Yeah, Jarmusch is definitely an auteur. Night on Earth is definitely uneven (as are Mystery Train, Stranger than Paradise, and Down By Law), but I love Ghost Dog and Dead Man with unbridled passion. I do think that Jarmusch is interesting even when he's not completely successful. I think the Deep Thought behind his movies, to the extent that there is a unifying theme, is that people overcome their essential isolation through a complex interaction of coincidence and pop culture.

In Ghost Dog, the lead character discovers samurai culture presumably through the Wu-Tang Clan, has a deep connection with his best friend (in which each understands the other perfectly although they speak no common language) based on an obvious (and it is obvious - the actors convey their characters' closeness with a palpability that is hard to define) but ineffable bond, has a connection with the little girl through a shared love of reading, and lives his life through a code he learned in books. The deeper message (which I'm sure I'm not conveying very well) is that people are completely shaped by chance encounter and bastardized understanding of amorphous pop culture, and that this way of learning - this way of being - is beyond reproach, but just is. Dead Man furthers this, where Blake is led to his final resting place by the 19th century equivalent of amorphous pop culture gone mad: a Native American besotted with the poetry of William Blake. Dead Man has the existential picaresque feel of a Western serial, but it is a Pilgrim's Progress of sorts. The Blake who (finally) dies at the end of the movie is an man actualized by his experiences, a man who has left civilization far behind but has rejected the Rousseaun (Rousseauxian?) vision of the perfect state of nature for the more complex Schopenhauerian idea of dynamic & enfolding/unfolding nature. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Anyway, I like the Parisian section of Night on Earth best and absolutely hate the LA and Rome sections. I love the Japanese couple in Mystery Train (and, of course, the Screamin' Jay Hawkins sections, 'cause god-DAMN they are fantastic) and hate the ghost section. Stranger Than Paradise was best when they finally got to Florida, because suddenly it became obvious that the characters really were all talk. I loved every second of Year Of The Horse, but that wasn't the typical Jarmusch movie. I haven't seen Coffee and Cigarettes or Broken Flowers.

OK, I need a crash course in Jarmusch. What am I looking for with his movies? Why do I never seem to get what his point is, although I generally feel like I like the movie?

He described his first movie Stranger Than Paradise as The Honeymooners as directed by Ozu. I think both of those fit pretty well in describing his vibe. I think he likes to take the mundane and slow it down until moments are isolated and have a lot of breathing room around them. Sometimes that makes them feel strange, or comic or haunting.

Some of the best laughs in Stranger are just from the blackout cutaways. You really get seduced into his particular, languorous rhythms. I don't think he's aggressively quirky, but he likes actors who have a very strong screen presence so they can hold the screen during all that space he allows around them. He's got a great comic sense that's very dry, or just likes to back up a bit and let a performer go around the bend (like Benigni in Night On Earth with his fantastic comic rant). He's also very masterful at composing iconic imagery which really stays with you, and scenes which are very distinctive and haunting. Plus, he's got fantastic taste in music.

(and, of course, the Screamin' Jay Hawkins sections, 'cause god-DAMN they are fantastic)

Oh yeah is that true. Also, we should not forget that although he wasn't the director or conceiver, I think FISHING WITH JOHN would never have happened without him.

What were your issues with DOWN BY LAW? I can see it being Benigni, but I actually like him in that movie. Watching Waits and Lurie do a slow burn at dealing with this weird little man cracks me up.

I love Down by Law! Benigni is great in it, particularly that sweet slow dance he does with Nicoletta Braschi at the end. And Tom Waits getting his shit thrown out the window in New Orleans. And completely eliding over the actual escape. "I scream-uh, you scream-uh, we all scream-uh...." (Why didn't The Fall sample this for one of their songs?)

I like Dead Man a lot. But then I saw it at the height of my Johnny Depp obsession, so I may not be entirely objective about it.

And he was hilarious shark fishing with John Lurie!

ETA:

And completely eliding over the actual escape.

Exactly. A movie about a jailbreak that shows everything but the jailbreak.

What were your issues with DOWN BY LAW? I can see it being Benigni, but I actually like him in that movie. Watching Waits and Lurie do a slow burn at dealing with this weird little man cracks me up.

My only issue was with the Nicoletta Braschi section. I think it was supposed to be like the German Farmgirl section of Le Grande Illusion but it seemed utterly without charm to me (I didn't even like the slow dance - I know, I'm heartless). And yeah, Waits and Lurie were fantastic dealing with Benigni.

I think FISHING WITH JOHN would never have happened without him

YEAH. (Edit - "The fishermen wake up early in the morning, covered in sores and boners.")

Hey, I forgot to answer your comments about The Last Wave, Frank. I'll scroll back.

And Tom Waits getting his shit thrown out the window in New Orleans.

Heh, by a SUPREMELY pissed off Ellen Barkin. And he doesn't react until she gets to the shoes. He deserved to go to jail for not trying to stop her when she started on the vinyl - man's a DJ for cripessake.

always thought the last scene was ambiguous enough that it fit the rest of the movie

Well, I thought that he should have cut the water shots. The look on Chamberlain's face (and seriously, did he ever act in anything else he was in?) would have been fine on its own.