Jim Jarmusch
Encyclopedia
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch (icon; born January 22, 1953) is an American
independent film director
, screenwriter
, actor
, producer
, editor
and composer
. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.
in 1953. His mother, of Irish and German descent, had been a reviewer of film and theatre for the Akron Beacon Journal
before marrying his father, a businessman of Czech and German descent who worked for the B.F. Goodrich Company. She introduced the future director, the middle of three children, to the world of cinema by leaving him at a local cinema to watch matinee double features such as Attack of the Crab Monsters
and Creature From the Black Lagoon
while she ran errands. The first adult film he recalls having seen was the 1958 cult classic Thunder Road
(starring Robert Mitchum
) the violence and darkness of which left an impression on the seven-year-old Jarmusch. Another B-movie
influence from his childhood was Ghoulardi
, an eccentric Cleveland television show which featured horror films.
Despite his enthusiasm for film, Jarmusch, an avid reader in his youth, had a greater interest in literature, a pursuit in which he was encouraged by his grandmother. Though he refused to attend church with his Episcopalian
parents (not being enthused by "the idea of sitting in a stuffy room wearing a little tie"), Jarmusch credits literature with shaping his metaphysical beliefs and leading him to reconsider theology in his mid-teens. From his peers he developed a taste for counterculture
: he and his friends would steal the records and books of their older siblings – William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac
, Mothers of Invention. They made fake identity documents which allowed them to visit bars at the weekend but also the local art house cinema – which though it typically showed pornographic films would on occasion feature underground film
s such as Robert Downey, Sr.'s Putney Swope
and Andy Warhol
's Chelsea Girls
. At one point, he took an apprenticeship with a commercial photographer. "Growing up in Ohio", he would later remark, "was just planning to get out".
at Northwestern University. After being asked to leave due to neglecting to take any journalism courses–Jarmusch favored literature and art history–he transferred to Columbia University
the following year, with the intention of becoming a poet. At Columbia, he studied English and American literature under professors including New York School
avant garde poets Kenneth Koch
and David Shapiro
. At Columbia he began to write short "semi-narrative abstract pieces", and edited the undergraduate literary journal The Columbia Review.
During his final year at Columbia, Jarmusch moved to Paris, for what was initially a summer semester on an exchange program but turned into ten months. There, he worked as a delivery driver for an art gallery, and spent most of his time at the Cinémathèque Française
.
Jarmusch graduated from Columbia University in 1975.
Broke and working as a musician in New York City after returning from Paris in 1976, Jarmusch applied on a whim to the prestigious Graduate Film School of New York University
's Tisch School of the Arts
(then under the direction of Hollywood director László Benedek
). Despite his complete lack of experience in filmmaking, his submission of a collection of still photographs and an essay about film secured his acceptance into the program. He studied there for four years, meeting fellow students and future collaborators Sara Driver
, Tom DiCillo
and Spike Lee
in the process. During the late 1970s in New York City, Jarmusch and his contemporaries were part of an alternative culture
scene centered on the CBGB
music club.
In his final year at New York University, Jarmusch worked as an assistant to the renowned film noir director Nicholas Ray
, who was at that time teaching in the department. In an anecdote Jarmusch has recounted of the formative experience of showing his mentor his first script, Ray disapproved of its lack of action, to which Jarmusch responded after meditating on the critique by reworking the script to be even less eventful. On Jarmusch's return with the revised script, Ray reacted favourably to his student's dissent, citing approvingly the young student's obstinate independence. Jarmusch was the only person Ray brought to work – as his personal assistant – on Lightning Over Water
, a documentary about his dying years on which he was collaborating with Wim Wenders
. Nicholas Ray died in the summer of 1979 after a long fight with cancer. A few days afterwards, having been encouraged by Ray and New York underground filmmaker Amos Poe
and using scholarship funds given by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation to pay for his school tuition, Jarmusch started work on a film for his final project. The university, unimpressed with Jarmusch's use of his funding as well as the project itself, promptly refused to award him a degree.
, his first feature film. It was made on a shoestring budget of around $12,000 in misdirected scholarship funds and shot by cinematographer Tom DiCillo on 16 mm film
. The 75 minute quasi-autobiographical feature follows an adolescent drifter (Chris Parker
) as he wanders around downtown Manhattan. The film was not released theatrically, and did not attract the sort of adulation from critics that greeted his later work. The Washington Post staff writer Hal Hinson would disparagingly comment in an aside during a review of Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989) that in the director's debut, "the only talent he demonstrated was for collecting egregiously untalented actors". The bleak and unrefined Permanent Vacation is nevertheless one of the director's most personal films, and established many of the hallmarks he would exhibit in his later work, including derelict urban settings, chance encounters, and a wry sensibility.
Jarmusch's first major film, Stranger Than Paradise
, was produced on a budget of approximately $125,000 and released in 1984 to much critical acclaim. A deadpan comedy recounting a strange journey of three disillusioned youths from New York through Cleveland to Florida, the film broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood filmmaking. It was awarded the Camera d'Or
at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival
as well as the 1985 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film
, and became a landmark work in modern independent film
.
, starring musicians John Lurie
and Tom Waits
, and Italian comic actor Roberto Benigni
(his introduction to American audiences) as three convicts who escape from a New Orleans jailhouse. Shot like the director's previous efforts in black and white, this constructivist
neo-noir
was Jarmusch's first collaboration with renowned Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller
, who had been known for his work with Wenders.
His next two films each experimented with parallel narratives: Mystery Train
(1989) told three successive stories set on the same night in and around a small Memphis
hotel, and Night on Earth (1991) involved five cab drivers and their passengers on rides in five different world cities, beginning at sundown in Los Angeles and ending at sunrise in Helsinki. Less bleak and somber than Jarmusch's earlier work, Mystery Train nevertheless retained the director's askance conception of America. He wrote Night on Earth in about a week, out of frustration at the collapse of the production of another film he had written and the desire to visit and collaborate with friends such as Benigni, Gena Rowlands
, and Isaach de Bankolé
.
