Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

5 July 2004

Aimless Outtakes from Jarmusch Interview

I'm sure it'll be obvious why I didn't use most of these tangential, film-geeky tidbits from my April 15th conversation with Jim Jarmusch in the final article, but I think they're kind of cool, anyway.

Coffee & Cigarettes

Echoes, dubious relations, Blue in the Face, looking back vs. going forward, and Chantal Akerman.

Robert Davis: So from what I understand Coffee & Cigarettes was shot over a long period of time... in order to capture the natural aging process —

Jim Jarmusch: [laughs] Yeah.

R: — of Tom Waits and Iggy Pop.

J: Yes, exactly my intention.

R: Actually it's surprising to me how rich the themes are given how it was made and how, you know, you didn't start with these ideas necessarily, but they do resonate.

J: Well, yeah, it's just an organic thing, kinda. It just starts growing and you try to pay a little attention to which way it's leaning.

R: "Twins," the one with Steve Buscemi and the Lee "twins" — that short predates the White Stripes, I'm sure.

J: Yes.

R: And yet it sort of echoes this joke in the media about the White Stripes—

J: Are they brother and sister?

R: Yeah, it's implied in this weird way, in this other short that existed before the band.

J: Yeah, and in the script for Meg & Jack, you know, we take the tack that they are brother and sister, in a way. Cause it's like, "Remember when we were little and you had the Barbie thing." And he says, "Are you going bowling tomorrow night?" You know. Yeah. And then the cousins—

R: Are Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan cousins, or not?

J: Right. And GZA and RZA are cousins, too, so there's that, and the cousins and the cousins [Cate Blanchett and fictional cousin Shelly].

R: That's neat how those things recur. The opening one with Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni — they switch seats, and they also switch places at the dentist. It's a gag, and it's funny, but it does sort of blossom into this thing later where people are mistaken for each other or they switch places.

J: Hmm.

R: I think it shows up after you've seen a bunch of them.

J: Yeah, I never really thought of that, even, the switching and that resonating.

Shelly says she got into a bar when they thought she was Cate. The Lee siblings confuse their clothes ("get your own style!"). Bill Murray is posing as a waiter ("just don't tell anybody"). Somewhat related is the recurring one-up-manship: Molina and Coogan over star power, Cate and Shelly over class differences, and Waits and Iggy Pop over the jukebox and the drummer.

R: Elvis and his evil twin switch places.

J: Yeah. Hmm.

R: [At the festival screening] you said that you felt like you finally had enough songs for a record album. The movie does feel like a mix tape in a way, and your conversation with Harvey Keitel in Blue in the Face could almost be a bonus track on this album. You've been thinking about cigarettes for a long time.

J: Yeah, although that wasn't my idea, you know, that was Paul Auster's. But he gave me some subjects, some ideas, and I made some more. Then I went in and Harvey was like, "Hey I'm half asleep today, man. I hope you got something, cause I got nothin'." I was like, uh oh, and I wrote a list and I made them put it right outside the camera so I could have a list of subjects to ramble on about.

R: I don't remember all of the details, but I know that every time I see a Nazi smoking a cigarette — which isn't that often, actually — I think of how you mention that they hold them in that funny way.

J: Yeah, and I still am obsessed with people throwing guns away. Like they run out of ammo and they throw the gun away — wha? wha? — that still astounds me.

R: Was it Top Secret or one of the Naked Gun movies where they start throwing the guns at each other?

J: Yeah. [laughs] It was one of those Naked Guns.

R: It's cool that [Coffee & Cigarettes is] kind of a trip through your body of work. It has familiar faces from the past, and familiar locations, like Memphis, and I like that, because I like revisiting your movies, I guess, but I wondered — I read somewhere that you don't like to look back at your movies.

J: No, I don't.

R: But this project sort of requires it, at least in little snippets. Did you see new things when you went back to look at the shorts?

