| Only Lovers Left Alive | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Jim Jarmusch |
| Written by | Jim Jarmusch |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Yorick Le Saux |
| Edited by | Affonso Gonçalves |
| Music by | |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 123 minutes[1] |
| Countries |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $7 million[3] |
| Box office | $7.6 million[4] |
Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013Gothicfantasycomedy-drama film written and directed byJim Jarmusch, starringTilda Swinton,Tom Hiddleston,Mia Wasikowska,Anton Yelchin,Jeffrey Wright,Slimane Dazi andJohn Hurt. An international co-production between the United Kingdom and Germany, the film focuses on the romance between twovampires and was nominated for thePalme d'Or at the2013 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2016, the film was ranked among theBBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century by 177 critics around the world.[5] In late 2019, it was named the fourth greatest film of the 2010s byThe Hollywood Reporter's chief film criticTodd McCarthy.[6]
Married for centuries and now living half a world apart, two vampires wake as the sun goes down. Adam sits holding alute, in his cluttered DetroitVictorian mansion, as Eve wakes up in her bedroom inTangier, surrounded by books. Rather than feeding on humans directly, they are dependent on local suppliers of the "good stuff", for fear of blood contaminated by the 21st century environment. Adam, still a famous musician, also fears exposure, visiting a local blood bank in the dead of night in disguise as "Dr. Faust", bribing "Dr. Watson" for his covetedO negative. Eve relies on their old friend, the authorChristopher Marlowe, who faked his death in 1593 and now lives under the protection of a protégé.
Despite having influenced the careers of countless famous musicians and scientists, Adam has become withdrawn and suicidal. His desire to reconnect through his music is at odds with the danger of recognition as well as his contempt for the corrupt and foolish humans he refers to as 'zombies'. He spends his nights recording his compositions on outdated studio equipment and lamenting the state of the modern world, while collecting vintage instruments. He pays Ian, a naïve young music fan, to procure vintage guitars and other assorted curiosities, including a custom-made wooden bullet with a brass casing he thinks of using to kill himself. Having acquired much scientific knowledge over the years, Adam has built contraptions to power his home and a vintage sports car with technology originally pioneered byNikola Tesla. His reclusive nature adds to his mystique as a musician and composer; he is upset when some intrepid fans turn up on his doorstep. Ian promises to discreetly spread rumours about Adam living elsewhere to draw them away.
When Eve phones, she recognises Adam is despondent and decides to come to Detroit to comfort him. Soon after she arrives, Adam goes out for more blood, and she discovers his revolver hidden under the bed with the wooden bullet. Her vampire senses reveal to her that the bullet is new, and she is worried. Eve confronts Adam when he returns, chiding him for wasting the life and opportunities he has to enjoy and appreciate the good things in the world, as well as their relationship. They spend their nights cruising the empty streets of Detroit, listening to music and playing chess. Their idyll is shattered by the arrival of Eve's younger sister, Ava, who gorges herself on their stash of the "good stuff". Hungry for excitement, Ava persuades them to go out to a local club with Ian, where they hear Adam's music played by the bandWhite Hills. Ava offers Ian a hit off the flask she secretly filled with blood and brought to the club, but Adam snatches it from her with supernatural speed and insists they leave. Before dawn, Ava accidentally kills Ian by drinking too much of his blood, for which Adam kicks her out of the house.
Adam and Eve dispose of Ian's corpse in an acid pool in an abandoned factory. Ian's murder and the appearance of another group of Adam's fans at the house compel the couple to hastily return to Tangier with only what they can carry onto the plane. Desperately hungry, they visit Marlowe and learn that their old friend and mentor has been poisoned by accidentally drinking contaminated blood. They tease Marlowe about his long ruse, successfully hiding that he produced most ofWilliam Shakespeare's plays, before he dies. They return to the streets with the last flask of the "good stuff". When Eve takes Adam's cash and promises to return with a gift, he is captivated by the music from a nearby club, where Lebanese singerYasmine Hamdan is finishing a haunting song. Eve reappears with a beautifuloud, and as they sit together contemplating their likely demise, they spot a pair of young lovers kissing. Adam and Eve approach the young couple with their fangs out.