As a result of his early work, Jarmusch became an influential representative of the trend of the American road movie
. Not intended to appeal to mainstream filmgoers, these early Jarmusch films were embraced by art house audiences, gaining a small but dedicated American following and cult status in Europe and Japan. Each of the four films had their premiere at the eminent and discerning New York Film Festival
, while Mystery Train was in competition at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival
. Jarmusch's distinctive aesthetic and auteur status fomented a critical backlash at the close of this early period, however; though reviewers praised the charm and adroitness of Mystery Train and Night On Earth, the director was increasingly charged with repetitiveness and risk-aversion.
In 1991 Jim Jarmusch appeared as himself in Episode One of John Lurie's cult television series Fishing With John
.
, a period film set in the 19th century American West starring Johnny Depp
and Gary Farmer
. Produced at a cost of almost $9 million with a high-profile cast including John Hurt
, Gabriel Byrne
and, in his final role, Robert Mitchum
, the film marked a significant departure for the director from his previous features. Earnest in tone in comparison to its self-consciously hip and ironic predecessors, Dead Man was thematically expansive and of an often violent and progressively more surreal character. The film was shot in black and white by Robby Müller, and features a score composed and performed by Neil Young
, for whom Jarmusch subsequently filmed the tour documentary Year of the Horse
, released to tepid reviews in 1997.
Though ill-received by mainstream American reviewers, Dead Man found much favor internationally and among critics, many of whom lauded it as a visionary masterpiece. It has been hailed as one of the few films made by a Caucasian that presents an authentic Native American culture and character, and Jarmusch stands by it as such, though it has attracted both praise and castigation for its portrayal of the American West, violence, and especially Native Americans.
Following artistic success and critical acclaim in the American independent film community, he achieved mainstream renown with his far-East philosophical crime film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
, shot in Jersey City and starring Forest Whitaker
as a young inner-city man who has found purpose for his life by unyieldingly conforming it to the Hagakure
, an 18th-century philosophy text and training manual for samurai, becoming, as directed, a terrifyingly deadly hit-man for a local mob boss to whom he may owe a debt, and who then betrays him. The soundtrack was supplied by RZA
of the Wu-Tang Clan. The film was unique among other things for the number of books important to and discussed by its characters, most of them listed bibliographically as part of the end credits. The film is also considered to be an homage to Le Samourai
, a 1967 French New Wave film by auteur Jean-Pierre Melville, which starred renowned French actor Alain Delon
in a strikingly similar role and narrative.
, a collection of eleven short films of characters sitting around drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes that had been filmed by Jarmusch over the course of the previous two decades. The first vignette, "Strange to Meet You", had been shot for and aired on Saturday Night Live
in 1986, and paired Roberto Benigni with comedian Steven Wright
. This had been followed three years later by "Twins", a segment featuring actors Steve Buscemi
and Joie
and Cinqué Lee, and then in 1993 with the Short Film Palme d'Or
-winning "Somewhere in California", starring musicians Tom Waits and Iggy Pop
.
He followed Coffee and Cigarettes in 2005 with Broken Flowers
, which starred Bill Murray
as an early retiree who goes in search of the mother of his unknown son in attempt to overcome a midlife crisis. Following the release of Broken Flowers, Jarmusch signed a deal with Fortissimo Films
, whereby the distributor would fund and have "first-look" rights to the director's future films, and cover some of the overhead costs of his production company, Exoskeleton.
Jarmusch's latest film, The Limits of Control
, opened in the United States on May 22, 2009. A sparse, meditative crime film set in Spain, it starred Isaach de Bankolé
as a lone assassin with a secretive mission. A behind-the-scenes documentary, Behind Jim Jarmusch, was filmed over three days on the set of the film in Seville
by director Léa Rinaldi.
In October 2009, Jarmusch appeared as himself in an episode of the HBO series Bored to Death
.
In September 2010, Jarmusch helped to curate the All Tomorrow's Parties
music festival in Monticello, New York. He is also working on a documentary about the rock band The Stooges
and co-writing a non-traditional opera about the inventor Nikola Tesla
. He is planning a new film with Tilda Swinton
, Michael Fassbender
, Mia Wasikowska
, and John Hurt
, which is scheduled to begin production in early 2012.
The protagonists of Jarmusch's films are usually lone adventurers. The director's male characters have been described by critic Jennie Yabroff as "three time losers, petty thiefs and inept con men, all [...] eminently likeable, if not down right charming", and by novelist Paul Auster
as "laconic, withdrawn, sorrowful mumblers".
, a black hit-man's passionate devotion to the Hagakure
. The interaction and syntheses between different cultures, the arbitrariness of national identity, and irreverence towards ethnocentric, patriotic or nationalistic sentiment are recurring themes in Jarmusch's work.
Jarmusch's fascination for music is another characteristic that is readily apparent in his work. Musicians appear frequently in key roles – John Lurie, Tom Waits, Gary Farmer, Youki Kudoh
, RZA and Iggy Pop
have featured in multiple Jarmusch films, while Joe Strummer
and Screamin' Jay Hawkins
appear in Mystery Train and GZA
, Jack
and Meg White
feature in Coffee and Cigarettes. Hawkins' song "I Put a Spell on You
" was central to the plot of Stranger than Paradise, while Mystery Train is inspired by and named after a song
popularized by Elvis Presley
, who is also the subject of a vignette in Coffee and Cigarettes. In the words of critic Vincent Canby
, "Jarmusch's movies have the tempo and rhythm of blues and jazz, even in their use – or omission – of language. His films work on the senses much the way that some music does, unheard until it's too late to get it out of one's head."
On his narrative focus, Jarmusch remarked in a 1989 interview, "I'd rather make a movie about a guy walking his dog than about the emperor of China."
