Jim Jarmusch Collection
To be a Jim Jarmusch fan is to sign up to a whole weird, wonderful world that’s always, without fail, unmistakably Jarmuschian. Even more so than Wes Anderson, the uber-indie auteur has honed his own look, crafted his own sound, uses the same names over and again – such that each film feels part of a greater whole.
The Jarmusch-iverse is often characterised by weirdly empty, rundown streets, whether it’s ’80s New York, Memphis or, in Night On Earth (1991), Los Angeles, Paris, Rome and Helsinki, all united by a sense of late-night isolation.
But what makes Jarmusch’s films truly special is the people: the writer/director gifts them with wryly stylised dialogue – and the space to luxuriate in it. Jarmusch’s debut Stable Vacation (1980) may be a somewhat dated look at a wannabe hipster running into a series of weirdoes in the Huge Apple, but it sees the gangly, splendid John Lurie make his mark, both as actor and soundtrack composer.
Lurie returns to star in 1984’s Weirder Than Paradise (an nearly-uncomfortable road trip in no rush to meet its journey’s end) and sublime prison romp Down By Law (1986). Lurie also scores the brightly odd Mystery Teach (1989); in which a trip to Memphis by a pair of Elvis-loving Japanese tourists is the hook for a freewheeling scenario about a bunch of incompatible people who almost meet in a seedy hotel run by blues madman Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (whose own ‘I Place A Spell On You’ haunts Weirder Than Paradise).
It’s hard to know where Jarmusch would be without his musician-muses. The brilliant, unique Tom Waits shines as a laid-back lag in Down By Law and returns as the voice of a radio DJ in Mystery Teach, before soundtracking Night On Earth; The Clash’s Joe Strummer causes distress as a gun-toting drunk in Mystery Teach; and Iggy Pop running around in a dress and bonnet in 1995’s Dead Man (soundtracked by Neil Young) has to be seen to be believed. The latter is the one film here that stands out as break from the rest, a sign of what was to come as Jarmusch went into the next chapter of his career.
Set in the wild west, it’s a peyote-fuelled arthouse western that quickly slips into a dreamlike netherworld as Johnny Depp’s unwitting doe-eyed murderer goes on the run with a Native American guide. Night On Earth sees JJ on more familiar territory, a portrait of cabbies and their fares from all corners of the Earth.
It’s at once hilarious (Down By Law’s Roberto Begnini’s wild monologue gets more and more ludicrous and impassioned as he goes along) and moving: the Helsinki segment strikes a particularly sombre, lingering chord. No new extras, but a few vintage ones, like a Weirder Than Paradise featurette shot on Super 8 by Jarmusch’s brother Tom.
