Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
If you read that headline and said, “Who?” then go to movie geek jail. The world of the weird is better for having had Jarmusch be part of it since the mid-‘80s, when he was one of the pioneers of what we now think of as the indie cinema scene. From the very start, he has been oddball, idiosyncratic, and frequently hilarious. No one else could have made such low-key masterpieces as DOWN BY LAW, NIGHT ON EARTH, MYSTERY TRAIN, or STRANGER THAN PARADISE. In the last decade, he’s expanded his palette and made films that defy easy definition like the superlative haunted western DEAD MAN or the hypnotic martial arts meditation GHOST DOG. He’s one of a kind, so when Mr. Beaks had a scheduling issue and asked me if I wanted to go meet Jarmusch for a one-on-one interview, I didn’t even have to check my schedule. I moved whatever I had to move, and I went.
By the time we sat down together, it was mid-afternoon, and he’d already been doing press for his new film COFFEE & CIGARETTES for several hours by then. When I walked into the hotel suite where we met, he was on the floor, signing one-sheets. He was instantly recognizable with his exclamation point of nearly-white hair and his deadpan delivery of even his most passionate remark. We were introduced, and I told him how long I’ve enjoyed his movies, dating back to when I dragged my parents to see STRANGER THAN PARADISE in the theater. That was before I could see an R-rated film alone, and I found myself having to really pitch some of the stranger fare I wanted to see in order to get them to go. I fell head over heels in love with the film at first sight, but both of them were less-than-enthusiastic, marking one of the first moments when I realized that perhaps my interests were different than theirs, which is a pretty great feeling.
JARMUSCH: Yeah, I remember the first time I showed STRANGER THAN PARADISE to my father. After it ended, he said, “Well, I liked it, but I think they projected the reels out of order or something. I really didn’t get it, y’know?”
MORIARTY: One of the first things I wanted to ask you about was the way you so frequently use musicians as actors. It’s really striking, and you’ve gotten some great performances out of people that I don’t think anyone else would have thought to use in a movie, and they certainly haven’t used them the same way you do. That goes back as far as your use of John Lurie.
Well, it’s not a calculated thing of “What musicians can I work with?” It’s just a completely... uh, it happens by chance, by the fact that I started out as a musician. I kinda came of age in the whole late-‘70’s punk scene. Most of my friends were musicians. I still tend to have a lot of friends who are musicians. I get ideas for working with people because of qualities they have that I’m aware of either by knowing them or through their work. So it’s really more circumstantial. It’s certainly not calculated.
A great example is [COFFEE & CIGARETTES] and the segment with Jack and Meg White. It’s such a different side to their personality than what I’ve seen. It’s so playful. Their music to me always comes across as, in the best way, bombastic, a bit of an assault. This is just a funny, even sweet little piece with the two of them...
Yeah, except I’ve seen the Stripes play a lot, and I burst out laughing often with Jack’s rock star moves. I find it so joyful that I find it very funny sometimes. I love their music, and I don’t think it’s without that... I think there’s something very fun and funny to their stage presence.
A lot of times, especially with this film, which I really enjoyed... I just got a chance to see it last night at the Arclight as part of the AFI Series...
Nice theater. Wow.
Yeah. Great theater. The two things that struck me right off were that this is, without a doubt, a Jarmusch film. So frequently, as directors get older, they seem determined to break away from what it is that they do and chase other styles or genres, almost like a reaction to the passage of time. Your style remains so clear, so true to your voice. Is that a conscious resistance to change, or is it just that you follow the things that interest you, and this is where they lead you?
I don’t know, because I really am anti-analytical, especially about my own stuff. It’s really hard for me to know what I’m doing, other than, you know, this is just how I do it. It’s very organic and intuitive, and it’s all a process for me. It’s not... each film is not a signpost for me of some changing technique or understanding. I hope I’m learning. I’m still trying to learn how to make a film. I hope I feel that way when I’m 80 years old and, hopefully, still working. But it’s hard for me to analyze because I’m interested in the whole process of life and of learning from your mistakes. But I don’t really know how to even... and I’m not trying to avoid the question... I don’t honestly know how to answer it because I don’t look back. I don’t see my films again once they’ve been released.
Really?
No, I don’t, uh, I know what I need to learn, which is the things I don’t like about the things that I did, or mistakes which I find incredibly valuable and I embrace those mistakes. I just try to keep going, y’know, and I just try to do it my own way. I don’t know any other way.