. Critic Lynn Hirschberg declared Stranger than Paradise in a 2005 profile of the director for The New York Times
to have "permanently upended the idea of independent film as an intrinsically inaccessible avant-garde form". The success of the film accorded the director a certain iconic status within arthouse cinema, as an idiosyncratic and uncompromising auteur exuding the aura of urban cool embodied by downtown Manhattan. Such perceptions were compounded with the release of his subsequent features in the late 1980s, establishing him as one of the generation's most prominent and influential independent filmmakers. In a 1989 review of his work, Vincent Canby
of The New York Times called Jarmusch "the most adventurous and arresting film maker to surface in the American cinema in this decade".
Jarmusch was recognized with the Filmmaker on the Edge award at the 2004 Provincetown International Film Festival
. A retrospective of the director's films was hosted at the Walker Art Center
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during February 1994, and another, "The Sad and Beautiful World of Jim Jarmusch", by the American Film Institute
in August 2005.
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Jarmusch rarely discusses his personal life in public. His longtime girlfriend, filmmaker Sara Driver
, worked closely with him on his early films, but the stress this put on their relationship caused them to break up and resolve thereafter not to work together and have since lived together for many years. He divides his time between New York City and the Catskill Mountains
of Upstate New York. Jarmusch stopped drinking coffee in 1986, the year of the first installment of Coffee and Cigarettes, though he remained a smoker.
In the early 1980s, Jarmusch was part of a revolving lineup of musicians in Robin Crutchfield
's Dark Day project, and later became the keyboardist and one of two vocalists for The Del-Byzanteens
, a No Wave
band whose sole LP Lies to Live By was a minor underground hit in the United States and Britain in 1982. Jarmusch is also featured on the album Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture
(2005) in two interludes described by Sean Fennessy in a Pitchfork Media
review of the album as both "bizarrely pretentious" and "reason alone to give it a listen". Jarmusch and Michel Gondry
each contributed a remix to a limited edition release of the track "Blue Orchid
" by The White Stripes in 2005.
The author of a series of essays on influential bands, Jarmusch has also had at least two poems published. He is a founding member of The Sons of Lee Marvin
, a humorous "semi-secret society" of artists resembling the iconic actor, which issues communiqués and meets on occasion for the ostensible purpose of watching Marvin's films.
By combining odd characters, dark comedy and an incredibly hip atmosphere in classic art-house films such as Down by Law and Stranger Than Paradise, Jarmusch has influenced and assisted younger indie directors in finding a modicum of commercial success with less-than-mainstream fare.|title=Forest Whitaker personifies cool in Jarmusch's latest offbeat film |first=Joe |last=Holleman |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch
|date=March 24, 2000}}
}}
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
independent film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
, editor
Editor
The term editor may refer to:As a person who does editing:* Editor in chief, having final responsibility for a publication's operations and policies* Copy editing, making formatting changes and other improvements to text...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.
Early life
Jarmusch was born to a family of middle-class suburbanites in Cuyahoga Falls, OhioCuyahoga Falls, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 49,374 people, 21,655 households, and 13,317 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,932.9 people per square mile . There were 22,727 housing units at an average density of 889.7 per square mile...
in 1953. His mother, of Irish and German descent, had been a reviewer of film and theatre for the Akron Beacon Journal
Akron Beacon Journal
The Akron Beacon Journal is a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning morning newspaper in Akron, Ohio, United States, and published by Black Press Ltd.. It is the sole daily newspaper in Akron and is distributed throughout Northeast Ohio. The paper places a strong emphasis on local news and business...
before marrying his father, a businessman of Czech and German descent who worked for the B.F. Goodrich Company. She introduced the future director, the middle of three children, to the world of cinema by leaving him at a local cinema to watch matinee double features such as Attack of the Crab Monsters
Attack of the Crab Monsters
Attack of the Crab Monsters is a 1957 American black-and-white science fiction film, written by Charles B. Griffith and produced and directed by Roger Corman via Los Altos Productions, on contract for distribution by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. The plot follows a scientific expedition...
and Creature From the Black Lagoon
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 monster horror film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, and Whit Bissell. The eponymous creature was played by Ben Chapman on land and Ricou Browning in underwater scenes...
while she ran errands. The first adult film he recalls having seen was the 1958 cult classic Thunder Road
Thunder Road
Thunder Road is the title of a 1958 drama–crime film about running moonshine in the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee in the early 1950s. It was directed by Arthur Ripley and starred Robert Mitchum, who also produced the film, co-wrote the screenplay, and is rumored to have directed much of the...
(starring Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
) the violence and darkness of which left an impression on the seven-year-old Jarmusch. Another B-movie
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
influence from his childhood was Ghoulardi
Ghoulardi
Ghoulardi was a fictional character invented and portrayed by disc jockey, voice announcer, and actor Ernie Anderson as the horror host of late night Shock Theater at WJW-TV, Channel 8, in Cleveland, Ohio from January 13, 1963 through December 16, 1966....
, an eccentric Cleveland television show which featured horror films.
Despite his enthusiasm for film, Jarmusch, an avid reader in his youth, had a greater interest in literature, a pursuit in which he was encouraged by his grandmother. Though he refused to attend church with his Episcopalian
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
parents (not being enthused by "the idea of sitting in a stuffy room wearing a little tie"), Jarmusch credits literature with shaping his metaphysical beliefs and leading him to reconsider theology in his mid-teens. From his peers he developed a taste for counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
: he and his friends would steal the records and books of their older siblings – William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, Mothers of Invention. They made fake identity documents which allowed them to visit bars at the weekend but also the local art house cinema – which though it typically showed pornographic films would on occasion feature underground film
Underground film
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre, or financing.-Definition and history:The first use of the term "underground film" occurs in a 1957 essay by American film critic Manny Farber, "Underground Films." Farber uses it to refer to the work of...
s such as Robert Downey, Sr.'s Putney Swope
Putney Swope
Putney Swope, a 1969 film written and directed by Robert Downey Sr. and starring Arnold Johnson as Swope, is a comedy satirizing the advertising world, the portrayal of race in Hollywood films, the white power structure, and nature of corporate corruption....
and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
's Chelsea Girls
Chelsea Girls
Chelsea Girls is a 1966 experimental underground film directed by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey. The film was Warhol's first major commercial success after a long line of avant-garde art films...
. At one point, he took an apprenticeship with a commercial photographer. "Growing up in Ohio", he would later remark, "was just planning to get out".
New York
After graduating from high school in 1971, Jarmusch moved to Chicago and enrolled in the Medill School of JournalismMedill School of Journalism
The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University which offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It has consistently been one of the top-ranked schools in Journalism in the United States...
at Northwestern University. After being asked to leave due to neglecting to take any journalism courses–Jarmusch favored literature and art history–he transferred to Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
the following year, with the intention of becoming a poet. At Columbia, he studied English and American literature under professors including New York School
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
avant garde poets Kenneth Koch
Kenneth Koch
Kenneth Koch was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77...
and David Shapiro
David Shapiro (poet)
David Shapiro is an American poet, literary critic, and art historian. He has written some twenty volumes of poetry, literary, and art criticism...
. At Columbia he began to write short "semi-narrative abstract pieces", and edited the undergraduate literary journal The Columbia Review.
During his final year at Columbia, Jarmusch moved to Paris, for what was initially a summer semester on an exchange program but turned into ten months. There, he worked as a delivery driver for an art gallery, and spent most of his time at the Cinémathèque Française
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française holds one of the largest archives of films, movie documents and film-related objects in the world. Located in Paris, the Cinémathèque holds daily screenings of films from around the world.-History:...
.
Jarmusch graduated from Columbia University in 1975.
Broke and working as a musician in New York City after returning from Paris in 1976, Jarmusch applied on a whim to the prestigious Graduate Film School of New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts is one of the 15 schools that make up New York University ....
(then under the direction of Hollywood director László Benedek
László Benedek
László Benedek, sometimes credited as Laslo Benedek , was a Hungarian-born film director.- Biography :Born in Budapest, he worked as a writer and editor in Hungarian cinema until World War II. Louis B...
). Despite his complete lack of experience in filmmaking, his submission of a collection of still photographs and an essay about film secured his acceptance into the program. He studied there for four years, meeting fellow students and future collaborators Sara Driver
Sara Driver
Sara Driver is an independent filmmaker born in Westfield, NJ. She produced two early films for Jim Jarmusch, helping him to gain international attention and success...
, Tom DiCillo
Tom DiCillo
Thomas A. "Tom" DiCillo is an American film director, screenwriter and cinematographer.-Early life:He was born in Camp Le Jeune, North Carolina. His father was Italian and his mother was from New England...
and Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
in the process. During the late 1970s in New York City, Jarmusch and his contemporaries were part of an alternative culture
Alternative culture
Alternative culture is a type of culture that exists outside or on the fringes of mainstream or popular culture, usually under the domain of one or more subcultures...
scene centered on the CBGB
CBGB
CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...
music club.
In his final year at New York University, Jarmusch worked as an assistant to the renowned film noir director Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause....
, who was at that time teaching in the department. In an anecdote Jarmusch has recounted of the formative experience of showing his mentor his first script, Ray disapproved of its lack of action, to which Jarmusch responded after meditating on the critique by reworking the script to be even less eventful. On Jarmusch's return with the revised script, Ray reacted favourably to his student's dissent, citing approvingly the young student's obstinate independence. Jarmusch was the only person Ray brought to work – as his personal assistant – on Lightning Over Water
Lightning Over Water
Lightning Over Water is a 1980 documentary film by Wim Wenders and Nicholas Ray about the last days of Ray's own life; the director was most famous for his 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. It was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.- Summary :The film is a collaboration...
, a documentary about his dying years on which he was collaborating with Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
. Nicholas Ray died in the summer of 1979 after a long fight with cancer. A few days afterwards, having been encouraged by Ray and New York underground filmmaker Amos Poe
Amos Poe
Amos Poe is a New York City director and screenwriter, described by The New York Times as a "pioneering indie filmmaker."-Career:Amos Poe is one of the first punk filmmakers and his film The Blank Generation —co-directed with Ivan Kral— is one of the earliest punk films...
and using scholarship funds given by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation to pay for his school tuition, Jarmusch started work on a film for his final project. The university, unimpressed with Jarmusch's use of his funding as well as the project itself, promptly refused to award him a degree.
First features and rise to fame: Vacation and Paradise
Jarmusch's final year university project was completed in 1980 as Permanent VacationPermanent Vacation (film)
Permanent Vacation is a 1980 drama film directed, written and produced by Jim Jarmusch. It was the director's first release, and was shot on 16 mm film shortly after he dropped out of film school. This film is often credited as the birth of the director's original style, and character schemes...
, his first feature film. It was made on a shoestring budget of around $12,000 in misdirected scholarship funds and shot by cinematographer Tom DiCillo on 16 mm film
16 mm film
16 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical film making. 16 mm refers to the width of the film...
. The 75 minute quasi-autobiographical feature follows an adolescent drifter (Chris Parker
Chris Parker
Christopher Parker may refer to:*Christopher Parker , British Member of Parliament for Clitheroe, Lancashire, 1708-1713*Christopher Parker , English actor and television presenter...
) as he wanders around downtown Manhattan. The film was not released theatrically, and did not attract the sort of adulation from critics that greeted his later work. The Washington Post staff writer Hal Hinson would disparagingly comment in an aside during a review of Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989) that in the director's debut, "the only talent he demonstrated was for collecting egregiously untalented actors". The bleak and unrefined Permanent Vacation is nevertheless one of the director's most personal films, and established many of the hallmarks he would exhibit in his later work, including derelict urban settings, chance encounters, and a wry sensibility.
Jarmusch's first major film, Stranger Than Paradise
Stranger Than Paradise
Stranger Than Paradise is a 1984 American absurdist/deadpan comedy film. It was written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars jazz musician John Lurie, former Sonic Youth drummer-turned-actor Richard Edson, and Hungarian-born actress Eszter Balint...
