The inability of characters to understand each other is probably the most important theme in Jarmusch’s work. Characters, for the most part, are isolated despite bouts of human interaction. In Down by Law, for example, an Italian man is wandering the streets of New Orleans, collecting English idioms that he has acquired by talking and listening to random people. At one point, he approaches another character who is sitting alone at an empty gas station. The Italian man reads from his list, « It is a sad and beautiful world. » The quote encapsulates the mood of the scene and the film as a whole. The director himself says that the inability to communicate or fully understand others, especially those who speak another language, is a profound issue for him : « The problems of language are...the most sad and beautiful thing. That we think of things in different ways because the structures of our language are different » (Von Bagh and Kaurismäki 79). In all of Jarmusch’s films, there is a mingling of characters from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Sometimes they form friendships or share meaningful moments, but mostly they do not understand each other-complicity between them seems almost, but never fully attainable. Colin Lawlor says that the theme of Stranger Than Paradise is the inability of characters « to sufficiently articulate themselves in the midst of media-saturated culture » (1). Jarmusch says that problems of language « make this planet so beautiful and strange, » and because of these problems, particular ideologies have essentially failed when applied on a social level :
“Certain ideological solutions which have been introduced throughout history, like that of Marx and Engels, can never actually work. They only work theoretically, in a way, on a global scale, but we can never break free of that tribal feeling we have. (Von Bagh and Kaurismäki 79)”
That « tribal feeling we have, » as Jarmusch puts it, inhibits there ever being a synthesis of human understanding. Humans are inevitably split from themselves and the rest of humanity. As Lacan observed, infants become alienated from the world the moment they realize that they are cut from the mother. This severing is linked to the child’s comprehension of signs. At the moment that an object has a signifier, the infant perceives that object to be split from himself or herself. It is at this moment that alienation and subjectivity occurs. Alienation, therefore, is essential to subjectivity (Evans 9) :
“For Lacan, alienation is not an accident that befalls the subject. The subject is fundamentally split, alienated from himself, and there is no escape from this division, no possibility of ‘wholeness’ or synthesis. (Evans 9)”
In a Freudian sense, this splitting refers to the « splitting of the ego » that inhibits the subject from completely knowing herself. There is no possibility of « a fully present self-conscious » because the subject’s acceptance and disavowal of reality are in constant opposition (Evans 192). In Ecrits, Lacan describes how this splitting of the ego manifests itself in language. Since signifier is divided from signified, there can never be wholeness in speech. Because humans are speaking beings, their conscious is inevitably split (Lacan 269).
In Jarmusch’s films, alienation manifests itself in the moments when characters are displaced and forced to see themselves in a new and unfamiliar context. The word « stranger » in Stranger Than Paradise captures not only the way in which the film’s various settings are strange, but also how characters are strangers to themselves and others. When Eva and Willie meet in the beginning, they are literally strangers, but even once they have gotten to know each other, there is a sense that they still do not understand one another. Willie buys Eva a dress that she politely refuses. She has not worn a dress since she has known him and makes it clear that she does not want it, but he insists. It is evident that he does not understand her. Even though they grow to like each other and mostly seem to enjoy each other’s company (they are excited to see one another again later in the film), they never fully know each other.
For the most part, Jarmusch’s characters are strangers. Family members, close friends, and people in relationships are rarely the center of a story. Even when the narrative features a couple or a group of friends, there tends to be an emphasis on the ways in which the characters are isolated rather than how they are connected. In Mystery Train, for instance, a Japanese couple is traveling the United States. Their conversations generally center on which rock and roll stars they prefer or what America looks like in comparison to their home, Yokohama, Japan. Jun prefers Carl Perkins to Elvis, but his girlfriend Mitzuko disagrees. One evening, while staring at a statue of Elvis, the two have a argument. Jun says, « You know, Memphis does look like Yokohama. Just more space. If you took away sixty percent of the buildings in Yokohama, it would look like this. » Mitzuko replies, « This doesn’t look anything like Yokohama ! This is America, and the city of Elvis. » Later, Jun and Mitzuko are sitting in their hotel room. Mitzuko thinks that Jun is unhappy because he never smiles. In an attempt to cheer him up, she makes silly faces and performs an odd stunt where she flicks on a lighter with her toes. Jun remains stiff and seemingly unamused. Finally Mitzuko asks, « Do you feel happier now ? » To which Jun replies, « I was already happy. » Mitzuko’s misreading of Jun’s expression is symptomatic of the ways in which signs are ultimately unreliable. Since signifiers have no definite signified, communication is always a subjective matter and according to Lacan subjectivity is by definition alienating. Because we are alienated, we make assumptions about other objects and subjects. Lacan appropriately calls these other objects/subjects the « Other. » « Other » is capitalized to differentiate it from another type of « other, » one that is the object of the subject’s projection, but is actually a reflection of the subject’s own ego (Evans 132-133). The big « Other, » on the contrary, is that which « cannot be assimilated through identification » (Evans 133). As discussed earlier, the child forms a subjective view of the world when she first perceives the mother as something split from herself. The mother, therefore, is the first « Other » (Evans 133).