In August 2010, Jarmusch said thatTilda Swinton,Michael Fassbender,Mia Wasikowska, andJohn Hurt had agreed to join the film, described by Jarmusch in May 2011 as a "crypto-vampire love story", but he did not have financing yet.[7][8] Financing the film was a difficult process for the director and he explained at the world premiere at theCannes International Film Festival in May 2013 that "it's getting more and more difficult for films that are a little unusual, or not predictable, or don't satisfy people's expectations of something".[9]
Jarmusch revealed in 2014 that, after seven years of frustration, Swinton said "that's good news, it means that now is not the time. It will happen when it needs to happen".[10] Jarmusch eventually received aUS$7 million budget from the German NRW Filmstiftung(de).[9][11] Producer Jeremy Thomas later said that Jarmusch is "one of the great American independent film-makers – he's the last of the line. People are not coming through like that any more".[12]
In January 2012,Tom Hiddleston replaced Fassbender prior to filming.[13] Shooting began that June in numerous locations, theBrush Park district of Detroit, Michigan, U.S.,Tangier, Morocco,Hamburg andCologne in Germany.[14][15][16][17] Filming lasted seven weeks.[18]
The film is one of several Jarmusch productions, with films such asNight on Earth, in which the action mainly occurs at night. Swinton said after the film's release that "Jim is pretty much nocturnal, so the nightscape is pretty much his palette. There's something about things glowing in the darkness that feels to me really Jim Jarmusch. He's a rock star".[12]
Jarmusch's bandSQÜRL, primarily responsible for the film's score, opens the film with a version of Wanda Jackson's 1961 song "Funnel of Love". Other contributors to the soundtrack areZola Jesus and Lebanese vocalistYasmine Hamdan, while Dutchlute playerJozef van Wissem's compositions formed the core of the film's aural aesthetic.[19] During the week of the soundtrack album's release, in April 2014, Van Wissem explained:
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 ... I feel that I'm sort of political. Jim's film is anti-contemporary-society. And the lute goes against all technology and against all computers and against all the crap you don't need.[19]
Van Wissem also described the film as "a very personal film, maybe even autobiographical" and that "Jim is a cultural sponge, he absorbs everything".[12] A concert was held at theSantos Party House venue in New York City in April 2014 to celebrate the release of Jarmusch's eleventh feature film. During the Santos event, Jesus performed with van Wissem on both a "pseudo-Gregorian" piece from the film's soundtrack and an unrecorded collaboration.[19]
The list of songs:[citation needed]
Jarmusch not only sees himself as a "film nerd",[13] but he has also been called "a cultural sponge" by van Wissem.[12] This film is full of cultural references and therefore it has been praised as "intensely curated" and "an elegiac love song to aesthetic originary creation".[20][21] Most of the hints are musical and others refer to science, literature or Jarmusch's work. The implicit vampires (Adam, Eve, and Christopher) are sort of "secret agents of artistic and intellectual achievement throughout history", having created art for others likeWilliam Shakespeare orFranz Schubert (for whom Adam is said to have written the famousAdagio of thecello string quintet D956, the movement used by Jarmusch in his 2009 filmThe Limits of Control).[20][22] Early in the film, Adam asserts that seventeenth century musicianWilliam Lawes was known for his funeral music, perhaps confusing him withHenry Purcell. Lawes wrote no funeral music, but Purcellfamously did.
The title pays tribute to theDave Wallis science fictionnovel of the same name from 1964, although the plots have no similarities. A film adaptation was planned in the mid-1960s for directorNicholas Ray (a picture of him can later be seen in the film) starringThe Rolling Stones.[23][24]
The names "Adam" and "Eve" can easily be inferred to allude to the biblical creation story but Jarmusch revealed he was originally referring toMark Twain's satirical workThe Diaries of Adam and Eve.[13]
For her flight from Tangier to Detroit Eve uses the surname "Fibonacci", taken from the Italian mathematicianLeonardo Fibonacci.[20] On their flights to Tangier they use the namesStephen Dedalus (fromJames Joyce'sA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man andUlysses) andDaisy Buchanan (fromF. Scott Fitzgerald'sThe Great Gatsby).[20] On his two visits to Dr. Watson (Jeffrey Wright) Adam's name tag shows "Dr. Faust" (from the German legend ofFaust, from which Marlowe wrote the playThe Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus). During his visits, Watson jokingly calls him "Dr. Strangelove" (the eponymous character inStanley Kubrick's 1964 filmDr. Strangelove) and "Dr. Caligari" (an homage to the German silent filmThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligari).[20][25]
Parallel to Adam's fondness for vintage instruments and audio equipment, Jarmusch originally planned shooting the movie on analog film; budgetary considerations however forced the use of a digitalArri Alexa Plus withCooke S4 lenses. Only vinyl (mostly singles) are played and analogue recording is used.[20] The film opens with a view of aten-course renaissancelute (credited as built by Michael Schreiner ofToronto). Adam receives four guitars in the beginning from Ian:[20]
Later, a 1905Gibson L2 is shown while other guitars, violins and cellos can be seen in Adam's studio.[21] Among Adam's recording equipment is aPremier drum set, aTelefunken andRevox tape recorder, aMarshall andFender amps. Eve and her sister are more adapted to modern technology. To communicate viaSkype with her lover, Eve uses heriPhone while Adam sets up a laptop connected to a wood-cabinet tube television.[20] Ava uses YouTube to watch the music video of "Soul Dracula" by the French band Hot Blood.
