NEWSWEEK: I understand this project started when “Saturday Night Live” asked you to make a short film in 1986. That was a long time ago.
Jim Jarmusch: Yeah, Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright were around, so we just cooked up something and shot it really fast and then it became an ongoing project where I kept making more and more of them between other projects until I had enough songs for an album, so to speak.
At what point did you decide it could be a full-length movie?
After I made like two or three of them, I realized I was making the same film over and over again, just different variations of it. I realized I wanted to keep doing it with the possibility of eventually putting a number of them together. So that happened pretty early on. But these were done so intermittently and as a kind of escape–they were really fun to do–so I didn’t spend a lot of time analyzing it as a project, just kept doing it for amusement, really. And I got to work with people I wanted to play with.
Play with?
Well, it’s kind of like playing in a sandbox because they were one-day shoots, with the exception of Cate Blanchett, which took two days for obvious reasons [she plays two characters in one segment]. So they were really fun.
Did you have scripts for each short?
I had scripts for each of them but I tried to encourage improvisation and even try to trick the actors at times into improvising by saying to them that in the next take we are going up to this point in the dialogue and then when they’d pass that point, I would just keep rolling to see what they’d do. They did all have scripts to kind of use as blueprints–some of them stayed quite close to them and others departed. But it was really like playing because it was really fun and there was no intention, they didn’t have to link back their characters to previous actions or previous scenes like in a feature film. They are just fun, self-contained little exercises really.
Were there any in the cast who really surprised you with their improvisation?
Tom Waits surprised me right off the bat going into this thing about being a doctor that was not in script at all, which I loved. Then he had to keep replicating that in other angles and shots and that was immediately incorporated into the overall script.
How’d you decide who you wanted in the film? Did you write some scripts with certain people in mind?
All of these people I knew except Cate [Blanchett] and Steve Coogan. But I had met Cate before and I really was a fan and wanted to work with her in some way–and still do in some other way. I would think up people I wanted to get together and then I would write a script. Generally, I didn’t have the script idea quite down though sometimes I had the ideas.
What are you hoping viewers will get from the movie?
It was really done just for fun so there’s no real meaning intended. I just hope people get a few laughs out of it … but there’s no intended message in the film other than: here we are, we’re human beings, what are we doing here? I was just happy to get to work with such a strange variety of different people. The film celebrates variety and is an exercise for me in variation, which is a form I really love.
What kind of reaction have you gotten to it?
Well, Taylor Mead, who’s in the last section, told me, “It’s like ‘My Dinner with Andre’ but instead of one long boring dinner, it’s eleven interesting coffee breaks.” Not my words, but that was his analysis.
Why coffee and cigarettes?
It just started that way and I don’t really know why exactly, except that I like the idea. I like situations that aren’t inherently dramatic in any way. People just meeting with coffee or cigarettes seemed like a nondramatic situation where the conversation could then really go anywhere.
Do you smoke?
I do, yes, but way less than I used to.
Why?
I don’t like being a slave to substances, so I am getting kind of bored with it. If you’re caught in a snowstorm, you know, and the first thing you think about is how many cigarettes you have left, it’s kind of a drag. I don’t want to live that way.
Did you know that the Senate Commerce Committee conducted hearings this week to address concerns on the increased use of tobacco placement in movies?
Yeah, funny how they do that same old trick. People were smoking centuries before there were any movies, so what instigated that? This is the old trick of the image reflected in the mirror is created by the mirror.
Anti-smoking groups claim that smoking in movies encourages kids to start.
What’s next? What about alcohol? Sugar? Obesity? So we can’t depict anyone eating fast food or eating a candy bar or having a drink. Even cigarettes alone–you know, I guess that means we have to wipe out the entire history of Japanese and French cinema. So where does this begin, the activities of human beings being restricted? I find this really an old trick. Movies reflect human activities, they don’t cause them.
Your film doesn’t exactly endorse smoking either, despite the title.
It shows all sides–it’s not condoning nor condemning it. We have one character with a tracheotomy who is saying the tobacco companies, the undertakers, the hospitals are going to get rich off him. We have RZA and GZA [of the Wu-Tang Clan] saying nicotine and caffeine are strong drugs, they cause health problems. It’s all in there.
Jack White says his favorite part of the segment he acted in is the 20 seconds of silence at the beginning–that silence can be as powerful as dialogue. What do you think?
I think, like in music, there are dynamics, and if you don’t use silences than the other things have less impact. It is the same for me with how much drama you put in a story. If there aren’t moments where there is no dynamic, than the dramatic parts aren’t really dramatic. So I have always been attracted to those moments when people aren’t saying things or they are just reacting and sometimes I find them much more insightful than pieces of dialogue or more obvious ways of depicting a scene, going from close-up to close-up of the person talking. Sometimes I find that really annoying because I’d like to see the reaction, it gives me more insight. I like those moments where not a lot is going on, and I know I’ve gotten a lot of criticism of it, like: watching my films is like watching paint dry on a wall. I’ve heard all that stuff.
Well, silence doesn’t necessarily mean boring.
Yeah, and in conversation, there are lags and moments of respiration. You have to breathe in before you can breathe out. I am always attracted to that kind of rhythm. I’m glad Jack liked that part.
Has there ever been an actor who’s turned you down?
Only for scheduling reasons, really–or they died, which was kind of a drag.
I’ll bet. At least, they had a good excuse.
I’ve actually been very lucky. I really appreciate actors, though, I’m not a dictator. I like to collaborate with them. It’s like a gift to create a character with someone that I respect and then hopefully it is elevated above what we would each do on our own.
Who haven’t you worked with that you’d like to get in one of your films?
Oh man, I don’t want to give out a list, but it’d probably have about 300 names on it. There are so many amazing people … It’s so unlimited and exciting to me.
Where do you draw the inspiration for your films?
Not just from American cinema but European and Japanese, too, and movies from India. My inspiration also comes really a lot from music and books and painters, and anyone who expresses anything that really hits me becomes a big inspiration for me. It’s just amazing the gifts people have left us. I take inspiration too from dreams and little shards of conversation I overhear or the quality of light on the surface of water. I never know what’s going to hit me, but I try to always stay open. My job is to kind of be a receptor so I am always kind of open to things going into my soul, but I’m never sure from what angle they might hit me.
Do you carry a notebook?
Always, and I carry little notes around sometimes for years before I write a script. So I have little notes and ideas collecting. When I get really there and have enough ideas collected, it’s kind of like those connect-the-dots drawings. I am not sure what the picture is yet, but I have all the dots down and try to link them together and see if it’s a cow or a giraffe, or what the hell is it. I like working that way.
What’s next for you?
I’m actually in preproduction to shoot, hopefully, in the start of August, a new feature film. Then I have another one for the next year. I have a lot coming up.
Can you tell us anything about the films?
I’m very superstitious about saying anything particular about them yet. I haven’t signed anyone yet. I don’t want to jinx anything. I’m excited to start shooting again, though.
