[Marxism] Jim Jarmusch

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

1) A WARNING AND A FOREWORD

What follows is an exercise in rashness.  I have been reading an 
interview to  Jim Jarmusch this morning, and a story on his _Broken 
Flowers_.  Some ideas came to my head that I rashly guessed might be 
of interest.  I avow:  I don't remember having ever seen any film by 
Jarmusch, and definitely I have not seen anything but a couple of 
photograms of _Broken Flowers_, as newspaper illustrations of the 
texts I comment.  

Retranslation into English, of course, is mine.  

2) Jim Jarmusch 
by Néstor Gorojovsky
Buenos Aires, april 13, 2006

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Pablo Scholz:"What do you miss of those early days of independence?"

Jim Jarmusch:"In those times, people talked ideas, not money.  You 
could record songs, or make a film while you were working, part time, 
on something else.  I don't like nostalgia (I hate it, to be sure), 
but, shit, that time was a good time.  Very good"

[Clarín, Buenos Aires, April 13, Espectáculos (Showbiz) Supplement, 
pp.  10-11]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The headline reads: "A craftsman of independent cinema".  Yes, this 
is the portrait of a craftsman.  A craftsman both in the evident and 
in some not-so-evident sense of the word.  

As I warned you on the foreword, I have not seen a single film by 
Jarmusch.  Before I read this interview and the critical notes on 
_Broken Flowers_, I believed he was German or so, more or less like 
Wim Wenders.  But no, he happens to be USamerican, USian.  And an 
USian from Akron, Ohio, 1952, of all places and times.  

And although I don't know if all this translates into his films, it 
certainly translates into the interview.  

Pablo Scholz, the local critic at Buenos Aires, comments that _Broken 
Flowers_ deals with the story of a man who -that characteristic road 
movie- half discovers that he has (or suspects to have) a child 
somewhere in the United States and begins a long flashback tour (if a 
long flash is possible) to his former lovers, in search of the child. 
 

Jarmusch explains: "Essentially, this is a study on a man who, 
halfway in his life, suddenly discovers that there is a hole in it.  

The love he could have had is lost, and he has reached a point where 
everything in his existence became static".  Bill Murray, whose 
"aimless stare" (Scholz) seems to be of paramount importance in the 
film, "performs what may become the best role in his carreer [...] 
His expression during the last take is worth the price of the 
ticket".  

Jarmusch seems to adhere to a fatalistic view of life, at least of 
life in _these_ times (which are obviously _not_ as good as those he 
remembers from the past).  On his filming techniques, he says that 
"the idea is to make scenes where you don't really know what may 
happen.  It is not a formula, nor a cliche."  And he adds:  "Chance 
decides how do events develop, we humans are mollecules in the 
Universe, we don't control our movements".  

His own ways to get the werewithals to film are indeed those of the 
independent artist and craftsman, proud of his own place in the world 
as a creator of sense:  since he likes B&W, he is not "commercial", 
thus his links with producers are tenuous at best.  "I want to have 
the final cut, full control of cast and technical team, nobody can 
modify the script, nor do I want anyone in the set when I shoot, nor 
in the edition room when I am working there.  And if you don't want 
to put your money in this, I understand.  I don't tell the financial 
community what's the best investment for their money, so that they 
can't come and tell me what should I do to make a good film, can 
they?"

As from Murray's comments, this film is in fact a general 
consideration of s particular past by someone who has left too much 
behind:  "It is hard to meet again those you loved during your life, 
to remember all the pain you provoked, the love you allowed to pass 
by".  

Nostalgia seems to be the hallmark of the film, then.  

Is it a purely personal nostalgia?  Or, maybe, it is a nostalgia of a 
better time?  The time, for instance, of a young petty bourgeois kid 
in Akron, Ohio of the 50s and 60s, when that town was one of the hubs 
of US industry and global headquarters to the Firestone tyre company. 
 The time of a child of "core Midwest US", that homeland of personal 
achievement and original effort ideally represented by the Ohio 
farmer and all the ideology that grew around this mythic figure (but 
in the early 50s, not so mythic, not even in Akron), the time of a 
young independent man in New York City university milieu (Columbia 
University, journalism and literature were his first choices), 
thriving with the possibilities of a radical expectative between the 
mid and late 60s.  The time, in the end, when chances seemed all on 
the side of the independent artisan and against those of the 
overwhelming corporate interest, the interest of live human creation 
over the ashes of dead labour.  

Perhaps Jim Jarmusch has become one of the prophets of the 
annihilation of human independence by corporate freedom.  Perhaps his 
films depict that sorrow landscape.  If so, then he will remain a 
classic.


Este correo lo ha enviado
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[No necesariamente es su autor]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 
"La patria tiene que ser la dignidad arriba y el regocijo abajo".
Aparicio Saravia
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 



________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism