JIM JARMUSCH (1953)

INDIE GODFATHER

If John Cassavetes is the godfather of US independent cinema, then writer, director, musician, part-time actor and raconteur Jim Jarmusch is its perennially cool older sibling.

Born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Jarmusch claims his early film education came from his mother, a former local film and theatre critic, who would leave him during the day at various screenings in a nearby cinema. His earliest memories there are of 1950s monster movies, such as Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). He saw his first adult film, Thunder Road (1958), when he was just seven years old, and it left an indelible impression upon him. The influence of these films, a mix of genres and lowbrow cinema are present in Jarmusch’s work, rubbing up against his love of literature and arthouse tendencies to create a unique style of filmmaking whose vernacular – often spoken by intellectual drifters, petty criminals or societal outliers – is a joyful blend of existential rumination and the knowingly smooth syntax of movie cliché.

While studying at Columbia University, with hopes of being a poet, Jarmusch spent a summer working in Paris, passing most of his time at the Cinémathèque Française. On his return to New York, he enrolled on a film course at Tisch School of the Arts and also immersed himself in the punk and no wave culture emerging from the city. His debut feature Permanent Vacation (1980) and his international breakthrough Stranger Than Paradise (1984) helped define the aesthetics of no wave. However, his subsequent Louisiana crime comedy Down by Law (1986) and the episodic narrative strands of the Elvis homage Mystery Train (1989) and five-city taxi-centred comedy Night on Earth (1991) saw Jarmusch move into his own, idiosyncratic, sublimely funny landscape.

His early low-budget films were noteworthy for their easy-going charm and dialogue, but it was the stark revisionist western Dead Man (1995), shot in striking black-and-white, and the samurai-mafia urban comedy thriller Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) that furthered Jarmusch’s reputation as one of the finest filmmakers of his generation. Although playing with recognisable genres, both films defy categorisation. It is an element that has defined his subsequent work, whether engaging with vampires in Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), middle-age crises in Broken Flowers (2005) or the day-to-day felicities of human interaction in Paterson (2016). In all, Jarmusch’s deadpan humour, matter of fact incidents and deep, heartfelt compassion for his characters reinforce his position as a poet filmmaker on the landscape of US cinema.