Kicking the Pricks.

The late Derek Jarman made innovative, accessible pop-music videos for the Smiths, the Pet Shop Boys, and other groups as well as sensual, visually stimulating feature films that inspired and occasionally agitated his audiences. The creator of Caravaggio, Edward II, Wittgenstein, and Blue died of AIDS complications in 1994 at age 52, but the answer to his postdiagnosis query--"Ten feet under, am I still part of this?"--is a resounding yes. His films play throughout the world, his activism continues to benefit British gays, and his influence on cinema can be seen in works both experimental and mainstream.

Jarman posed the above question about immortality in "Hope," a poem that's included in Kicking the Pricks, the final volume of his diaries, to be published in the United States for the first time this month. These journals were originally published in Britain in 1987 as The Last of England, the name of the film Jarman was making at the time he kept these diaries (with the help of Keith Collins, whose running interview with Jarman punctuates the filmmaker's writings).

At once enlightening and exasperating, the book provides insight into a complex film--which many consider to be one of Jarman's finest. But whereas the film was hard-hitting and to the point, this book often rambles. Jarman's journals also contain too much complaining about slights from British television programmers and film financiers. It's surprising that as an experimental filmmaker, Jarman expected to be embraced by Britain's financial establishment. Yet the director attributed those rebuffs solely to homophobia: "It's been evident from the handling of my films that the problem was that I was queer."

The book hits its stride only about halfway through, when the discussion of The Last of England begins in earnest. The film, shot in Super 8 and blown up to 35-millimeter, analyzed what Jarman perceived as Britain's decline into greed, militarism, and poverty (of wallet and soul). Although his use of Super 8 was as much a function of his finances as it was an aesthetic preference, it is clear from these journals that Jarman learned how to make the most of his medium. "Blown up to 35-millimeter, the quality is something quite now, like stained glass," he marvels at one point. "The film glows with wonderful colors. Most 35-millimeter looks hard and brassy by comparison."

Throughout the book Jarman also addresses subjects other than The Last of England. Among, these are his own childhood, his father's kleptomania, coming to terms with his sexuality, life in the sex- and drug-filled '60s and '70s, his early work as a painter and designer for British filmmaker Ken Russell, and his debut as a director himself.

But all too often the book has a secondhand feel to it. It features several vignettes that are reprinted in other works by Jarman (Overlook Press and Jarman's estate seem determined to market the artist's every last scribbling and photograph), including Derek Jarman's Garden (published in 1995) and At Your Own Risk: A Saint's Testament, a very fine "testament" about sexuality published in the United States in 1993.

Kicking the Pricks isn't Jarman at his best, but he's never dull. If he's cranky and self-aggrandizing, his passion for life and art--and his desire to make a difference during his time on this planet--still comes through loud and clear.