, was produced on a budget of approximately $125,000 and released in 1984 to much critical acclaim. A deadpan comedy recounting a strange journey of three disillusioned youths from New York through Cleveland to Florida, the film broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood filmmaking. It was awarded the Camera d'Or
Caméra d'Or
The Caméra d'Or is an award of the Cannes Film Festival for the best first feature film presented in one of the Cannes' selections ....
at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival
1984 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Dirk Bogarde *Franco Cristaldi *Michel Deville *Stanley Donen *Istvan Dosai *Arne Hestenes *Isabelle Huppert *Ennio Morricone...
as well as the 1985 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film
The National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture is an annual award given by National Society of Film Critics to honor the best film of the year....
, and became a landmark work in modern independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
.
Down by Law, Mystery Train, and Night on Earth
In 1986, Jarmusch wrote and directed Down by LawDown by Law (film)
Down by Law is a 1986 black-and-white independent film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni....
, starring musicians John Lurie
John Lurie
John Lurie is an American actor, musician, painter and producer. He is co-founder of The Lounge Lizards, a jazz ensemble. Lurie has acted in 19 films including Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law, composed and performed music for 20 television and film works, and he produced and starred in...
and Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, and Italian comic actor Roberto Benigni
Roberto Benigni
Roberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director of film, theatre and television.- Early years :...
(his introduction to American audiences) as three convicts who escape from a New Orleans jailhouse. Shot like the director's previous efforts in black and white, this constructivist
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
neo-noir
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...
was Jarmusch's first collaboration with renowned Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller
Robby Müller
Robby Müller is a cinematographer whose name is most often associated with film director Wim Wenders.-Life and work:...
, who had been known for his work with Wenders.
His next two films each experimented with parallel narratives: Mystery Train
Mystery Train (film)
Mystery Train is a 1989 independent anthology film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and set in Memphis, Tennessee. The film comprises a triptych of stories involving foreign protagonists unfolding over the course of the same night...
(1989) told three successive stories set on the same night in and around a small Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
hotel, and Night on Earth (1991) involved five cab drivers and their passengers on rides in five different world cities, beginning at sundown in Los Angeles and ending at sunrise in Helsinki. Less bleak and somber than Jarmusch's earlier work, Mystery Train nevertheless retained the director's askance conception of America. He wrote Night on Earth in about a week, out of frustration at the collapse of the production of another film he had written and the desire to visit and collaborate with friends such as Benigni, Gena Rowlands
Gena Rowlands
Gena Rowlands is an American actress of film, stage and television. The four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner is best known for her collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, in two of which, Gloria and A Woman Under the Influence, she gave Academy...
, and Isaach de Bankolé
Isaach De Bankolé
Isaach or Isaac de Bankolé is an Ivorian actor.-Work:He has appeared in over 30 films, including Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and Coffee and Cigarettes...
.
As a result of his early work, Jarmusch became an influential representative of the trend of the American road movie
Road movie
A road movie is a film genre in which the main character or characters leave home to travel from place to place. They usually leave home to escape their current lives.-History:...
. Not intended to appeal to mainstream filmgoers, these early Jarmusch films were embraced by art house audiences, gaining a small but dedicated American following and cult status in Europe and Japan. Each of the four films had their premiere at the eminent and discerning New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
, while Mystery Train was in competition at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival
1989 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Wim Wenders *Christine Gouze-Renal*Claude Beylie*Georges Delerue*Hector Babenco*Krzysztof Kieślowski*Peter Handke*Renée Blanchar*Sally Field*Silvio Clementelli-Feature film competition:* Chimère by Claire Devers...
. Jarmusch's distinctive aesthetic and auteur status fomented a critical backlash at the close of this early period, however; though reviewers praised the charm and adroitness of Mystery Train and Night On Earth, the director was increasingly charged with repetitiveness and risk-aversion.
In 1991 Jim Jarmusch appeared as himself in Episode One of John Lurie's cult television series Fishing With John
Fishing with John
Fishing with John is a 1991 television series conceived, directed by and starring actor and musician John Lurie, which earned a cult following. On the surface, the series resembles a standard travel or fishing show: in each episode, Lurie takes a famous guest on a fishing expedition...
.
Late nineties, experiments in genre: Dead Man and Ghost Dog
In 1995, Jarmusch released Dead ManDead Man
Dead Man is a 1995 American Western film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, and Robert Mitchum . The film, dubbed an "Acid Western" by its director, includes twisted...
, a period film set in the 19th century American West starring Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
and Gary Farmer
Gary Farmer
- History :Farmer was born in Ohsweken, Ontario into the Cayuga nation and Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy. Farmer attended Syracuse University and Ryerson Polytechnic University, where he studied photography and film production....
. Produced at a cost of almost $9 million with a high-profile cast including John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
, Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
and, in his final role, Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
, the film marked a significant departure for the director from his previous features. Earnest in tone in comparison to its self-consciously hip and ironic predecessors, Dead Man was thematically expansive and of an often violent and progressively more surreal character. The film was shot in black and white by Robby Müller, and features a score composed and performed by Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, for whom Jarmusch subsequently filmed the tour documentary Year of the Horse
Year of the Horse
Year of the Horse is a 1997 documentary directed by Jim Jarmusch following Neil Young and Crazy Horse on their 1996 tour.-Eponymous album:Year of the Horse is also a live album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse released in 1997...
, released to tepid reviews in 1997.
Though ill-received by mainstream American reviewers, Dead Man found much favor internationally and among critics, many of whom lauded it as a visionary masterpiece. It has been hailed as one of the few films made by a Caucasian that presents an authentic Native American culture and character, and Jarmusch stands by it as such, though it has attracted both praise and castigation for its portrayal of the American West, violence, and especially Native Americans.
