A feature-length piece about a great American filmmaker on the occasion of two events. The first is an ongoing retrospective of Jim Jarmusch’s films in New York at Lincoln Center; the second is the upcoming U.S. theatrical premiere of his latest and very beautiful film, Only Lovers Left Alive. The Village Voice, April 2. Thanks to J.W. McCormack for research help.
The piece makes reference to Sara Driver, Jarmusch’s longtime partner who is credited for “Instigation and Inspiration” on Only Lovers Left Alive. Driver herself is a filmmaker whose work has overlapped with Jarmusch’s since shortly after they met at film school in the late 1970s. She produced his first two features, Permanent Vacation and Stranger Than Paradise; he shot the mysterious and concrete black-and-white images of her first film, You Are Not I, and many of the nocturnal color scenes of her second, Sleepwalk. Driver has directed only two other films in addition to them, the feature-length When Pigs Fly and the short film The Bowery. All four films are currently available on DVD thanks to the Flatiron Film Company..