queer Edward II we have just witnessed.