Speaking of process, let’s go back and discuss the way COFFEE & CIGARETTES developed as a feature. I remember seeing the original Benigni film way back in the ‘80s on, I believe, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.
Yes, it was made for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE in 1986.
So was it an ongoing concern? Did you know you wanted to make more shorts right away? At what point did it become a feature?
Well, the idea of it becoming a feature didn’t start until I’d made two or three of them, because I realized I was doing the same thing over and over. I thought it was about variations, so I figured when I got enough of them, maybe they would work together. I wasn’t sure, though, and once I had about eleven of them, it wasn’t until I went into the editing room and started to put them together to really decide, “Is it stronger with them put together, or is it stronger with them left alone?” I felt they... and again, I can’t quite see it ‘cause I made the film, and it’s hard to see since I’m so close to it... but I felt like there was an accumulation of things that made them stronger together.
I love that there is dialogue that shows up in the films and recurring ideas that are discussed. I also love the way your actors are all playing sly riffs on themselves. One of my favorite segments has got to be between Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan...
Yeah, well, they are masters of timing and nuance and little resentments. They are just masterful at it, y’know?
Coogan really deflates the entire idea of new celebrity so well... a guy who is starting to really click and who carries this sort of attitude with him now. It’s great the way they play off each other in that one.
I think it’s fun for them to sort of make abstractions on themselves. I think Cate Blanchett did a beautiful job, because she’s sort of, in real life, between those two characters. She understood them both, but she’s neither. But she’s both. And Alfred and Steve, or any of them playing off themselves... like Tom [Waits] and Iggy [Pop], too, are kind of riffing off of themselves in a way.
That’s so much fun, to see Iggy Pop nervous about meeting somebody. Iggy Pop nervous is the last thing anyone would think of when they think of his image.
Well, Iggy Pop is never nervous, but Jim Osterberg is just a complicated human being with a lot of nuances and levels to his personality. He’s an amazing guy. I love Ig... Jim.
His performance in DEAD MAN is so great. It’s one of my favorite little pieces of that film.
Oh, thanks. Yeah, I love what he did in that film, and he did some funny fucking improvs, too. There were things he added, like when he’s trying to load a shotgun and the bloodbath’s going down, and he’s saying things like, “I cooked, I cleaned... oh, man!”
There’s a whole movie that’s suggested by he and Billy Bob [Thornton] and their relationship, and Jared Harris...
Yeah, Jared’s great, too.
It’s just so hilarious.
If I’d made the whole film just of them, it would have been hilarious.
That’s a real favorite of mine out of your filmography, if for no other reason than Gary Farmer... he’s such a revelation in that film. I haven’t seen anybody use him that well since, with the possible exception of SMOKE SIGNALS. Gary’s got this enormous spirit in that movie...
Gary Farmer has an enormous spirit as a human being. He’s an activist. He’s incredibly involved in all sorts of native rights. He worked for years and finally, now, in Toronto, they’ve got a Native American radio station. He spearheaded this and got it going, and it took years, y’know? He’s always doing stuff for other people. He is a huge spirit in life, y’know? And he’s one of the most valuable friends you can imagine. And Gary Farmer... the odd thing is I discovered him through Tom Waits. When the film POWWOW HIGHWAY came out, Tom Waits called me up and said, “Jim, you seen POWWOW HIGHWAY?” I said, “No, not yet. I read about it.” “Two words. Gary Farmer. Check it out. There’s an actor in here, he’s going to blow you away. He’s the most human, beautiful thing I’ve seen in years. Check it out.” So it was Tom Waits, actually. So then I rushed to see the film, and I was like, “Gary Farmer... whoa.” And then, y’know, I wrote DEAD MAN for him. I hadn’t met him yet. I had to go way up to Canada where he was living off the grid somewhere, and I had to stay overnight. I had a script, and he said, “Y’know, why don’t you just stay overnight and tell me the story rather than having me read this? I prefer the old way. Just tell me the story.” So I did, and he was like, “Oh, yeah, it’s interesting,” and the next morning, he’s like, “So when are we going to shoot this thing? I’m there.” But what a... what a great human being, y’know? But I’m lucky. All these great actors, I’m in love with all of them.
I think that’s one of the things that really comes across in your work. You give actors space in a way that a lot of directors have forgotten how to do. So often, films are all about the concept, or they’re about a gimmick, and the actors are almost chess pieces being pushed through something, rather than allowing them to inhabit a space.
