“I do it my way or I don’t do it. It helps me in negotiating to know that I will walk away if I don’t have control… I decide how the film is cut, how long it is, what music is used, who is cast. I make films by hand.”
– Jim Jarmusch
Before introducing Jarmusch’s style and way of working it is important to mention that he is pretty much a one man show, “(…) for not only does Jarmusch write and direct all his feature films, work closely with his cinematographer and editor, play a central role in casting the principal characters, and choose the main locations, but he takes the lead in raising the money for his projects, usually from independent and European investors” (Watson: 2). We have seen that the only way that he is able to find financial support and funding is through mainly European investors, from Germany, England and France. Even though this has been his procedure, in recent years Jarmusch has mentioned that it has become harder to fund his films as result of economic situation nowadays. For example, it took him seven years to finance Only Lovers Left Alive. But his producers try to always find funds through people who become passionate about the script, casting and who respect the creative development and do not try to change the films by making them more commercial. As Jarmusch has said, “I don’t collaborate with financing people. I don’t tell them how to run their business and I don’t really like them telling me how to make a film” (Jarmusch, 2016)
Additionally he owns the negatives of all of his films, maintaining ultimate ownership of the final outcome of his work, not letting anyone in except for his hand picked collaborators, who do not drift from his style and almost work as an extension of him, to put their input in his films. This is one of his most admired qualities and one that makes him decisively more that a director, a film auteur.
Though Jarmusch dismisses the auteur theory, in an academic view it is important to explore it a bit further, since it is almost possible to apply his method of working in both older and more recent conversations on the topic. The original auteur theory, circa 1940, defends that a writer-director brings his personal style, emotion and personality into his films through camerawork, editing and blocking creating a distinctive style, identifiable when one is watching a film made by them. This is applicable to Jarmusch because someone who is familiar with his work can easily identify his films through certain details and themes.
The most recent theory, which was brought up in the 1960’s, stated critics became aware that we can not oversee the collaboration factor that comes with every cinematic production, for a director never works alone. The director still has a big impact on how his concept is brought to life in the scrip by relating it to his style and personality even though the influence that other head of departments and collaborators have is undeniable.
However, unlike contemporary auteur productions who work under studio systems, Jarmusch has the ultimate control over his films and the people involved are people chosen by him and, as previously referred, work as an extension of himself.