J: I don't know if I saw new things, but when you put them together it becomes a new whole thing, with the echoes, so that allowed me not to have that stigma for myself. Instead it was like... I'm going forward by constructing something out of elements, some of which were filmed a long time ago. So it wasn't so painful in that way for me. It was kind of fun, actually, to see how they interrelated.

R: I don't know if you've seen this thing that Chantal Akerman did. It was for a French TV show, just an hour. She was supposed to do a portrait of herself, and instead of doing that she took clips from her movies and just assembled them.

J: Really?

R: And they were — yeah — it's kind of mysterious because it's not clear what a given clip says about her, but she feels it says something about her. There's no commentary about any of them, you just see a series of clips. It seems like Coffee & Cigarettes may not be personal in that way, but it's still a cool summation of sorts.

J: Yeah, wow that's a beautiful idea. She always has some really beautiful ideas. Do you know a film she made called Toute une nuit? It all takes place in one night and keeps jumping among different characters and back around. It's really a beautiful film. It's one of my favorites of hers. She's pretty amazing.

World Cinema, Take 1

Film festivals, region-free DVD players, Chaplin's A King in New York, and a Chaplinesque moment in Dead Man?

J: Are you covering a lot of stuff from the festival?

R: Well, I'm seeing a lot of stuff, so I'm looking forward to that. I'll probably only write about some of it.

J: It's quite a good program.

R: Yeah. Are you gonna get to see much or any of it?

J: No, I usually don't at festivals, you know, any more. I get kind of burned out and then I want to kind of distance myself a little and go off and check out other things. I do see films at festivals but not as many as I would like to. I'd like to go to some when I don't have a film there, you know, and just be there for the films, but...

R: Yeah. Well it's unfortunate that in most places you can't see these movies anywhere else [but a festival].

J: I know.

R: And so you end up packing them into two weeks, but if you had the opportunity you'd spread them out.

J: Yeah, it can be rough, seeing like 3 a day, and stuff.

R: But I really feel like there's pressure building on the wall around the American multiplex. I mean Paste [the magazine for whom the interview was conducted] is out there looking for signs of life, and DVD distributors are figuring out that there's interest in things like Tokyo Story, and the Internet has all this information. Do you think that's true?

J: Yeah, I love the idea. I mean, I have an "illegal" multi-system DVD player and it's so great, man, you can buy them anywhere. I get all regions.

I meant to ask about how the "wall around the American multiplex" affected him as a filmmaker of such independence, but I think it's telling how quickly Jarmusch views the topic through the eyes of a film-watcher. It's always surprising to me how few filmmakers actually seem to love cinema. Jarmusch is obviously an exception.

R: You can place the order over the Internet and it takes just a few days longer to get it from, like, France.

J: I know. I just ordered the box set of Feuillade's Fantômas from France. It's a beautiful set. A friend of mine had it and I saw it. It's really cool. I can't wait till I get it.

R: Does that include Les Vampires? Or that was already on DVD?

J: No that's a separate box that came out, wow, maybe four years ago. I have that actually on videotape not on DVD.

R: Speaking of box sets, this Chaplin box set that MK2 put together recently — I saw your comments on A King in New York. Did you choose that movie to comment on?

J: I did.

R: That's an interesting choice.

J: They first wanted me to do Modern Times, which seems so obvious and really is his great film, probably. But I just thought it was an overlooked film that kind of resonated with the world now. But, you know, it has some really great things in it. It's not a masterpiece of cinema, but it's a pretty fascinating artifact and an interesting film. I mean, I'm a Keaton fan, myself. I have the Keaton box set. Oh man, that's very precious to me. But I did it because I thought that film is kind of overlooked.

R: Yeah, it's gotta be his least remembered movie, of the ones he starred in.

J: But it has some incredible insights into commercial American culture, you know? Even rock-and-roll. It's quite amazing. And I love it when he hoses down the House Un-American Activities Committee. That's really good. [laughs]

R: [laughs]

J: Or that thing in the restaurant, where he's doing — he wants a lobster and he does all these pantomimes —

R: A turtle or something.

