Word: jarmusch
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...make a "postmodern" Western? You start, if director Jim Jarmusch is any guide, by throwing out the term "postmodern." You also make the plot and dialogue incidental, while giving such elements as setting and soundtrack full narrative weight. In a recent interview with The Crimson, Jarmusch described his latest Miramax release, "Dead Man," as an "acid Western," a term perhaps appropriate to a film which takes the Western idiom and stretches it to its most surreal limits...
...Jarmusch told The Crimson that "Dead Man" most significantly alters the traditional Western rubric by presenting a main character who is passive. "Johnny's character starts out very mild-mannered, but he's such a blank piece of paper that people want to write all over it." For Jarmusch, Blake's defining moment is when, having been asked by two sheriffs in the woods if he is the outlaw William Blake, he responds, "Yes...Do you know my poetry?" In this moment, according to Jarmusch, Blake accedes to Nobody's assessment of him and "surrenders to his destiny...
...garde theater person that he is, has done some pretty odd work himself. And Waits, respected musician that he is, has over the years branched out into acting (the lunatic in Bram Stoker's "Dracula," Lily Tomlin's husband in "Short Cuts," and lots of roles in assorted Jim Jarmusch movies) and soundtracking (again with Jarmusch, most recently composing the music for "Night On Earth"), but he has never attempted anything on this scale. So, whatta we got...Tom Waits collaborating with Wilson and writing music for a German orchestra...throw in William S. Burroughs singing on a track...
...JARMUSCH IS SHRINKING. ALready a miniaturist in his Stranger Than Paradise (1984), this vaunted U.S. independent director now aspires to make shorts. Mystery Train (1989) was three anecdotes in search of narrative baling wire. His new Night on Earth splits its time five ways: taxi drivers pick up fares in Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Rome, Helsinki. A little biography, a vagrant communion through the rearview mirror, then on to the next town. If Jarmusch keeps at it, he will become the first postpunk director of 30-second commercials...
...saver, with Italian movie clown Roberto Benigni effusively confessing his sexual adventures (with a pumpkin, a sheep, a sister-in-law) to a shocked priest. And the glimpses of the cities, beautifully shot by Frederick Elmes (Blue Velvet), suggest there might be stories to complement the ghostly landscapes. But Jarmusch gooses his fine performers to overact in close-up, as if to compensate for the paucity of event. The result is something like the ultimate minimalist international co- production. All those places to go, and hardly an inviting cab in sight...