In terms of the cinema, « other » refers to the image on the screen and the subject is the individual in the audience. Sometime the « other » is capitalized and sometimes it is not, depending on whether or not the subject identifies with the characters on screen. The relationship between subject and object in this context is not particular to the cinema, but has existed as long as people have watched each other in a voyeuristic fashion. Voyeurism, a major element in cinematic excitation, can be manipulated by a director in order to enhance viewer interest.
Jarmusch manipulates viewer excitation through the censorship of voyeuristic desire in Stranger Than Paradise. While filming, Jarmusch noted that he needed to use a static, almost motionless camera (Eue and Stukenbrock 7) :
“A moving camera forces the eyes of the viewer to move along with the image, it imprisons your gaze. But my film has nothing to do with such arbitrary movements-it’s about observing, about watching the hero in almost voyeuristic fashion. (Eue and Stukenbrock 7)”
The « voyeuristic fashion » Jarmusch describes is evident in scenes that are typical of Jarmusch’s films, where all characters are present in the frame and there are no close ups or overtly manipulative angles. In these scenes, like the ones in Stranger Than Paradise where Willie, Eddie, and Eva are eating together, all of the characters are shown either talking, sitting, or watching television. Often there is minimal dialogue and action. One has the feeling of peering in on these characters, who are sitting unaware in their living room. In recent years, the webcam has prompted a culture of men and women, mostly women, who allow twenty-four-hour, live filming of their homes. At any given moment, several people from all over the world are watching as these people eat, bathe, make love, brush their teeth, watch TV, sleep, etc. Although Jarmusch’s film precedes the webcam and its subculture by more than a decade, cinematic technique in Stranger Than Paradise seems to mimic the concept. There is an intrinsic pleasure associated with voyeurism that Jarmusch captures and manipulates in the film.
In The Imaginary Signifier, Christian Metz describes the importance of voyeurism in film and its connection to fetish and frame. He says that part of the excitement of the cinema is in censorship, which can come in many forms including that which is not explicitly seen on screen. Excitation comes from censorship in film, regardless of the structure :
“Whether the form is static (framing) or dynamic (camera movement), the principle is the same ; the point is to gamble simultaneously on the excitation of desire and its nonfulfillment (which is its opposite and yet favours it). (77)”
In Jarmusch’s films « visual excitation and its non-fulfillment » are explicit in the « blackouts » in between scenes. The audience’s expectations are heightened as they are robbed of the image. Often the audience can hear what is happening, but the absence of the image is in fact more exciting than the image itself. Metz compares this form of cinematic excitation to a strip-tease :
“The way the cinema, with its wandering framings...finds the means to reveal space has something to do with a kind of permanent undressing, a generalized strip-tease, a less direct but more perfected strip-tease, since it also makes it possible to dress space again, to remove from view what it has previously shown. (77)”
Hitchcock popularized the use of extreme close-ups as a means of limiting the amount of action visible to the audience. An example of what Metz calls a cinematic « strip-tease » can be found in Hitchcock’s famous shot from Psycho when a woman is stabbed to death, but all the audience sees is the terrified expression of her eye. Unlike Hitchcock, Jarmusch does not manipulate the audience’s voyeuristic desire by limiting the on-screen image. The « strip tease » effect is still present, however, in the form of fades and blackouts.
Although manipulative, Jarmusch’s style is different from Hitchcock’s use of close-ups because Jarmusch’s style allows the audience time to reflect on the images they have been watching. The fades to black are almost meditative. The silences and spaces enhance suspense, but they also give viewers time to contemplate and speculate on the images.
