As a musician, he has been part of theno wave bandThe Del-Byzanteens and in addition composed music for some of his films. He has released four musical albums withJozef van Wissem.
Jarmusch was born inCuyahoga Falls, Ohio, the second of three children of middle-class suburbanites.[3][4][5][6] His mother, ofGerman andIrish descent, was a reviewer of film and theatre for theAkron Beacon Journal before marrying his father, a businessman ofCzech and German descent who worked for theB.F. Goodrich Company.[5][7][8] She introduced Jarmusch to cinema by leaving him at a local theater to watch matinee double features such asAttack of the Crab Monsters andCreature from the Black Lagoon while she ran errands.[9][10] The first adult film he recalls seeing was the 1958 cult classicThunder Road, the violence and darkness of which left an impression on the seven-year-old Jarmusch.[11] AnotherB-movie influence from his childhood wasGhoulardi, an eccentric Cleveland television show which featured horror films.[10]
The key, I think, to Jim, is that he went gray when he was 15... As a result, he always felt like an immigrant in the teenage world. He's been an immigrant—a benign, fascinated foreigner—ever since. And all his films are about that.
Jarmusch was an avid reader in his youth and acquired an enthusiasm for film.[3] He had an even greater interest in literature which was encouraged by his grandmother.[7] Though he refused to attend church with hisEpiscopalian parents (not liking "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.[11]
From his peers, he developed a taste forcounterculture, and he and his friends would steal the records and books of their older siblings—this included works byWilliam Burroughs,Jack Kerouac, andThe Mothers of Invention.[3][12] They made fake identity documents which allowed them to visit bars at the weekend but also the local art house cinema, which typically showed pornographic films but would occasionally featureunderground films such asRobert Downey, Sr.'sPutney Swope andAndy Warhol'sChelsea Girls.[3][12] At one point, he took an apprenticeship with a commercial photographer.[3] He later remarked, "Growing up in Ohio was just planning to get out."[12]
During his final year studying at Columbia, Jarmusch moved toParis for what was initially a summer semester on an exchange program, but turned into 10 months.[3][13] He worked as a delivery driver for an art gallery and spent most of his time at theCinémathèque Française.[3][6]
That's where I saw things I had only read about and heard about—films by many of the goodJapanese directors, likeImamura,Ozu,Mizoguchi. Also, films byEuropean directors likeBresson andDreyer, and even American films, like the retrospective ofSamuel Fuller's films, which I only knew from seeing a few of them on television late at night. When I came back from Paris, I was still writing, and my writing was becoming more cinematic in certain ways, more visually descriptive.
— Jarmusch on the Cinémathèque Française, taken from an interview withLawrence Van Gelder ofThe New York Times, October 21, 1984.[7]
Jarmusch graduated from Columbia University with aBachelor of Arts degree in 1975.[6] He was broke and working as a musician in New York City after returning from Paris in 1976. He applied on a whim to the graduate film school ofNew York University'sSchool of the Arts (then under the direction of Hollywood directorLászló Benedek).[7][3][14] Though he lacked experience in filmmaking, his submission of a collection of photographs and an essay about film secured his acceptance into the program.[7] He studied there for four years; he met fellow students and future collaboratorsSara Driver,Tom DiCillo,Howard Brookner, andSpike Lee in the process.[6] During the late 1970s in New York City, Jarmusch and his contemporaries were part of ano wave cultural scene centered on theCBGB music club which inspired the formation of hisno wave bandThe Del-Byzanteens.[16]
In his final year at New York University, Jarmusch worked as an assistant to the film noir directorNicholas Ray, who was at that time teaching in the department.[6] In an anecdote, Jarmusch recounted 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.[17] Jarmusch was the only person Ray brought to work—as his personal assistant—onLightning Over Water, a documentary about his dying years on which he was collaborating withWim Wenders.[3] Ray died in 1979 after a long fight with cancer.[6] A few days afterwards, having been encouraged by Ray and New York underground filmmakerAmos Poe and using scholarship funds given by theLouis B. Mayer Foundation to pay for his school tuition,[7][18] Jarmusch started work on a film for his final project.[19][6] The university was unimpressed with Jarmusch's use of his funding as well as the project itself and refused to award him a degree.[13]
Jarmusch's final year university project was completed in 1980 asPermanent Vacation, his first feature film. It had its premiere at the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg (formerly known as Filmweek Mannheim) and won the Josef von Sternberg Award.[13] It was made on a shoestring budget of around $12,000 in misdirected scholarship funds and shot by cinematographer Tom DiCillo on16 mm film.[20] The quasi-autobiographical feature follows an adolescent drifter (Chris Parker) as he wanders around downtown Manhattan.[21][22]