J: Yeah, turtle soup! Oh that's great. He always comes up with some incredible shit.

R: You know, I was watching Dead Man again recently, which is such a beautiful film in so many ways —

J: Oh thanks.

R: And I hadn't noticed before, this scene when William Blake is still in [the town of] Machine. I guess it's his only night there. He's outside the saloon, and a couple of minutes there are really Chaplinesque, the way he pulls the coins out of his pocket and shakes them out in his palm. Johnny Depp is even dressed a little like him, with the hat — not a bowler, but more upscale —

Also, the joke in the saloon is very much in the spirit of silent comedy. Blake orders a whisky, the barman gives him a bottle, Blake gives him some coins, and as the barman counts them, he wordlessly takes the bottle back and gives Blake a tiny one, instead. It's reminiscent of both Chaplin and, as Jarmusch suggests, Keaton.

J: Yeah. Yeah, it is Chaplinesque. There are some Keatonesque things in that film, too, hopefully, but I know what you mean about that section.

R: He even meets the girl who sells flowers shortly after, which reminds me of City Lights.

J: Hmm, yeah. And he has the quintessential Chaplin chivalrous scene when the girl gets pushed in the mud. It is very Chaplin-like more than Keaton for sure. I don't know how conscious we were of it.

Music

Playing in a band, buying a guitar, guitar fetishism in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and obsessing over the little things... as a viewer.

R: You know, referring to Coffee & Cigarettes like it's a record album seems fitting because music is so important to a lot of your characters. From the beginning, I think, from Permanent Vacation all the way through. I mean, people listen to music in your movies, which is rarely seen. And it's hard to imagine Ghost Dog without hip-hop or Mystery Train without Memphis —

J: Yeah.

R: — it just wouldn't make any sense. Are you a musician?

J: Well, I used to be in a band in the early 80's. I worked for a few years. I actually don't play music any more, although on my birthday in January I made a resolution that I'm going to get a guitar again before the summer, so time is running out. I might get one of those resonator guitars and try to learn some kind of finger picking, you know, rural slide kind of stuff, but I'm not sure yet what I'll get. I haven't played music in so long, but I figure, well, I know some chords. I used to play keyboards and oddly tuned guitars in the band I was in, and some vocals. I wasn't really a guitarist although I played guitar on some things. But I figure, well, God, if kids start when they're 15 and by the time they're 17 they're playing well, I can learn in a couple of years.

R: That's right.

J: Hell, man. I gotta go back to it, but not to be a musician. Just for myself, purely for my own soul, you know?

R: Yeah.

J: And I love guitars. I just love the sound of guitars, the idea of guitars. I love guitars. They're like their own little orchestra. I think guitars are such beautiful instruments. And visually they're beautiful. I just love guitars. I saw that last Rodriguez film with Johnny Depp [Once Upon a Time in Mexico]. The guitar fetishism in the movie was, I thought, beautiful. Did you see it?

R: No.

J: It's not a great movie, but there's great guitar fetishism in it, man. All these guitar makers, these old Mexican guys with unfinished guitars, and some mariachi guys, and one guitar that's black with beautiful flowers painted on it, and they wear those suits and shit. And you see them ride through a town and there are all these guys making guitars, guitars half-made hanging up. There are some great things in it. I was more interested in the guitars than the plot.

R: [laughs] I think it was John Waters who said that when he's watching a movie he doesn't like he just focuses on some detail like the elbows, and he decides it's a movie about elbows and it becomes a lot more interesting. You do the same thing with guitars.

J: Yeah, although I do it more often with background action. I get really obsessed with the background actors and how they were directed, you know? The people crossing the street and the crowd scenes. Who directed them? Is it realistic? Is it good? And then I miss the whole scene that's going on in the foreground because I'm like, "That guy wasn't real, look, he takes his hat off, he's looking for attention. Get him out of there." I get obsessed with the background action.

