New Wave Cinema 2.0: The Films of Jim Jarmusch

Michael Schilling, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Geoff Carter

In The New Wave 2.0 series, The Pen in Hand Blog will be examining the work of today’s most provocative and influential filmmakers, artists whose singular visual styles and visionary genius have stretched the boundaries of cinema. Drawing upon Francois Truffaut’s definition of an auteur, these pieces will be looking at writer/directors whose visions have transcended the art of filmmaking and taken it into the realm of genius. This week, The Pen in Blog will be looking at the offbeat and oddly low-key films of Jim Jarmusch.

Less is More: The Films of Jim Jarmusch

I originally saw Stranger than Paradise at the theater in 1984, the year it was released. Even though I knew it was an independent film going in, I wasn’t quite prepared for the laconic pacing, sparse characterization, and general lack of dramatic action in the film. The landscapes, shot in black and white, were bleak and uninviting—even the scenes shot at a Florida beach.

I loved it.

Something about the tone of the film resonated with me. Thinking about it afterward, I wasn’t sure if it was precisely the lack of emotionality—like Willie’s (John Lurie) forced and sort of pitiful coolness—the lethargic pacing, the non-descript settings, or the deadpan comedic deliveries of Willie and his buddy Eddie (Richard Edson) that stuck with me. In an almost subliminal way, Stranger than Paradise seemed more like real life than real life. This wasn’t a traditionally constructed narrative built on Freytag’s dramatic arc model. In a sort of off-hand way, it depicted what life—my life at that time—was really like: a lot of waiting around, hesitation, and inertia.

These low-key dramatic arcs are Jim Jarmusch’s trademark—one of them. Even Down by Law, which involves a jailbreak and the flight of three disparate (although criminally inept) convicts through the bayous of Louisiana, is decidedly unexciting. It departs from the traditional prison escape film (Cool Hand Luke or Escape from Alcatraz) conventions of action-packed chases and cleverly wrought escape plots. The film instead focuses on the relationships between the three cons, Zack (Tom Waits), a DJ, Jack (John Lurie), a pimp, and Bob (Robert Benigni), an irrepressibly loquacious tourist. Zack and Jack don’t get along and are carried along by Bob’s (who comes up with the escape plan) enthusiasm.

The counterpoint between Bob and the contentious Zack and Jack echoes the relationships of Willie, Eddie, and Willie’s more adventurous cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) in Paradise. While Down by Law is not as deadpan or austere as Paradise, its comedic timing, unlikely denouement, and large spaces of inaction—dramatic inertia—add an immutable sense of the real. Escape from Alcatraz, based on a true story, with its traditional plotting and characterization, somehow seems more unreal than Law.

While later works by Jarmusch like Broken Flowers, Dead Man, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Paterson—and his latest, The Dead Don’t Die (a zombie flick) seem to be leaning toward more traditional narrative structures, the Jarmusch touch is always in evidence.

Dead Man, a high-budget (for Jarmusch) Western starring Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Robert Mitchum (in his last role), John Hurt, and Gabriel Byrne, was touted as a serious departure from his previous work because of its thematic content. Depp plays William Blake, a hapless accountant who is lured West with the promise of work but finds he has been hoodwinked. In a misunderstanding, he kills a man and is himself mortally wounded. Blake is befriended by Nobody (Gary Farmer) a Native-American man who informs Blake he is a goner but decides to guide him as easily as possible to his death.

Like Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Dead Man addresses thematic issues of spirituality, mortality, as well as embracing the values and artifacts of a foreign culture; however, both films still affirm the core of Jarmusch’s vision of seeing America “through a foreigner’s eyes” (Wayback Machine).

In fact, more than a few characters in his films embrace cross-cultural and international philosophies and arts. In Ghost Dog, an African American hit man extols Eastern philosophy, in Dead Man, the Native American character Nobody loves the work of English poet William Blake. Jarmusch is also known for using foreign actors and extended stretches of foreign language dialogue in his movies. His America is cross-pollinated with seeds from other cultures.

Jarmusch has also experimented with episodic films like Night on Earth, Mystery Train, and Coffee and Cigarettes which use thematically linked anthologized vignettes. Night on Earth follows the adventures of five taxi drivers in different parts of the world while Coffee and Cigarettes focuses on off-beat conversations between a variety of characters.

At the beginning of his career, Jim Jarmusch was a darling of the independent film scene. Although his budgets have grown and his works have delved into different genres, including the Western, the revenge film, and even zombie flicks, his films have always retained the dry humor, idiosyncratic pacing, and multi-cultural inclusiveness that—sort of—defined his work. While more recent work like Broken Flowers and Paterson, with their laconic protagonists and low-key plotting, seem closer to Jarmusch’s early works than his higher budget endeavors, all of them bear the stamp of his style.

Although Jarmusch himself eschews the title of auteur, citing the collaborative nature of filmmaking, his distinctive touch is unmistakable. There is simply no one else out there making movies like Jim Jarmusch—and that is the definition of an auteur.