Jim Jarmusch on Love Streams

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In the Criterion Collection’s release of Jim Jarmusch’s wonderful Night On Earth, Jarmusch answers questions from all over the globe about the film. Jarmusch does not “do” commentary tracks, it’s not his thing, and so on the couple of Jarmusch Criterion releases I have seen (Night On Earth and Mystery Train), the extensive QA is a stand-in for commentary. It’s an audio track, with Jarmusch reading the questions out and then answering. Because Jim Jarmusch is who he is, the answers are always fascinating, fun, wide-sweeping in their references, and sometimes as simple as “I don’t remember.” They feel quite spontaneous.

Night On Earth, of course, is a film made up of multiple stories, shot in different cities all over the globe, involving taxi drivers and their pickups. There’s a sequence in New York, Helsinki, Rome, Los Angeles, and many more. The first segment involves Gena Rowlands, a successful casting director, getting into a cab driven by scrappy young Winona Ryder. Night On Earth was the first film Gena Rowlands agreed to do after the 1989 death of her husband, John Cassavetes. At one point, Jarmusch mentions that during the filming of her segment, people like Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara would stop by the set, to say Hi, but to also check in with Gena, make sure everything was going okay and she was doing okay. Jarmusch could tell they felt protective of her. Pretty amazing.

One of the questions Jarmusch fielded in the QA special features has to do with Love Streams. Here it is.

Question from Chad Bennett, Springfield Ohio: At a 2001 retrospective of your works in Columbus Ohio, you chose to pair Night on Earth with John Cassavetes’ Love Streams. What was the significance of the pairing and what is your favorite Cassavetes film?

Jim Jarmusch: You know, I don’t remember at all why I chose to pair it with Love Streams. Maybe because Love Streams is a film I deeply love and it is not that easy to see. It might have been as simple as that, that I just thought it was a way to get that film projected. Also of course the connection of Gena Rowlands. The part that Gena plays in Night on Earth was the first role she accepted after the loss of her husband, John Cassavetes. So I was very honored to work with her. It might have been that connection as well. I don’t remember.

My favorite Cassavetes film, that is very difficult. I love them all. I love Love Streams, Woman Under the Influence, Faces, Killing of a Chinese Bookie is one I love. Certainly Husbands. So that’s one of those questions I can’t narrow down. I say see all of his work.

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Love Streams is no longer difficult to see. It’s out on the Criterion Collection.

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