Jim Jarmusch

Contemporary Film Directors

by Juan A. Suarez

The first major English-language study of Jarmusch At a time when gimmicky, action-driven blockbusters ruled Hollywood, Jim Jarmusch spearheaded a boom in independent cinema by making now-classic low-budget films like  Stranger than Paradise ,  Down by Law , and  Mystery Train . Jarmusch's films focused on intimacy, character, and new takes on classical narratives. His minimal form, peculiar pacing, wry humor, and blank affect have since been adopted by directors like Sofia Coppola, Hal Hartley, Richard Linklater, and Tsai Ming-liang.  Juan A. Suárez identifies and describes an abundance of aesthetic influences on Jarmusch, delving into the director's links to punk, Structural film, classic street photography, hip-hop, beat literature and art, and the New York pop vanguard of the late 1970s. At the same time, he analyzes Jarmusch's work from three mutually implicated in relation to independent filmmaking from the 1980s to the present; as a form of cultural production that appropriates existing icons, genres, and motifs; and as an instance of postmodern politics. A volume in the series Contemporary Film Directors, edited by James R. Naremore

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

213 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Miruna Runcan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only a consistent analysis of Jarmusch original and astonishing film work, but also a well documented and beautifully written book

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

In spite of Jim Jarmusch’s status as one of America's great independent filmmakers, there aren't many books out there on his body of work. This survey by Juan A. Suarez came out in 2007 and traces Jarmusch’s career from the very beginning to his 2005 film Broken Flowers. The opening chapter describes Jarmusch’s coming of age in New York City in the 1970s in a lively arts community that included not just film but also punk and new wave music, street art, and experimental theatre. From there, the book does on to describe each of Jarmusch’s films up to 2005, and even treats his 1997 Neil Young tour documentary as of equal importance to any of his feature films.

Suarez is an astute commentator on Jarmusch's aesthetic. His claims of how Jarmusch sees things might even be said to have “predictive power”, as one aspect Suarez points to would become the very center of Jarmusch's 2013 film Only Lovers Left Alive. The book drew my attention to many moments on screen that will enrich future viewing experiences, and Suarez helps orientate Jarmusch fans among the vast canon of film and literature which Jarmusch has shamelessly drawn on in making films. Especially interesting are Suarez's comments on how DEAD MAN (much more than just the opening quotation) was inspired by the poet Henri Michaux.

The book is filled out with Tod Lippy's interview of Jarmusch, which was originally published in the journal Protections in 2000. Jarmusch's own comments on his work are a pleasure to read, as they are pervaded with a sense of humility and boundless curiosity for all the wonderful films, books, and music are out there.

In spite of being published by a university press, this book will prove accessible to any cinephile who wants to better appreciate Jarmusch's films and their cultural context. However, a downside of the book is how at certain moments, Suarez segues from an straightforward writing style into a tiresome parroting of postmodernist thought. For example:

Yet homogeneous space is never absolute. It superimposes itself on what Lefebvre calls 'urban culture', where 'urban' designates the city as a heterogeneous fabric of relations and conjunctions, an aggregate of absolute singularities that cannot be totally linearized and integrated into the networks of capital and exchange.

The author is, to revert to Ferdinand de Saussure’s terms, a form of parole in the language of history, a particular performance of the available cultural archive. In this respect, Jarmusch’s texts will not be read as completely autonomous performances (that is, the emanation of a free-floating imagination) nor as passive reflections of the times but as selective actualizations of historically situated possibilities.

For what it's worth, I am a linguist and very familiar with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, such as his langue/parole distinction, so I am not afraid of these concepts. However, these bits are so incongruous with the rest of the text that the reader feels Suarez was forced to include them for the sake of street cred among his fellow academics or to please the publisher’s anonymous reviewers.

I have a few other complaints as well. Suarez doesn't mention the close relationship between Jarmusch and the Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a friendship that had an impact on the films of each, and is a good example of how Jarmusch’s distinctly American focus proved remarkably accessible outside the country as well. And the book feels kind of lightweight, this reader would have liked more information about the shooting and editing stages for each film, not just what ultimately showed up on screens.

So, don't expect from this a treatment of Jim Jarmusch’s life and work that is as ample as, say, Richard Brody's biography of Jean-Luc Godard. Jarmusch still awaits such. But for fans of the filmmaker, this is worthwhile.

[Jr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is well worth the read if you're a cinephile and an appreciator of Jim Jarmusch's work. I happen to fit both descriptors. As such, I was predisposed to enjoy this dense, scholarly, sometimes abstruse look into the meanings and possible inspirations in his films.
I am often amazed at the academic side of film criticism and its broad interdisciplinary scope. This text did that up in spades. Borrowing from artistic, social, political, and sexual (as well as the expected film) theory there were times where I felt dizzy getting my bearings as to the intent of the author. This is not unusual for me, since I struggle with the jargon of the academe. It was refreshing to see more popular culture weaving into the mix. The high, the medium, and the low do intermingle very frequently in art and life after all.
I recommend this book for an astute film by film look at Jim Jarmusch's output. It's not full of wild theories, though there are a few astute observations I'd never considered, but focuses more on the things that inspired Jim to make films the way he makes them.

[Shannon Boreham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A near perfect read to accompany my chronological journey through Jarmuschs filmography. It would have been a little more perfect had it not finished with Broken Flowers or mistakenly attributed the Nightmare on Elm Street series to John Carpenter.

[Joe Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit on the academic side. At times repetitive. If you haven't seen some of Jarmusch's movies, it's hard to follow. But interesting stuff is in here, too, and the Q&A at the end is cool. I wonder if Jim ever thought he'd be studied like this?