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'sMystery Train (1989) that in the director's debut, "the only talent he demonstrated was for collecting egregiously untalented actors".[23] The bleak and unrefinedPermanent 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.[22][24]
In 1986, Jarmusch wrote and directedDown by Law, starring musiciansJohn Lurie andTom Waits, and Italian comic actorRoberto Benigni (his introduction to American audiences) as three convicts who escape from a New Orleans jailhouse.[31] Shot like the director's previous efforts in black and white, thisconstructivistneo-noir was Jarmusch's first collaboration with Dutch cinematographerRobby Müller, who had been known for his work with Wenders.[32]
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 smallMemphis hotel, andNight on Earth (1991)[33] 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.[17] Less bleak and somber than Jarmusch's earlier work,Mystery Train nevertheless retained the director's askance conception of America.[34] He wroteNight 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,Winona Ryder, andIsaach de Bankolé.[35]
As a result of his early work, Jarmusch became an influential representative of the trend of the Americanroad movie.[36] Not intended to appeal to mainstream filmgoers, these early Jarmusch films were embraced by art house audiences,[37] gaining a small but dedicated American following and cult status in Europe and Japan.[38] Each of the four films had its premiere at theNew York Film Festival, whileMystery Train was in competition at the1989 Cannes Film Festival.[28] Jarmusch's distinctive aesthetic andauteur status fomented a critical backlash at the close of this early period, however; though reviewers praised the charm and adroitness ofMystery Train andNight On Earth, the director was increasingly charged with repetitiveness and risk-aversion.[13][28]
A film appearance in 1989 as a used car dealer in the cult comedyLeningrad Cowboys Go America further solidified his interest and participation in the road movie genre. In 1991 Jarmusch appeared as himself in Episode One of John Lurie's cult television seriesFishing With John.
In 1995, Jarmusch releasedDead Man, a period film set in the 19th century American West starringJohnny Depp andGary Farmer. Produced at a cost of almost $9 million with a high-profile cast includingJohn Hurt,Gabriel Byrne and, in his final role,Robert Mitchum,[39] the film marked a significant departure for the director from his previous features.[40] 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.[13][40] The film was shot in black and white by Robby Müller, and features a score composed and performed byNeil Young, for whom Jarmusch subsequently filmed the tour documentaryYear 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.[13] 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.[41]
Following artistic success and critical acclaim in the American independent film community, he achieved mainstream recognition with his far-East philosophical crime filmGhost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), shot in Jersey City and starringForest Whitaker as a young inner-city man who has found purpose for his life by unyieldingly conforming it to theHagakure, 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 byRZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, which blends into the director's "aesthetics of sampling".[42] 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 a homage toLe Samourai, a 1967 French New Wave film by auteurJean-Pierre Melville, which starred renowned French actorAlain Delon in a strikingly similar role and narrative.[citation needed]
A five-year gap followed the release ofGhost Dog, which the director has attributed to a creative crisis he experienced in the aftermath of theSeptember 11 attacks in New York City.[9] 2004 saw the eventual release ofCoffee and Cigarettes, 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 onSaturday Night Live in 1986, and paired Roberto Benigni with comedianSteven Wright. This had been followed three years later by "Twins", a segment featuring actorsSteve Buscemi andJoie andCinqué Lee, and then in 1993 with theShort Film Palme d'Or-winning "Somewhere in California", starring musicians Tom Waits andIggy Pop.[43]
He followedCoffee and Cigarettes in 2005 withBroken Flowers, which starredBill 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 ofBroken Flowers, Jarmusch signed a deal withFortissimo Films, whereby the distributor would fund and have "first-look" rights to the director's future films,[44] and cover some of the overhead costs of his production company, Exoskeleton.[45] The film premiered at the58th Cannes Film Festival where it competed for thePalme d'Or and received theGrand Prix. Film criticPeter Bradshaw forThe Guardian described the film as "Jarmusch's most enjoyable, accessible work for some time, perhaps his most emotionally generous film... a very attractive piece of film-making, bolstered by terrific performances from an all-star cast, spearheaded by endlessly droll, seductively sensitive Bill Murray."[46]
In 2009, Jarmusch releasedThe Limits of Control, a sparse, meditative crime film set in Spain, it starredIsaach de Bankolé as a lone assassin with a secretive mission.[47] A behind-the-scenes documentary,Behind Jim Jarmusch, was filmed over three days on the set of the film inSeville by director Léa Rinaldi.[48] Also in 2009, Jarmusch appeared as himself in an episode of the HBO seriesBored to Death, and the following year, Jarmusch helped to curate theAll Tomorrow's Parties music festival in Monticello, New York.