Among the books Eve reads and packs for her trip to Detroit are:[21][26]
Referring to the story thatChristopher Marlowe may have faked his death and then written under the pseudonym of William Shakespeare, Marlow tells Eve that Adam would have been the perfect inspiration for hisHamlet.[21]
The mentioned scientists (and one engineer) Adam adores are:Pythagoras,Galileo Galilei,Nicolaus Copernicus,Isaac Newton,Nikola Tesla,Charles Darwin, andAlbert Einstein.[27]
Eve flies to Detroit on the fictional airline "Air Lumière"; the name is allusion toAuguste and Louis Lumière.
While Adam often mentions that he has no "heroes", opposite his bed the wall is covered with pictures of personalities, which include:
The home of Adam is originally located at 82 Alfred Street, Detroit. When the protagonists are cruising around the neighbourhood, Adam shows Eve theMichigan Theater, which is now a parking deck, and the place whereJack White grew up with his family.[28] White previously played a Tesla expert inCoffee and Cigarettes.
The film was shown in several film festivals during 2013, such as theCannes Film Festival in the competition section in April,[29] the SeptemberToronto International Film Festival,[30] four screenings at the September/OctoberReykjavík International Film Festival,[31] and as an opening film for the 4thAmerican Film Festival held inWrocław, Poland.[32]
The film was officially released in the United Kingdom on 21 February 2014,[33] and opened in the United States on 11 April the same year.[34]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 86% of 210 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Worth watching for Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton's performances alone,Only Lovers Left Alive finds writer-director Jim Jarmusch adding a typically offbeat entry to the vampire genre."[35]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[36]
Scott A. Gray ofExclaim! gave the film 8 out of 10, calling it "a visually poetic love story with a wry, jaded sense of humour about finding reasons to wake up every night".[37] Calum Marsh ofSlant Magazine gave it 3 out of 4 stars.[38] Jonathan Romney ofScreen International commented that it is Jarmusch's most poetic film sinceDead Man.[39]
Todd McCarthy ofThe Hollywood Reporter described the film as "the perennial downtown filmmaker's best work in many years, probably since 1995'sDead Man, with which it shares a sense of quiet, heady, perilous passage".[40] Jonathan Hatfull ofSciFiNow wrote that it is Jarmusch's best film sinceGhost Dog.[41]
Robbie Collin fromThe Daily Telegraph awarded the film 4 out of 5 stars and praised the performances of Swinton and Hiddleston: "In the time-honoured Jarmuschian fashion, the few things that happen inOnly Lovers Left Alive happen very slowly, but the dialogue is always gloomily amusing, and Swinton and Hiddleston's delivery of the gags is as cold and crisp as footsteps in fresh snow".[42] Jessica Kiang ofIndieWire gave the film a B+ grade, saying, "The real pleasure of the film is in its languid droll cool and its romantic portrayal of the central couple, who are now our number one role models in the inevitable event of us turning vampiric."[43]
Tim Grierson ofPaste noted that "Hiddleston and Swinton play their characters not as blasé hipsters but, rather, deeply reflective, almost regretful old souls who seem to have decided that love is about the only thing you can count on".[44] Peter Bradshaw ofThe Guardian gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, pointing that Adam and Eve look more like "well-born incestuous siblings" in spite of being lovers, while theObserver's Jonathan Romney concluded that the film is "a droll, classy piece of cinematic dandyism that makes theTwilight cycle redundant in one exquisitely languid stroke".[45][46]
Kurt Halfyard ofTwitch Film commented: "Retro recording equipment hasn't looked this claustrophobically sexy sinceBerberian Sound Studio".[47] Alfred Joyner ofInternational Business Times felt that "the melancholy that permeates Motown in the film could be seen as Jarmusch's take onthe loss of America's greatness in the 21st century".[48]
| Award | Category | Recipients and nominees | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cannes Film Festival | Palme d'Or | N/a | Nominated | [49][50] |
| Soundtrack Award | N/a | Won | ||
| Sitges Film Festival | Special Jury Prize | N/a | Won | [51] |
| Independent Spirit Awards | Best Female Lead | Tilda Swinton | Nominated | [52] |
| Best Screenplay | Jim Jarmusch | Nominated | ||
| Saturn Awards | Best Horror Film | N/a | Nominated | |
| Vancouver Film Critics Circle | Best Actress | Tilda Swinton | Won |
