Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 26, 1993 TAG: 9303260112
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Chris Gladden
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
AMERICAN ANGST GETS GERMAN SPIN
Don't look for any familiar landmarks or upscale real estate in Jim Jarmusch territory.Jarmusch movies travel the seedy back streets of big cities, the tacky byways of Florida, the places no one puts in travel brochures.
Don't look for standard movie heroes and heroines, either.
In "Stranger than Paradise," three travelers head south looking for a change of scenery, but they can't find it. Like water, they seek their own level, and in this case it's low-rent terrain. In "Down by Law,"' three losers escape from jail and spend the movie eluding the Louisiana police. "Mystery Train" looks in on foreigners in a Memphis hotel where the ghost of Elvis appears. And "Night on Earth" is a series of separate stories about cab drivers and their fares around the world.
Some find Jarmusch's movies too slow. Others, like Klaus Phillips and me, find his deadpan humor, his disconnected characters and his affinity for all that's run-down irresistible.
Phillips teaches German and film at Hollins College and puts on the Colloquium on German Film there each year. Except this year it's not being called the Colloquium on German Film.
It's more like a Jim Jarmusch film festival, Phillips says, noting that this is the first time in seven years the colloquium hasn't focused on German film.
The event will take place Thursday through April 3. Faculty members from Temple University, the College of William and Mary, Ferrum College, the University of North Carolina, Hollins and Buffalo State College will discuss Jarmusch's movies. Phillips hopes to bring Jarmusch himself to Hollins. But post-production problems on the movie he is currently producing make the appearance unlikely.
All of Jarmusch's movies, including "Permanent Vacation," his student film project, will be screened.
Phillips says there were several considerations in choosing Jarmusch as the subject of the colloquium. He uses foreigners frequently and at the same time reveals American values in his pictures. The movie he's producing - directed by Sara Driver - was shot in Munich and was financed largely by German money.
Germans are wild about Jarmusch movies. "Night on Earth" played for more than 68 weeks in Munich's largest theater, Phillips says. In America, it made the rounds of art houses and then disappeared.
"He's basically being ignored here," Phillips says.
Jarmusch is definitely out of the mainstream. He concentrates on mood more than action. According to Phillips, Jarmusch himself says that his movies consist of what other filmmakers leave out.
But a Jarmusch movie is like leaving the interstate for the two-lane blacktops that parallel it. You can get the whole tour at Hollins beginning Thursday.