In an August 2010 interview, Jarmusch revealed his forthcoming work schedule at that time:
I'm working on a documentary about the Stooges [Iggy Pop-fronted band]. It's going to take a few years. There's no rush on it, but it's something that Iggy asked me to do. I'm co-writing an "opera". It won't be a traditional opera, but it'll be about the inventorNikola Tesla, with the composer Phil Klein. I have a new film project that's really foremost for me that I hope to shoot early next year with Tilda Swinton and Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska, who was Alice in Wonderland in Tim Burton's film. I don't have that quite financed yet, so I'm working on that. I'm also making music and hoping to maybe score some silent films to put out. Our band will have an EP that we'll give out at ATP. We have enough music for three EPs or an album.[49]
Jarmusch eventually attained funding for the aforementioned film project after a protracted period and, in July 2012, Jarmusch began shootingOnly Lovers Left Alive withTilda Swinton,Tom Hiddleston,Mia Wasikowska,Anton Yelchin, and Hurt,[50] while Jarmusch's musical projectSqürl were the main contributors to the film's soundtrack.[51] The film screened at the2013 Cannes Film Festival and the 2013Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF),[52] with Jarmusch explaining the seven-year completion time frame at the former: "The reason it took so long is that no one wanted to give us the money. It took years to put it together. Its (sic) getting more and more difficult for films that are a little unusual, or not predictable, or don't satisfy people's expectations of something."[53] The film's budget wasUS$7 million and its UK release date was February 21, 2014.[54]
Jarmusch wrote and directedPaterson in 2016. The film follows the daily experiences of an inner-city bus driver and poet (Adam Driver) inPaterson, New Jersey, who shares the same name as the city. Paterson was inspired by objectivist American poet William Carlos Williams and his epic poem "Paterson[55]".[56] The film features the wry, minimalist style[57] found in Jarmusch's other works[58] and earned 22 award nominations for Jarmusch, Driver and Nellie, the dog featured in the film. The story focuses on Paterson's poetry writing efforts, interspersed with his observations and experiences of the residents he encounters on his bus route and in his daily life. Todd McCarthy ofThe Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review, writing: "A mild-mannered, almost startlingly undramatic work that offers discreet pleasures to longtime fans of the New York indie-scene veteran, who can always be counted on to go his own way."[59] Eric Kohn, film critic ofIndieWire wrote that the film was "an apt statement from Jarmusch, a filmmaker who continues to surprise and innovate while remaining true to his singular voice, and who here seems to have delivered its purest manifestation."[60]
In September 2021, Jarmusch published withAnthology Editions a hardcover book of his small-scalecollage art calledSome Collages with texts byLucy Sante and Randy Kennedy.[65]
In the early 1980s, Jarmusch was part of a revolving lineup of musicians inRobin Crutchfield's Dark Day project,[71] and later became the keyboardist and one of two vocalists forThe Del-Byzanteens,[6] aNo Wave band who released the LPLies to Live By in 1982.[72]
Jarmusch is also featured on the albumWu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture (2005) in two interludes described by Sean Fennessy in aPitchfork review of the album as both "bizarrely pretentious" and "reason alone to give it a listen".[73] Jarmusch andMichel Gondry each contributed a remix to a limited edition release of the track "Blue Orchid" by The White Stripes in 2005.[74]
Jarmusch first met van Wissem on a street in New York City'sSoHo neighborhood in 2007, at which time the lute player handed the director a CD. Several months later, Jarmusch asked van Wissem to send his catalog of recordings and the two started playing together as part of their developing friendship. Van Wissem explained in early April 2014: "I know the way [Jarmusch] makes his films is kind of like a musician. He has music in his head when he's writing a script so it's more informed by a tonal thing than it is by anything else."[79]
