Jim Jarmusch was born and raised in a middleclass family from Akron, Ohio, a place known only for its rubber industry (and the brand Goodyear). He described it as being “Boring and industrial. Everywhere you looked there was rubber. All the men were into rubber.” (Hattenstone, 2004). From a young age Jarmusch never seemed to blend in, he got interested in Rock n’ Roll in a place were Rock n’ Roll didn’t reach, Akron was the classic American working-class suburb where nothing culturally interesting happened, in an interview with Harlan Jacobson he explains briefly his life in that time “(…) what was interesting or important to me didn’t seem to be what was cool to be interested in or what was suppose to be important” (Hertzberg [ed], 1984: 18)
While growing up Jarmusch was an avid reader, a hobby at first that led to him to study journalism at the Northwestern University in Chicago but later transferred to Columbia to study English and American Literature. On his last year of college he went to Paris for a semester (which ended up becoming a longer stay of 10 months) where he discovered the french Cinématheque, which opened the doors to a whole new world to young Jim. It was here that he found out all about European and Japanese cinema and it started “(…) opening him up to world culture and deepening his distrust and questioning of American values.” (Richardson, 2010: 192). After that he started film school at New York University, Nicholas Ray became one of his teachers and later on, his mentor,
which lead him to work as his assistant.
To pay for NYU Jarmusch had applied for the Louis B Mayer fellowship scholarship but on his last year, due to an error, the money instead of being sent to the university, it was sent to Jarmusch directly. He ended up using the money to make his first actual film – Permanent Vacation (1980) – and dropped out from school.
Later he went on to make Stranger Than Paradise (1984), his first feature film to be released in the cinema. The film was made, mainly, thanks to Wim Wenders who gave him a reel that he ironically had left from The State of Things (1982), a film about a crew who runs out of film and funds to finish the picture. This allowed Jarmusch to make the first part of Stranger than Paradise. He ended up spending years trying to get funding to finish the film.
These troubles with funding and acceptance have followed Jarmusch along his creative life, just as much as his past has influenced him in the creation of his films.