Following artistic success and critical acclaim in the American independent film community, he achieved mainstream renown with his far-East philosophical crime film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a 1999 American crime action film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. Forest Whitaker stars as the title character, the mysterious "Ghost Dog", a hitman in the employ of the Mafia, who follows the ancient code of the samurai as outlined in the book of Yamamoto...
, shot in Jersey City and starring Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
as a young inner-city man who has found purpose for his life by unyieldingly conforming it to the Hagakure
Hagakure
Hagakure , or is a practical and spiritual guide for a warrior, drawn from a collection of commentaries by the samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo, former retainer to Nabeshima Mitsushige, the third ruler of what is now the Saga prefecture in Japan...
, an 18th-century philosophy text and training manual for samurai, becoming, as directed, a terrifyingly deadly hit-man for a local mob boss to whom he may owe a debt, and who then betrays him. The soundtrack was supplied by RZA
RZA
Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA , is an American Grammy-winning music producer, multi-instrumentalist, author, emcee, and occasional actor, director, and screenwriter. A prominent figure in Hip Hop, RZA is the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. He has produced almost...
of the Wu-Tang Clan. The film was unique among other things for the number of books important to and discussed by its characters, most of them listed bibliographically as part of the end credits. The film is also considered to be an homage to Le Samourai
Le Samouraï
Le Samouraï is a 1967 French crime film directed by French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville, starring Alain Delon.- Plot :The story follows a perfectionist free-agent hitman, Jef Costello , who religiously adheres to a strict code of duty...
, a 1967 French New Wave film by auteur Jean-Pierre Melville, which starred renowned French actor Alain Delon
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor. He rose quickly to stardom, and by the age of 23 was already being compared to French actors such as Gérard Philipe and Jean Marais, as well as American actor James Dean. He was even called the male Brigitte Bardot...
in a strikingly similar role and narrative.
Late period: Cigarettes, Flowers, and Control
A five-year gap followed the release of Ghost Dog, which the director has attributed to a creative crisis he experienced in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in New York City. 2004 saw the eventual release of Coffee and CigarettesCoffee and Cigarettes
Coffee and Cigarettes is the title of three short films and a 2003 feature film by independent director Jim Jarmusch. The 2003 film consists of 11 short stories which share coffee and cigarettes as a common thread, and includes the earlier three films....
, a collection of eleven short films of characters sitting around drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes that had been filmed by Jarmusch over the course of the previous two decades. The first vignette, "Strange to Meet You", had been shot for and aired on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
in 1986, and paired Roberto Benigni with comedian Steven Wright
Steven Wright
Steven Alexander Wright is an American comedian, actor and writer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes and one-liners with contrived situations.-Early life and career:Wright was born in Mount Auburn...
. This had been followed three years later by "Twins", a segment featuring actors Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi
Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
and Joie
Joie Lee
Joie Susannah Lee is an American screenwriter, film producer and actress. She has appeared in many of the films directed by her brother, Spike Lee, including She's Gotta Have It , School Daze , Do the Right Thing , and Mo' Better Blues...
and Cinqué Lee, and then in 1993 with the Short Film Palme d'Or
Short Film Palme d'Or
The Short Film Palme d'Or is the highest prize given to a short film at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the same jury of the Cinéfondation....
-winning "Somewhere in California", starring musicians Tom Waits and Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
.
He followed Coffee and Cigarettes in 2005 with Broken Flowers
Broken Flowers
Broken Flowers is a 2005 French/American comedy-drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and produced by Jon Kilik and Stacey Smith. The film focuses on an aging "Don Juan" who embarks on a cross-country journey to track down four of his former lovers after receiving an anonymous letter...
, which starred Bill Murray
Bill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
as an early retiree who goes in search of the mother of his unknown son in attempt to overcome a midlife crisis. Following the release of Broken Flowers, Jarmusch signed a deal with Fortissimo Films
Fortissimo Films
Fortissimo Films is a multi-national film production, sales and distribution company. The company has been behind such East Asian films as Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love, the Thai films Tears of the Black Tiger and Last Life in the Universe, as well as such independent films as Pleasure...
, whereby the distributor would fund and have "first-look" rights to the director's future films, and cover some of the overhead costs of his production company, Exoskeleton.
Jarmusch's latest film, The Limits of Control
The Limits of Control
-Cultural references mentioned in the dialogue:* Suspicion by Alfred Hitchcock* Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky* The Lady from Shanghai by Orson Welles* La Vie de Bohème by Aki Kaurismäki* La vida no vale nada by Rogelio A...
, opened in the United States on May 22, 2009. A sparse, meditative crime film set in Spain, it starred Isaach de Bankolé
Isaach De Bankolé
Isaach or Isaac de Bankolé is an Ivorian actor.-Work:He has appeared in over 30 films, including Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and Coffee and Cigarettes...
as a lone assassin with a secretive mission. A behind-the-scenes documentary, Behind Jim Jarmusch, was filmed over three days on the set of the film in Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
by director Léa Rinaldi.
In October 2009, Jarmusch appeared as himself in an episode of the HBO series Bored to Death
Bored to Death
Bored to Death is an American comedy series, which premiered on HBO on September 20, 2009. , three seasons have aired, each consisting of eight episodes. The show was created by author Jonathan Ames, and stars Jason Schwartzman as a fictional Jonathan Ames – a writer based in Brooklyn, New York...
.
In September 2010, Jarmusch helped to curate the All Tomorrow's Parties
All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival)
All Tomorrow's Parties is a music festival which takes place at Camber Sands holiday camp in East Sussex and Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset, England....
music festival in Monticello, New York. He is also working on a documentary about the rock band The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
and co-writing a non-traditional opera about the inventor Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
. He is planning a new film with Tilda Swinton
Tilda Swinton
Katherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton is a British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films. She has appeared in a number of films including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading, The Beach, We Need to Talk About Kevin and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her...
, Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender is an Irish-German actor. He is best known for playing Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Magneto in the superhero blockbuster X-Men: First Class...