Jarmusch is a member of theavant-garde rock band Sqürl with film associate Carter Logan and sound engineer Shane Stoneback.[80][81][82][83] The band formed to create additional soundtracks for Jarmusch's filmThe Limits of Control, which they released together with two other songs on an EP called "Film Music from The Limits of Control" under the name Bad Rabbit.[84][85][86][87] Sqürl's version ofWanda Jackson's 1961 song "Funnel of Love", featuring Madeline Follin ofCults on vocals, opens Jarmusch's 2014 filmOnly Lovers Left Alive.[79] On March 8, 2023, Sqürl announced its debut albumSilver Haze and released lead single "Berlin '87". The album was released on May 5 bySacred Bones Records.[88]
In 2014, Jarmusch shunned the "auteur theory" and likened the filmmaking process to human sexual reproduction:
I put 'A film by' as a protection of my rights, but I don't really believe it. It's important for me to have a final cut, and I do for every film. So I'm in the editing room every day, I'm the navigator of the ship, but I'm not the captain, I can't do it without everyone's equally valuable input. For me it's phases where I'm very solitary, writing, and then I'm preparing, getting the money, and then I'm with the crew and on a ship and it's amazing and exhausting and exhilarating, and then I'm alone with the editor again... I've said it before, it's like seduction, wild sex, and then pregnancy in the editing room. That's how it feels for me.[51]
Jarmusch recorded a Q & A in 2010 for the Criterion Blu-ray release ofMystery Train. He explained at the beginning that he did this, instead of the usual practice of a director's commentary to be played over the film itself, because "I don't like looking at my films again—it's agony to me."
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don't bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from—it's where you take them to."
Jarmusch has been characterized as aminimalist filmmaker whose idiosyncratic films are unhurried.[25][90] His films often eschew traditional narrative structure, lacking clear plot progression and focus more on mood and character development.[9][90][91] In an interview early in his career, he stated that his goal was "to approximate real time for the audience."[92]
His early work is marked by a brooding, contemplative tone, featuring extended silent scenes and prolonged still shots.[40] He has experimented with avignette format in three films that were either released, or begun around, the early 1990s:Mystery Train,Night on Earth andCoffee and Cigarettes.The Salt Lake Tribune critic Sean P. Means wrote that Jarmusch blends "film styles and genres with sharp wit and dark humor",[93] while his style is also defined by a signaturedeadpan comedic tone.[47]
The protagonists of Jarmusch's films are usually lone adventurers.[19] 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";[40] while novelistPaul Auster described them as "laconic, withdrawn, sorrowful mumblers".[15]
Jarmusch has revealed that his instinct is a greater influence during the filmmaking process than any cognitive processes. He explained: "I feel like I have to listen to the film and let it tell me what it wants. Sometimes it mumbles and it isn't very clear." Films such asDead Man andLimits of Control have polarized fans and general viewers alike, as Jarmusch's stylistic instinct is embedded in his strong sense of independence.[94]
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.[7] 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 ofWilliam Blake, a black hitman's passionate devotion to theHagakure. 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.[40][95]
Jarmusch's fascination with music is another characteristic that is readily apparent in his work.[13][34] Musicians appear frequently in key roles—John Lurie,Tom Waits,Gary Farmer,Youki Kudoh,RZA andIggy Pop have featured in multiple Jarmusch films, whileJoe Strummer andScreamin' Jay Hawkins appear inMystery Train andGZA,Jack andMeg White feature inCoffee and Cigarettes. Hawkins' song "I Put a Spell on You" was central to the plot ofStranger than Paradise, whileMystery Train is inspired by and named aftera song popularized byElvis Presley, who is also the subject of a vignette inCoffee and Cigarettes.[13] In the words of criticVincent Canby, "Jarmusch's movies have the tempo and rhythm ofblues andjazz, 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."[34]
