Jim Jarmusch does it his way
Cooler-than-cool New York filmmaker Jim Jarmusch is the last guy in the world who wants to watch a Jim Jarmusch film, including his Bill Murray opus Broken Flowers.
“Whenever my films are done, I never see them again,” Jarmusch says. “I haven’t seen Stranger Than Paradise (his 1984 feature film debut) since 1984. I made them. What am I going to learn? Why do I want to see them again?”
Jarmusch, despite his reputation as a maverick intellectual, also claims he does not have a clue what his films mean, including the enigmatic reverie that is Broken Flowers.
But he does want you to see and analyse his work, first in theatres and now on DVD. Broken Flowers was released this week in an enhanced widescreen version with behind-the-scenes insights into his unique and laconic style.
“If you don’t plug it in, the juice isn’t running,” Jarmusch says of having an audience. “So, if you don’t see the film I made, what’s the point of my film? And what you see in it is more valuable than what I see in it, because I can’t even see it.”
Broken Flowers is the story of a faded Don Juan-like American named Don Johnston — Murray’s character. When the movie starts, his latest girlfriend is leaving for good when a pink, unsigned letter arrives announcing that our lothario has a 19-year-old son he never knew he had. The film is a chronicle of the man’s journey back through his life, and many previous lovers, looking for clues about the possible progeny. Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton all play former loves in his life.
Jarmusch, riffing on an idea that had been presented to him years earlier, wrote the screenplay specifically for Murray, after the actor had already agreed to film a different script that Jarmusch impulsively decided to abandon.
Now Jarmusch is perplexed, although he likes Broken Flowers. “There are two things about this film that I find contradictory (in relation) to myself. One is that I detest looking back. It’s not my thing. So that’s a contradiction.
“And the other one is that, in all my films thus far, I’ve started with characters who, however flawed they are, I have a love for. In this one — and I was aware of this — in the beginning I don’t care about Don Johnston. I don’t want to hang out with him. I’m not connected to him. So the trick for me with this movie is that by the end I want to feel for him. That’s why I wrote it for Bill, because Bill can pull it off. I don’t know if you can do this with any other actor.”
Murray is still riding a career revival that culminated in his Oscar nomination for Lost In Translation. It has been suggested, Jarmusch says, that he has gone Hollywood by trying to exploit Murray’s renewed fame. “I want to pull a gun out,” Jarmusch says of his reflex reaction. “So what are you saying? Did I do something wrong? That’s not my thing. I’m not trying to make commercial films.”
What he is trying to do, he says, is simple: “I just want to create a world on a screen that people can enter and follow and bring whatever they bring to it. I don’t want the film to tell you what you’re supposed to feel.”
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