, Mia Wasikowska
Mia Wasikowska
Mia Wasikowska is an Australian actress. After starting her career in Australian television and film, she first became known to a wider audience following her critically acclaimed work on the HBO television series In Treatment...
, and John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
, which is scheduled to begin production in early 2012.
Style and characters
Jarmusch has been characterized as a minimalist filmmaker, and his idiosyncratic films unhurried. His films often eschew traditional narrative structure, lacking clear plot progression and focusing more on mood and character development. In an interview early in his career, he stated that his goal was "to approximate real time for the audience." Jarmusch's early work is marked by a brooding, contemplative tone, featuring extended silent scenes and prolonged still shots. He has experimented with a vignette format in three films either released or begun around the early nineties: Mystery Train, Night on Earth, and Coffee and Cigarettes. Jarmusch's approach to filmmaking—in the words of The Salt Lake Tribune critic Sean P. Means—involves "blending film styles and genres with sharp wit and dark humor", and is pervaded by a signature deadpan comedic tone.The protagonists of Jarmusch's films are usually lone adventurers. The director's male characters have been described by critic Jennie Yabroff as "three time losers, petty thiefs and inept con men, all [...] eminently likeable, if not down right charming", and by novelist Paul Auster
Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster is an American author known for works blending absurdism, existentialism, crime fiction and the search for identity and personal meaning in works such as The New York Trilogy , Moon Palace , The Music of Chance , The Book of Illusions and The Brooklyn Follies...
as "laconic, withdrawn, sorrowful mumblers".
Themes
Though his films are predominantly set in the United States, Jarmusch has advanced the notion that he looks at America "through a foreigner's eyes", with the intention of creating a form of world cinema that synthesizes European and Japanese film with that of Hollywood. His films have often included foreign actors and characters, and (at times substantial) non-English dialogue. In his two later-nineties films, he dwelt on different cultures' experiences of violence, and on textual appropriations between cultures: a wandering Native American's love of William BlakeWilliam Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, a black hit-man's passionate devotion to the Hagakure
Hagakure
Hagakure , or is a practical and spiritual guide for a warrior, drawn from a collection of commentaries by the samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo, former retainer to Nabeshima Mitsushige, the third ruler of what is now the Saga prefecture in Japan...
. The interaction and syntheses between different cultures, the arbitrariness of national identity, and irreverence towards ethnocentric, patriotic or nationalistic sentiment are recurring themes in Jarmusch's work.
Jarmusch's fascination for music is another characteristic that is readily apparent in his work. Musicians appear frequently in key roles – John Lurie, Tom Waits, Gary Farmer, Youki Kudoh
Youki Kudoh
is a Japanese actress and singer. She won the award for best newcomer at the 6th Yokohama Film Festival for The Crazy Family. She also won the award for best actress at the 16th Hochi Film Award for War and Youth.-Filmography:-External links:* *...
, RZA and Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
have featured in multiple Jarmusch films, while Joe Strummer
Joe Strummer
John Graham Mellor , best remembered by his stage name Joe Strummer, was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of the British punk rock band The Clash. His musical experience included his membership in The 101ers, Latino Rockabilly War, The Mescaleros and The Pogues, in...
and Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Jalacy Hawkins , best known as Screamin' Jay Hawkins was an American musician, singer, and actor...
appear in Mystery Train and GZA
GZA
Gary Grice , better known by his stage names GZA and The Genius, is an American hip hop artist and founding member of the seminal hip hop group the Wu-Tang Clan. He has also appeared on his fellow clan members' solo projects and has maintained a successful solo career...
, Jack
Jack White (musician)
Jack White , often credited as Jack White III, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and occasional actor...
and Meg White
Meg White
Megan Martha "Meg" White is an American drummer best known for her work in the Detroit rock duo The White Stripes.-Early life:...
feature in Coffee and Cigarettes. Hawkins' song "I Put a Spell on You
I Put a Spell on You
"I Put a Spell on You" is a 1956 song written by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, whose recording was selected as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. It was also ranked #320 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.Although Hawkins'...
" was central to the plot of Stranger than Paradise, while Mystery Train is inspired by and named after a song
Mystery Train
"Mystery Train" is a song written by Junior Parker and Sam Phillips. It was first recorded in Phillip's Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee in 1953. Raymond Hill plays tenor sax and Matt Murphy plays lead guitar with Bill Johnson on piano, Pat Hare on...
popularized by Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, who is also the subject of a vignette in Coffee and Cigarettes. In the words of critic Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
, "Jarmusch's movies have the tempo and rhythm of blues and jazz, even in their use – or omission – of language. His films work on the senses much the way that some music does, unheard until it's too late to get it out of one's head."
On his narrative focus, Jarmusch remarked in a 1989 interview, "I'd rather make a movie about a guy walking his dog than about the emperor of China."
Impact and legacy
Jarmusch is ascribed as having instigated the American independent film movement with Stranger Than ParadiseStranger Than Paradise
Stranger Than Paradise is a 1984 American absurdist/deadpan comedy film. It was written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars jazz musician John Lurie, former Sonic Youth drummer-turned-actor Richard Edson, and Hungarian-born actress Eszter Balint...
. Critic Lynn Hirschberg declared Stranger than Paradise in a 2005 profile of the director for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
to have "permanently upended the idea of independent film as an intrinsically inaccessible avant-garde form". The success of the film accorded the director a certain iconic status within arthouse cinema, as an idiosyncratic and uncompromising auteur exuding the aura of urban cool embodied by downtown Manhattan. Such perceptions were compounded with the release of his subsequent features in the late 1980s, establishing him as one of the generation's most prominent and influential independent filmmakers. In a 1989 review of his work, Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
of The New York Times called Jarmusch "the most adventurous and arresting film maker to surface in the American cinema in this decade".
Jarmusch was recognized with the Filmmaker on the Edge award at the 2004 Provincetown International Film Festival
Provincetown International Film Festival
The Provincetown International Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1999 and held in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The festival presents a wide array of American and international narrative features, documentaries and short films for five days in June of each year.With panel...