During a 1989 interview Jarmusch commented on his narrative focus, "I'd rather make a movie about a guy walking his dog than about the emperor of China."[96]
Jarmusch is credited with having instigated the American independent film movement withStranger Than Paradise.[31] In her description of the film in a 2005 profile of the director forThe New York Times, critic Lynn Hirschberg declared thatStranger Than Paradise "permanently upended the idea of independent film as an intrinsically inaccessible avant-garde form".[4] The success of the film accorded the director a certain iconic status withinarthouse cinema, as an idiosyncratic and uncompromisingauteur, exuding the aura of urban cool embodied bydowntown Manhattan.[103][104] Such perceptions were reinforced by the release of his subsequent features in the late 1980s, establishing him as one of the generation's most prominent and influential independent filmmakers.[105][106]
New York critic and festival director Kent Jones undermined the "urban cool" association that Jarmusch has garnered and was quoted in a February 2014 media article, following the release of his eleventh feature film:
There's been an overemphasis on the hipness factor—and a lack of emphasis on his incredible attachment to the idea of celebrating poetry and culture. You can complain about the preciousness of a lot of his movies, [but] they are unapologetically standing up for poetry. [His attitude is] 'if you want to call me an elitist, go ahead, I don't care'.[94]
Jarmusch's staunch independence has been represented by his success in retaining the negatives for all of his films, an achievement that was described by theGuardian's Jonathan Romney as "extremely rare." British producerJeremy Thomas, who was one of the eventual financiers ofOnly Lovers Left Alive called Jarmusch "one of the great American independent film-makers" who is "the last of the line." Thomas believes that filmmakers like Jarmusch "are not coming through... any more."[94]
In a 1989 review of his work,Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times called Jarmusch "the most adventurous and arresting film maker to surface in the American cinema in this decade".[34] He was recognized with the "Filmmaker on the Edge" award at the 2004Provincetown International Film Festival.[107] A retrospective of the director's films was hosted at theWalker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during February 1994, and another, "The Sad and Beautiful World of Jim Jarmusch", by theAmerican Film Institute in August 2005.[108][109]
While Swinton, who has worked with Jarmusch on numerous occasions, describes him as a "rock star", the director admits that "I don't know where I fit in. I don't feel tied to my time." Dutch lute player Jozef van Wissem, who worked on the score forOnly Lovers Left Alive calls Jarmusch a "cultural sponge" who "absorbs everything."[94]
Jarmusch at punk clubCBGB in New York City in November 2003
Jarmusch rarely discusses his personal life in public.[5][9] He divides his time between New York City and theCatskill Mountains.[5][111] He stopped drinking coffee in 1986, the year of the first installment ofCoffee and Cigarettes, although he continues to smoke cigarettes.[112] He has been avegetarian since 1987.[113]
Jarmusch has been a supporter of Pro-Palestine causes and was one of 55 celebrities to sign theArtists4Ceasefire letter calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.[114][115][116]
The author of a series of essays on influential bands, Jarmusch has also had at least two poems published. He is a founding member ofThe 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.[4][117]
In a February 2014 interview, Jarmusch stated that he is not interested in eternal life, as "there's something about the cycle of life that's very important, and to have that removed would be a burden".[51]
^Jarmusch, Ann (May 12, 1996)."The Jarmusch clan".Los Angeles Times. Archived fromthe original on March 8, 2009. RetrievedMay 13, 2009.We grew up near, not in, Akron, Ohio, in an idyllic area that seemed eons away from the stinky, grimy "Rubber Capital of the World." And our father worked for B.F. Goodrich, not Goodyear.