Absence, therefore, is a major theme in all of Jarmusch’s films and is signified by empty spaces and silences. Silence functions the way it does in life, allowing an opportunity for reflection. Jarmusch says, « The pauses to me are more important, really, than the words. Often the calm moment when people aren’t saying anything is much more important than the dialogue. Because...it’s true in life » (Shapiro 60). Silences in Jarmusch’s films convey a realism that is absent in many Hollywood films. Conversations in reality are filled with silent moments that often signify more than words themselves. In Stranger Than Paradise, as in many of Jarmusch’s films, absence signifies something that is desired, but cannot be named. In an interview, Jarmusch describes a scene where one character wants to say something to another, but doesn’t. The audience picks up on the moment and notices the tension between the two characters. Even though nothing is explicitly said, communication occurs between them. Communication also occurs between the images on the screen and the audience :
“My favorite part in Stranger Than Paradise is that ending of the first part, where the two guys sit in the room drinking beer. You know that Eddie wants to say something to Willie about the fact that Eva has left, you can sense it, but he doesn’t say anything-and I think this sense that he wants to say something is stronger than if he had. (Von Bagh and Kaurismäki 76)”
Moments of silence convey meaning on many levels. An unarticulated desire is a repressed desire. Among most of Jarmusch’s characters, repressed desire provides the necessary tension to propel a slow, meandering dialog. In Night on Earth, for instance, a cab driver and his blind passenger have a conversation filled with silences that last up to a minute. The driver’s attraction to this woman is evident more in the pauses between words than in what is actually said. The way he looks at her and his general body language convey what is hidden in words.
Moments of complete darkness that separate a film’s scenes and sections is characteristic of Jim Jarmusch’s style. In Cahier du Cinéma, Nicolas Saada says that in Dead Man, « the fades to black between the sequences are conceived as breathing spaces...that play on blackness allows the film to develop in a singular fashion, like in poetry when you break up a line or stanza » (Maier 6). According to Jarmusch, the blackouts indicate the passing of time (Belsito 35) and like silences they give the audience time to contemplate the scene :
“[The blackouts] give the film a measured breath and give the audience a moment to think, to digest the scene that they have just been watching...it also means that the audience is robbed of the picture for a moment which is related to the theme of the film, that something is taken away. (Von Bagh and Kaurismäki 76)”
In addition to giving the audience time to think, the blackouts relate to the film’s theme of absence, which according to Jacque Lacan is no different than any other object in the symbolic order. Even blackness and silence signifies something :
“Because of the mutual implication of absence and presence in the symbolic order, absence can be said to have an equally positive existence in the symbolic as presence. This is what allows Lacan to say that ‘the nothing’ is in itself an object. (Evans 1)”
In Ghost Dog, Jarmusch chooses a quotation from the Hagakure to demonstrate absence sharing « an equally positive existence » with presence :
“Our bodies are given life from the midst of nothingness. Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase, ‘Form is emptiness.’ That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the phrase, ‘Emptiness is form.’ One should not think that these are two separate things. (Jarmusch, Ghost Dog)”
The black spaces and silences in Jarmusch’s films, therefore, are integral parts of the products as a whole. They provide pauses for meditation that encourage viewers to take an active role-contemplating images rather than passively taking in the information that is presented to them. Alienation, furthermore, signifies a split from the « Other, » which, like black spaces and silences, is linked to viewer excitation. In the words of Christian Metz, it is the manipulation of « desire and its nonfulfillment » in cinema that initiates excitation on the part of the audience (77).
References :
Belsito, Peter. « Jim Jarmusch. » Jim Jarmusch Interviews. Ed. Ludvig Hertzberg. Jackson, MS : University of Mississippi Press, 2001. 21-47.
Eue, Ralph and Wolfgang Stukenbrock. « Conversations with Jim Jarmusch. »
Jim Jarmusch. Interviews. Ed. Ludvig Hertzberg. Jackson, MS : University of Mississippi Press, 2001.1-11.
Evans, Dylan, ed. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. Routledge : London, 1996.
Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits : A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan, London : Tavistock, 1977.
Lawlor, Colin. « Recurrence, » « Chapter Three : Down by Law. » Jim Jarmusch : A (Post)Modern Interpretation. Thesis. Dublin Institute of Technology, College of Commerce. 14 May 1999. http://members.tripod.com/ jimjarmusch/lawlor5.html.
Maier, Susanne. « Stranger in a Strange Land : Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man and the Technology of the American West/ern. » Previously-published article for Node 9 on-line journal. March 1997.
Metz, Christian. The Imaginary Signifier. Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press, 1977.
Shapiro, Jane. « Stranger in Paradise. » Jim Jarmusch Interviews. Ed. Ludvig Hertzberg. Jackson, MS : University of Mississippi Press, 2001.154-165.
Von Bagh, Peter and Mika Kaurismäki. « In Between Things. » Jim Jarmusch Interviews. Ed. Ludvig Hertzberg. Jackson, MS : University of Mississippi Press, 2001. 71-80.