. A retrospective of the director's films was hosted at the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during February 1994, and another, "The Sad and Beautiful World of Jim Jarmusch", by the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
in August 2005.
Personal life
Sara Driver
Sara Driver is an independent filmmaker born in Westfield, NJ. She produced two early films for Jim Jarmusch, helping him to gain international attention and success...
, worked closely with him on his early films, but the stress this put on their relationship caused them to break up and resolve thereafter not to work together and have since lived together for many years. He divides his time between New York City and the Catskill Mountains
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
of Upstate New York. Jarmusch stopped drinking coffee in 1986, the year of the first installment of Coffee and Cigarettes, though he remained a smoker.
In the early 1980s, Jarmusch was part of a revolving lineup of musicians in Robin Crutchfield
Robin Crutchfield
Robin Crutchfield is an American artist. He is best known as one of the founding musicians of the former New York No Wave scene. He has performed at such hallowed musical grounds as CBGB's, Max's Kansas City and Artist's Space; as well as had his work on display at prestigious venues like MoMA and...
's Dark Day project, and later became the keyboardist and one of two vocalists for The Del-Byzanteens
The Del-Byzanteens
The Del-Byzanteens was a New York-based No Wave band active in the early 1980's. The band comprised Phil Kline ; Jim Jarmusch ; Philippe Hagen ; Josh Braun ; and Dan Braun...
, a No Wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
band whose sole LP Lies to Live By was a minor underground hit in the United States and Britain in 1982. Jarmusch is also featured on the album Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture
Wu-Tang Meets The Indie Culture
Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture is an album released October 18, 2005. This album was put together by Bronze Nazareth, who has produced Wu-Tang and others. It includes collaborated tracks by Wu-Tang Clan members, Wu-Tang Clan affiliates, and various other underground hip-hop artists such as...
(2005) in two interludes described by Sean Fennessy in a Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
review of the album as both "bizarrely pretentious" and "reason alone to give it a listen". Jarmusch and Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
each contributed a remix to a limited edition release of the track "Blue Orchid
Blue Orchid
"Blue Orchid" is the first track by the American alternative rock band The White Stripes from their album Get Behind Me Satan, and the first single to be released from the album....
" by The White Stripes in 2005.
The author of a series of essays on influential bands, Jarmusch has also had at least two poems published. He is a founding member of The Sons of Lee Marvin
The Sons of Lee Marvin
The Sons of Lee Marvin is a tongue-in-cheek secret society devoted to iconic American actor Lee Marvin. The sole entry requirement for the club is that one must have a physical resemblance to plausibly look like a son of Marvin....
, a humorous "semi-secret society" of artists resembling the iconic actor, which issues communiqués and meets on occasion for the ostensible purpose of watching Marvin's films.
Selected filmography
- Permanent VacationPermanent Vacation (film)Permanent Vacation is a 1980 drama film directed, written and produced by Jim Jarmusch. It was the director's first release, and was shot on 16 mm film shortly after he dropped out of film school. This film is often credited as the birth of the director's original style, and character schemes...
(1980) - Stranger Than ParadiseStranger Than ParadiseStranger Than Paradise is a 1984 American absurdist/deadpan comedy film. It was written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars jazz musician John Lurie, former Sonic Youth drummer-turned-actor Richard Edson, and Hungarian-born actress Eszter Balint...
(1984) - Down by LawDown by Law (film)Down by Law is a 1986 black-and-white independent film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni....
(1986) - Mystery TrainMystery Train (film)Mystery Train is a 1989 independent anthology film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and set in Memphis, Tennessee. The film comprises a triptych of stories involving foreign protagonists unfolding over the course of the same night...
(1989) - Night on Earth (1991)
- Dead ManDead ManDead Man is a 1995 American Western film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, and Robert Mitchum . The film, dubbed an "Acid Western" by its director, includes twisted...
(1995) - Ghost Dog: The Way of the SamuraiGhost Dog: The Way of the SamuraiGhost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a 1999 American crime action film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. Forest Whitaker stars as the title character, the mysterious "Ghost Dog", a hitman in the employ of the Mafia, who follows the ancient code of the samurai as outlined in the book of Yamamoto...
(1999) - Coffee and CigarettesCoffee and CigarettesCoffee and Cigarettes is the title of three short films and a 2003 feature film by independent director Jim Jarmusch. The 2003 film consists of 11 short stories which share coffee and cigarettes as a common thread, and includes the earlier three films....
(2003) - Broken FlowersBroken FlowersBroken Flowers is a 2005 French/American comedy-drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and produced by Jon Kilik and Stacey Smith. The film focuses on an aging "Don Juan" who embarks on a cross-country journey to track down four of his former lovers after receiving an anonymous letter...
(2005) - The Limits of ControlThe Limits of Control-Cultural references mentioned in the dialogue:* Suspicion by Alfred Hitchcock* Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky* The Lady from Shanghai by Orson Welles* La Vie de Bohème by Aki Kaurismäki* La vida no vale nada by Rogelio A...
(2009)
Footnotes
By combining odd characters, dark comedy and an incredibly hip atmosphere in classic art-house films such as Down by Law and Stranger Than Paradise, Jarmusch has influenced and assisted younger indie directors in finding a modicum of commercial success with less-than-mainstream fare.|title=Forest Whitaker personifies cool in Jarmusch's latest offbeat film |first=Joe |last=Holleman |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...
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External links
- Jim Jarmusch at the Senses of CinemaSenses of CinemaSenses of Cinema is a quarterly online film magazine founded in 1999 by filmmaker Bill Mousoulis. Based in Melbourne, Australia, Senses of Cinema publishes work by film critics from all over the world, including critical essays, career overviews of the works of key directors, and coverage of many...
Great Directors critical database - The Jim Jarmusch Resource Page, curated by Jarmusch scholar Ludvig Hertzberg
- Limited Control, Hertzberg's companion blog
- It's a sad and beautiful world