^abKennedy, Mark (March 19, 2000)."Jim Jarmusch refuses to go along".The Columbian.Associated Press.He's never seen Obi-Wan Kenobi spar with Darth Vader, or Rhett Butler pop off to Scarlett. Jim Jarmusch, the art-house filmmaker who helped spark a renaissance in independent film, refuses to actually sit through some of the classics of American cinema. "I pledge I will go to my grave having never seenGone with the Wind or anyStar Wars film," Jarmusch says. "Just to be obstinate. No other good reason." It's a typical stance from a moviemaker who stubbornly creates films that critics often complain are too long, too meandering, and too often in black and white.
^abBurr, Ty (March 10, 2000)."Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai".Entertainment Weekly. Archived fromthe original on October 12, 2008. RetrievedMay 17, 2009.... minimalist director who found fame with 1984'sStranger Than Paradise ...
^Sterritt, David (February 21, 1985). "On the fringes of film: writer-director Jim Jarmusch".The Christian Science Monitor.Jim Jarmusch brought in "Stranger Than Paradise" for about $125,000. That's not a budget in today's movie world; it's lunch money.
^abHost:Bob Edwards (March 10, 2000). "Profile: Jim Jarmusch's new film,Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai".Morning Edition.National Public Radio.The 1984 movieStranger Than Paradise by Jim Jarmusch is credited with launching the independent film movement. Two years later, Jarmusch introduced American audiences to the wacky Italian actor Roberto Benigni inDown by Law.
^Kempley, Rita (October 3, 1986)."Down by Law".The Washington Post. RetrievedMay 12, 2009.
^SeeGabri Ródenas (2009), Guía para ver y analizar Noche en la Tierra de Jim Jarmusch, Barcelona/Valencia: Octaedro/Nau Llibres, ISBNs: 978-84-8063-931-6 /978-84-7642-776-7. Spanish only.
^Mazierska, Ewa; Rascaroli, Laura (2006).Crossing New Europe. Wallflower Press. p. 3.ISBN1-904764-67-3.OCLC63137371.In reverse, North American directors started to absorb the influence of European road cinema, usually mediated by the 'American' films by Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog (Stroszek, 1977). The most influential representative of this trend in recent times is Jim Jarmusch, starting with hisStranger than Paradise from 1984.
^Rosen, Steven (March 19, 2000). "Change may be in the wind: Jarmusch indie film has mainstream feel".The Denver Post.Jim Jarmusch, one of the most fiercely independent of current American writer-directors, has never cared if his movies gain mass acceptance. He's been content to appeal to the devoted if limited audience that responds to film as art. And that audience has embraced hisStranger Than Paradise,Down By Law,Mystery Train andNight on Earth.
^Katzman, Lisa (May 3, 1992). "The Jarmusch touch inNight on Earth, America's coolest director exhudes a new warmth".Chicago Tribune.Walking into the cafe where we've agreed to meet on a hot spring day, director Jim Jarmusch takes off his signature black leather jacket. It's the type worn by blues musicians, '50s greasers and the downbeat bohemian odd couple Willie and Eddie of Jarmusch's second filmStranger than Paradise. A small triangular silver Triumph motorcycle pin affixed to the lapel is a tip-off to one of Jarmusch's chief recreational passions. Among Jarmusch cognoscenti, the shock of thick, almost white hair that rises from his head in a handsomely shaped post-punk spike is another unmistakable signature. In the eight years sinceStranger than Paradise became an arthouse hit, Jarmusch has garnered a loyal but limited American audience. Yet abroad, particularly in Japan and Europe, both Jarmusch and his films have achieved cult status. For foreigners, perhaps even more so than for Americans, Jarmusch's films are the sine qua non of post-modern American hipdom. They articulate a distinctly funky, low-tech, outcast vision of American society that in both ethos and esthetics draws upon and amusingly blends the past five decades of postwar culture. While in content his films quietly defy Hollywood's myths of American progress and prosperity, in form (due to their stylistic simplicity and small budgets) they are a retort to the movie industry's bloated excess. Recently, at the Yugoslavian film festival, 6,000 people turned out to fill a 4,000-seat theater for a midnight showing of Jarmusch's latest film,Night on Earth in wartorn Belgrade. In the past several months a traveling "Jim Jarmusch Film Festival" was held in major cities throughout Poland. Czechoslavakia [sic] will soon hold such a festival. And in Japan, where the director is a national celebrity, he is offered huge sums to appear in and direct commercials. To date he has turned down all offers.