Well, they get forced into what we used to call “Akkin,” which is acting their way through the scene rather than reacting as a character to things happening around them. Real acting for me is about reacting. It’s not about interpreting the scene and delivering the intention of the scene. It’s about me and each actor collaborating on a character that we could put anywhere, and they’d still be that character reacting. Because in real life, you don’t know what I’m going to say next. I don’t know what you’re going to say next. So why should... I mean, often, I can see actors, and I know they know what’s going to come next, and I’m just left out, sort of. I’m not interested. I’m trying to learn to work with actors to allow them to react, and they know that I am collaborating with them, and whatever we do with that character, we’ve got to elevate it above what I would do alone in my head, and what you would do without me as the writer/director, and together, we’re going to make it something above our own capabilites, hopefully, and try to... I love working with actors because they are very... they’re all different, and everyone has different experience and a different approach. Y’know, they’re all different people, and they all have different amazing qualities, and it’s very hard to be an actor and be naked emotionally and be thrown in after having to wait all day, and it’s like “Okay, get in character and we’re shooting and here we go and action!” Y’know? It’s just, I sympathize with them. I try to be very aware of what they need, as much as I can be, because I really appreciate what they go through and what they’re bringing to our film. It means a lot to me, so... and I’m drawn to people that have great spirits and, and gifts, and I fall in love with them all, y’know? I’m very particular about who I want to work with, but then I just...
Well, we often see people reappear in your films. I love the fact that the Joie and Cinque Lee sequence was shot while you were shooting MYSTERY TRAIN...
We shot that the day after we wrapped, and we were exhausted.
Cinque is one of those very particular actors, and I love the way you used him in MYSTERY TRAIN. He’s awesome opposite Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in that. In this one, I love the way he and Joie play off of each other. There’s something really great that you could only get from a real brother and sister. They have that whole lifetime to draw on.
Yeah, well, it’s also a genetic understanding. You don’t get the harmonies of the Everly Brothers except through genetics. And [the Lees] have that thing, and they’re very different people, but they have this whole lifetime of experiences. They’re just linked. And Cinque reappears briefly in the Meg and Jack White segment. He’s the only one who comes back.
One of the things I really enjoy in your films is the way you create a space for people and it feels like... I wanted to ask you how rigorously COFFEE & CIGARETTES was scripted, because it feels improvisational in some ways, but...
Shouldn’t every film feel improvised?
Absolutely.
Shouldn’t all performances feel improvisational?
That’s why when things show up again in the picture, and you realize there’s a master hand at work here, and it’s not just random, it’s really is exciting. It feels so natural.
Well, they’re all scripted, but definitely not rigorously, because... I even tried to trick the actors into improvising by saying, “Okay, we’re going to shoot this section of the script in this next take,” and then when they run out of that dialogue, I just let it keep rolling and leave them there and see what happens. I encourage them to, y’know, to... to take detours. But they all had a script. They all had scripts to follow. Some of them followed them very closely, and others less closely. But it gave me a structure in the editing room, where I knew, “Okay, I did have this skeleton, and now I have this footage, and how does this flesh fit on this skeleton?”
I’m fascinated by the combination of RZA and GZA and Bill Murray. I love the way they’re so smitten with Bill in the sequence. I love the way they call him “Billmurray” every time they talk to him.
Yeah, I’m trying to get... I’m trying to institute a new thing in hip-hop culture where everyone calls each other “Billmurray.” Instead of “dawg” or “god,” or whatever you call somebody. “Hey, what the deal, Billmurray?” Everyone is Bill Murray...
There’s no higher compliment.
... and Bill Murray is everyone.
I have to ask. Bill is notoriously difficult to pin down on films. Was it easier to get him to do this because of how brief the segment is, or was it that same sort of tapdance, and if so, how did that go?
It was pretty easy, because I know him, and I actually wrote a script that we were going to do together two years ago, and I was the one who decided I didn’t want to do that film yet, so then... anyway, I have real hopes of working with him as a real... he’s just one of our most amazing actors.
I, I... I completely agree...
And I want to work with him in that way, in a, a... not a goofy kind of thing.
I’m so thrilled that directors finally seem to have discovered that about him in the last five years or so.