World Cinema, Take 2

Hellboy, Kiarostami, Rouch, Eustache, and Becker

R: Have you seen any other good movies lately? [Jarmusch had previously mentioned Panahi's Crimson Gold.]

J: Not a lot of new films. I'll probably go see Hellboy because it's got a Tom Waits song in it. They used "Heart Attack and Vine". Oh, I got all the shorts that Kiarostami ever made from these guys in Texas, Cinematexas. There are some amazing films, you know, shorts that you can't see.

Here's a piece about the shorts by Jonathan Rosenbaum in the Guardian.

R: I don't think I've seen any of his shorts.

J: He made some really beautiful ones. And I was in Paris recently and I was really astounded to find that no films by Jean Eustache or Jean Rouch are available on DVD.

R: None?

J: I couldn't believe it. I was so disappointed, because I had this list, and I was going to get these DVDs, and they said, "They're not available," and I was like, oh man.

R: Maybe they will be eventually, now that Rouch has passed away.

J: I'm also really into Jacques Becker.

R: Hmm, I don't know him.

J: French director, 40s and 50s, maybe his greatest film is a precursor to Bob le flambeur, the Melville film. It's called Touchez pas au grisbi.

Sometimes, I'm lightning quick.

R: Oh, yes, I saw that.

J: You did? I love that film. Or he makes a lot of films about working class people, like there's a beautiful one Antoine et Antoinette. He's a great director that seems not so known here, you know? I'm trying to get my hands on all his stuff lately. I mean, not to own, but just to see them.

A World of Ideas and Imagination

The little things, again, everywhere you look.

J: You know that guy Speed Levitch? He was in that film The Cruise, this bus-tour-guide guy?

R: No.

J: Oh. And then Rick Linklater made a film with him called Shiva's Dance?

R: Hmm.

I realized later that I had seen Levitch in Waking Life.

J: But he's a great character, man. He's just a nut. He's just interested in everything. He appreciates everything. Like he could tell you about that grillwork... how this design represents the factory in San Jose in 1926, this pattern was from the — you know — anything, like plants growing through cracks in the ground. Like the guy is insane. Architectural details and human expression and philosophy. Anyway, I really value people who just, like, are amazed by their own consciousness, you know? They're like my new heroes, people that just love ideas and expression and all the little, you know, details.

R: That reminds me a little bit of — There's a piece in Don DeLillo's book Underworld. I don't even remember the context, but this guy is talking to a kid, and he asks him to name the parts of his shoe. And he's like... "I don't know, the laces and the sole," and that's about it, "the tongue". But then the guy goes on to point out all the parts of the shoe. You know, they have names, and once you know the names, you see them. They're no longer invisible to you. So now there's this whole richness, and it's just your shoe, you carry it around every day and you don't even know —

Here's an excerpt of DeLillo's book that includes the part about the shoe.

J: Yeah, it's the same thing. Exactly. An appreciation of the ideas and expression and all the strange little details. If you just take a walk you can ignore it or your head can swim in the fascination of it all.

R: You know, something you said about learning the guitar being something that even kids can do... As you get older, as an adult, you build up these barriers to things. Every kid can paint and draw, but you ask an adult, "Can you paint?" and they say, "Oh I can't do that." It's like you have to relearn things, to break out.

J: Well, but I think we're just conditioned that way. They don't want us to live in a world of ideas and imagination. We're supposed to worry about our fuckin' taxes and insurance and rent money and all of this nonsense that, really, when you're on your deathbed is going to mean nothing to you. But it takes up so much of your life. I don't mean the evil "they".

R: Yeah.

J: But I mean, you know, we can make our own choices. We have to attend to some of that stuff, but how much value we give it is up to us. So... I think people need to be opened up again. I don't know how it's going to happen in this culture, but I'm always hopeful.

R: Well I hope you get to keep making your movies.

J: Thanks, me too. If not, I don't know what I'll do. Write bad poetry for the rest of my life, I guess.

The actual article that resulted from the parts of the interview not shown here appears in print in Paste Magazine #10, June/July 2004.

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