In the press release notes for Stranger Than Paradise, the film that first brought him substantial notice, Jim Jarmusch half-mockingly described his film as “a semi-neorealist black-comedy in the style of an imaginary Eastern-European film director obsessed with Ozu, and familiar with the 1950’s American television show The Honeymooners”. In many ways, the statement is characteristic of Jarmusch, perhaps the most gifted and invigorating of the American independent directors of the last two decades. As the interviews that follow also reveal, he has always been fascinated with mixing culturally very different ingredients to form something uncategorizably new, to transcend the boundaries between high and low, to offer a fresh look at America, and the familiar, by incorporating the point of view of a stranger, while always maintaining a sense of humor in - and about - his craft.
“I still consider myself, ” Jarmusch told Jonathan Rosenbaum in a 1994 discussion, “as kind of a fake film director. Because I started making films with my friends, basically, and writing things with them in mind. And I have kind of continued that procedure...” Filmmaking, for Jarmusch, has never had much to do with how it is conventionally conceived of, either in terms of production or aesthetics. Instead, he has taken a road less traveled by, and that, indeed, has made all the difference. From the time of his first feature-length film, Permanent Vacation, which he finished while still in film school, to the recently released Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, interviewers have been curious about the Way, as it were, responsible for the offbeat, deadpan quality which sets his films apart. Tirelessly, Jarmusch speaks of how he conceives his films “from the inside out”, how he starts with an actor in mind, how he draws from the collection of random notes that he is constantly jotting down, and how he lets the story and mood of the film evolve from that. Also, he is always eager to acknowledge his debt to filmmakers and artists in other areas whom he has been influenced by or has borrowed from, just as he never fails to stress the important role played by the cast and crew in shaping and co-creating the films he directs.
Whenever he is asked to theorize about the style, themes or philosophy of his films, however, Jarmusch’s responses are much more reserved; “I’m the worst person to analyze [my] stuff and I hate looking back at it,” he told Rosenbaum two years later. Likewise, in a recent conversation with Chris Campion, Jarmusch says of the sense that there is a deeper connection between Dead Man and Ghost Dog that he would rather not attempt to analyze it himself: “Better to leave that up to someone smarter than myself who can explain it to me sometime.” He also insists that he does not remember his earlier films very well, as he has a hard time watching them once he is done with them. And furthermore, he often points out that he is not very fond of sharing his views on his films because he regards other people’s different interpretations of them to be at least as valuable as his own, and is afraid that his own reflections would only impose.
Similarly, interviewers eager to have Jarmusch reflect on his life and career also find themselves in a tough spot. Over and over, he notes that he is not a very self-analytical person, and claims, furthermore, that none of his films are autobiographical in any significant sense. He often speaks about growing up in Akron, Ohio, about the inspiration he drew from the New York punk rock scene, about his prolonged semester in Paris where he was supposed to study literature but ended up spending most of his time watching films at the Cinémathèque, and about his experiences in film school and what he learned as an assistant to Nicholas Ray. However, being anything but self-centered, he is usually quick to turn such questions about himself into an opportunity to share his enthusiasm about other artists, to express his gratitude to people who have helped him along the way, or to tell often very amusing anecdotes. Characteristically, talking to Danny Plotnick in 1994 about the option of giving lectures, the idea of sharing his views on filmmaking or explaining his aesthetics does not even enter his mind: “I think I would throw together a bunch of disconnected things. Talk a little bit about films I liked or experiences I’ve had or anecdotes that aren’t related to film at all or maybe read a couple poems that I like.”
Throughout his career, Jarmusch has exhibited and maintained an extraordinary degree of integrity in his work and in his relation to the generally profit greedy movie business around him. Being one of the front figures of independent cinema, the subject of financing versus complete creative control is a theme that naturally crops up in many of the interviews. Indeed, one of the biggest frustrations in Jarmusch’s career seems to have been not being able to raise funds for an idea for a film he had after Mystery Train. Secretively, he repeatedly refers to the circumstances surrounding this as “too complicated” to go into, and notes that that was why he embarked on a totally different, unplanned project, Night on Earth. As he told Plotnick, “I got very frustrated and ended up writing Night on Earth very fast - in about eight days.” Like Ghost Dog’s main character, Jarmusch has always stayed loyal to his code, regardless of what this has ultimately cost him. His aesthetic preferences seem to have stayed pretty much intact over the years, with some subtle exceptions. He seems, for instance, to have become more flexible in regard to his zeal for “pure” and “minimal” structures, and his skepticism about camera movement and non-diegetic music, which he expressed in some of the earlier interviews. Of course, this shift is also mirrored in the films themselves, especially beginning with Dead Man.
“When Jarmusch answers questions,” Shapiro wrote in her 1986 Village Voice interview, “he usually begins by hesitating, then making a few false starts, casting about for some words; then swings into a long fluent exposition: in summation, repeats his thesis; then stops. A calm appropriate-seeming silence falls. He waits for the next question, and he can wait in purposeful serenity quite a while.” But talking to her about the situation of being interviewed, Jarmusch says, “I don’t feel articulate. In the films, the stuff I write, the dialogue is so minimal and often there’s - well, always - there’s some kind of communication problem between people. I love language, and I love listening to the way people talk, the way they elide things, and the way people are inarticulate I like. But my ideas aren’t - I don’t feel comfortable just talking. Also, I don’t like to talk very personally, I feel like it’s psychoanalytic. There’s a place for that and it’s not really in publicity for something. And it’s hard to distinguish, too, if something is just publicity, or if you’re actually talking to someone, or if you’re talking to the press, or if you’re talking to people who are going to read this? That confuses me. I’m very confused by that.” Read consecutively, the interviews included here chronicle a career and a sensibility of a thoroughly independent mind. Jim Jarmusch comes across throughout as a very kind and attentive person with a warm sense of humor and an ever-glowing affection and dedication for his art, and for all the small and marginalized - the sad and beautiful - aspects of the world.
- Ludvig Hertzberg, May 2000