Oh, man, there’s MAD DOG AND GLORY, RAZOR’S EDGE, LOST IN TRANSLATION, RUSHMORE... y’know, he’s finally looking for those things, too. He’s pretty savvy. He knows his gifts. In this case, I’d known him for a while, and I called him up and said, “Bill, I’m doing this little thing,” and he said... he didn’t ask me what. He didn’t ask me what it was. He just said, “Well, how long is it going to take?” And I said, “Oh, one day.” And he said, “Well, can we shoot it in half a day?” And I said, “Gee, Bill, I don’t think so. I’ll try.” And he said, “You’ll try. That means a whole day. All right, all right, just call me the night before.” And this was like three days before, right? “Call me the night before, leave me a message, tell me when to be there, what to wear, where to be, and I’ll be there.” Then I hear CLICK, and I’m like, “Bill? Bill? Oh, shit... he’s gone.” So, I did, and he showed up. GZA and RZA were already there, and... I’ve spent a lot of time with them, a lot of days spent on Wu Time. I’ve spent a lot of time in studios and collaborating with RZA or watching the WuTang, and I’ve hung out with Ghost Face Killer and ODB, too, and, uh, I was frankly amazed that RZA and GZA were already there. And then Bill walked in, like, fifteen minutes later. RZA and GZA were not on Wu Time. They were there on time. Whoa. That was fun.
Speaking of RZA, I wanted to thank you for putting on the GHOST DOG DVD the score as an isolated audio track. It’s something I wish more directors did, because they collaborate with these great musicians, and then the music can sometimes get lost in the mix. You tend to end up with really strong scores, like Neil Young’s work on DEAD MAN, which is just amazing.
We should have done the same thing on DEAD MAN on DVD. What I do is I do things the anti-Hollywood studio kind of way. Usually, when you make a film, you pay the musician as a work-for-hire, and then the producers of the film... in my case, on my films, that would be my company... owns that music. I don’t do that. I go to Tom Waits or Neil Young or RZA, and I say, “Look, you make the music, I pay for the studio time, I pay a fee, but nothing like what you would get if I’m buying your music from you. You own the publishing, you own the royalties from the soundtrack, and even though the soundtrack has to have the title from the film, you can do whatever you want with the music on the soundtrack as long as it’s somehow connected with the film. I get the use of the music in the film forever, but it’s your music. Anything else you want to do with it outside of the film, it’s yours.” That’s a nice way to work, and they really seem to appreciate that. Usually, it’s like “We own it. Goodbye.”
I think the results are really adventurous and I think you’ve gotten some of the best work out of...
Well, I respect them too much to want to pay them to own their music, y’know? And I love it when they do something like... RZA made a GHOST DOG record with all these different people, having them watch the film and write lyrics and write new stuff out of their impressions from the film. And the score... you now can get it... it’s a cult thing. You can get it, but it’s a Japanese-only thing. Or you can get it off the DVD. Or like Neil Young. He went a different way and made a sort of collage thing out of the score. I love that. It’s like throwing the ball back, like “Okay, now you see what you want to do.”
Well, it turns into a reaction to what you’ve done.
Yeah, it’s like playing tennis. It’s like they come up with something else on their own, and I love that. I love to see what they do. I’m sometimes surprised. I was definitely surprised the first time I heard Neil’s score and he had, like, the engine of a ’52 Chrysler in the background. And I’m like, “Huh?” But he’s Neil, man, and I’m like, “Whatever you want to do, go your way.”
Well, the whole movie is such an anti-traditional Western that it makes sense to have an electric score. It feels really appropriate to what we’re watching.
It was always intended to be a sort of a hallucinogenic and psychedelic Western, in a slow peyote-fuelled kind of a way, not in a flashing... y’know... but it’s supposed to have that kind of a drug-like effect. Neil’s score really kind of underlines that. For me, anyway.
Then that inevitable moment came, as it does at the end of all good interviews, when the publicists came in and had to hustle me out so someone else could come in and have their turn. It’s a shame. As I was leaving, thanking Jarmusch for his time, he told me how much fun he’d had talking with someone who seemed to like all of his work and not just pimping out the new film. I could have spent the whole afternoon picking his brain, and I urge you to check out COFFEE & CIGARETTES when it opens in New York and LA this weekend, then rolls out across the country in the months ahead. It’s about as far from the big-budget spectacle of something like VAN HELSING or TROY as you’re going to find, literally just a movie about conversations held over the titular elements, but it’s full of great performances and the same wonderful absurdist wit that marks all of his work. It was a real pleasure to speak with him, and hopefully you’ll get a hit of that same pleasure when you see the film.
"Moriarty" out.