^Hall, Mary Katherine (Winter 2000). "Now You Are a Killer of White Men: Jim Jarmusch'sDead Man and Traditions of Revisionism in the Western".Journal of Film and Video.52 (4):3–14.
^Caro, Mark (May 28, 2004)."With 'Coffee', Jim Jarmusch lacks for rush".Chicago Tribune. Archived fromthe original on August 17, 2009. RetrievedMay 10, 2009.But then 1992's "Somewhere in California", which won the Cannes Film Festival's short-film Palme D'Or, offers the delicious spectacle of [Iggy Pop] and [Tom Waits] meeting in some remote dumpy bar, with Iggy playing the shaggy, eager-to-please puppy while the edgy Waits finds ways to take constant umbrage.
^Dawtrey, Adam (May 17, 2005)."Jarmusch in bloom".Variety. RetrievedJune 21, 2021.
^Dawtrey, Adam (May 17, 2005). "Jim Jarmusch".Daily Variety. Reed Business Information.Jim Jarmusch, whose latest pic "Broken Flowers" premieres in the Cannes competition today, has struck a multi-year first-look deal with Fortissimo Films. This is the first time Fortissimo has entered a formal long-term relationship with an individual filmmaker, and marks a major step forward by the Hong Kong and Amsterdam-based sales company in its drive for English-language movies. Fortissimo has agreed to provide financing to upcoming Jarmusch films, including a contribution to the overheads of his New York-based production banner Exoskeleton.
^Hertzberg, Ludwig (June 24, 2009)."Behind Jim Jarmusch".Limited Control. Posterous. Archived fromthe original on January 4, 2013. RetrievedAugust 15, 2009.
^Hertzberg, Ludvig (September 15, 2008)."Dark Day".Limited Control. Posterous.com. Archived fromthe original on January 4, 2013. RetrievedMay 14, 2009.
^Breihan, Tom (August 20, 2010)."Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch Talks ATP".Pitchfork.Archived from the original on April 18, 2021. RetrievedJuly 27, 2021.We were called Bad Rabbit, but now we're called Sqürl.
^Macaulay, Scott (May 1, 2009)."Jim Jarmusch and the music of The Limits of Control".Focus Features.Archived from the original on September 12, 2010. RetrievedJune 15, 2021.And then my band Bad Rabbit made some recordings for the museum sequences in the film. In the existing file I just didn't find things that were exactly right for that, so we decided to record some of our own. ... Well, we have two tracks on the soundtrack record that are in the film, and then we have an EP with those two plus two more that are going to come out with the film, ...
^Turman, Katherine (July 24, 2017)."Jim Jarmusch Talks Punk Rock, the Wu-Tang Clan, and the Music Behind His Movies".The Village Voice. Archived fromthe original on February 14, 2019. RetrievedAugust 7, 2021.Sqürl, Jarmusch's self-described "enthusiastically marginal" band with drummer Carter Logan — who is also a producer on Jarmusch's films — and engineer Shane Stoneback, coalesced to create music for Jarmusch's 2009 filmThe Limits of Control.
^"BAD RABBIT: THE LIMITS OF CONTROL".SqürlWorld.Archived from the original on September 17, 2019. RetrievedJuly 27, 2021.They formed in 2009 to record the soundtrack [of]The Limits of Control for the director's film of the same name. ... The band later changed its name to Sqürl.
^ab"Director Jim Jarmusch delivers offbeat mob movieGhost Dog".The News Tribune. April 21, 2000.Jim Jarmusch makes movies unlike anyone else's. They're unhurried. They're populated by the oddest characters. They do not proceed in straight lines. They're one of a kind.
^Means, Sean P. (April 21, 2000). "A Samurai Warrior Haunts New Jersey inGhost Dog".The Salt Lake Tribune.Jim Jarmusch has always applied the Cuisinart approach to moviemaking, blending film styles and genres with sharp wit and dark humor
^Dretzk, Gary (June 30, 1996). "Poets and Indians: Jim Jarmusch goes West to bringDead Man to life".Chicago Tribune.An idiosyncratic filmmaker whose hip, ironic style has wowed the art-house crowd since the quirkyStranger Than Paradise was released in 1984, Jarmusch embodies urban cool and uncompromising auteurism. His pictures are at once funny, gritty, highly challenging and undeniably American in their multicultural vision.
^Blair, Iain (March 2, 2000). "From writing to directing, Jarmusch is in charge".Chicago Tribune.Over the last decade [Jim] Jarmusch has established himself as one of the leading independent filmmakers of his generation with such comedic and ironic films as "Stranger Than Paradise", "Down by Law", "Mystery Train", "Night on Earth", and "Dead Man". With his latest film, which he wrote, produced and directed, Jarmusch once again marches to the beat of his own drummer.
^Holleman, Joe (March 24, 2000). "Forest Whitaker personifies cool in Jarmusch's latest offbeat film".St. Louis Post-Dispatch.With the possible exception of John Sayles, there is no independent director who has influenced the modern independent film world more than Jim Jarmusch. By combining odd characters, dark comedy and an incredibly hip atmosphere in classic art-house films such asDown by Law andStranger Than Paradise, Jarmusch has influenced and assisted younger indie directors in finding a modicum of commercial success with less-than-mainstream fare.
^Kimmel, Dan (April 6, 2004). "Jarmusch will journey to Provincetown for nod".Daily Variety.Indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch will be the sixth recipient of the Filmmaker on the Edge award at the 2004 Provincetown Film Festival, to be held June 16–20 in Provincetown, Mass.
^"Now at AFI: The World of Jim Jarmusch".The Washington Post. August 5, 2005.This month at its Silver Theatre (8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring), the American Film Institute is presenting "The Sad and Beautiful World of Jim Jarmusch", a retrospective of most of the filmmaker's works
^"Connect the dots".St. Paul Pioneer Press. February 14, 1994.Jim Jarmusch has big hair – Lyle Lovett big. It suits the man whose too-hip-to-live reputation has made him the King of Counterculture Film and whose work is featured in a Walker Art Center retrospective this month. Jarmusch's disjointed, oddly comic movies and short films, which includeStranger Than Paradise andNight on Earth, have established him as a master of the minutely observed detail. In his little-seen debut,...
Ródenas, Gabri (2009),Guía para ver y analizar Noche en la Tierrade Jim Jarmusch, Barcelona/Valencia: Octaedro/Nau Llibres.ISBN978-84-8063-931-6/978-84-7642-776-7
Ródenas, Gabri (2009), "Jarmusch y Carver: Se ha roto el frigorífico" in Fernández, P. (Ed.),Rompiendo moldes: Discursos, género e hibridación en el siglo XXI. Zamora/Sevilla: Editorial Comunicación Social;ISBN978-84-96082-88-5. Available at Google Books.
Ródenas, Gabri (2009), "Jarmusch Vs Reagan" inRevista Odisea. Almería: University of Almería. December 2009.ISSN1578-3820.
Ródenas, Gabri (2010), "Jim Jarmusch: Del insomnio americano al insomnio universal", inComunicación y sociedad, Navarra: University of Navarra, June 2010;ISSN0214-0039.
Mentana, Umberto (2016),Il cinema di Jim Jarmusch. Una filmografia per un'analisi della cultura e del cinema postmoderno, Aracne Editrice;ISBN978-88-548-9115-9
Rice, Julian. (2012).The Jarmusch Way: Spirituality and Imagination in Dead Man, Ghost Dog,and The Limits of Control. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press.ISBN978-0-8108-8572-1 (hardcover);ISBN978-0-8108-8573-8 (ebook).
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