Down by Law (1986)

Down by Law
Dir. Jim Jarmusch. Black Snake / Island Pictures, 1986.

Director/Screenwriter Jim Jarmusch (1953- )

            Some critics today call him a visionary. Some admire his French “New Wave” cinematic style and his commitment to challenging the popular conception of the American Dream from an outsider perspective (Winning and Edelman). Others complain that his latest films show a pretentious reliance of style over substance and a desperate scrabbling for lost originality (Kauffmann). Viewing the body of his work, we can witness a consistent theme of finding beauty and humor in spite of the desolation of contemporary life: from Stranger than Paradise (1984), through Down by Law (1986), Mystery Train (1989), Night on Earth (1992), Dead Man (1995), and this year’s Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai. Most of this work seems quiet, slowly paced, careful in its treatment of characters, if random in plot. There is attention to imagery and mood, often accentuated by deliberate musical choices. But in subject matter, the early concern for cross-cultural perspectives seems to have been abandoned for peculiar experiments with genre: Dead Man as a mannerist Western, Ghost Dog as a psuedo-spiritual crime thriller.

            As the last of Jarmusch’s first phase, Night on Earth continues the outsider perspective of the earlier films—this time the alien viewpoint of an interplanetary visitor. Likewise, he exploits a similar episodic structure. In fact, it is hard to follow any continuity among the stories in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. A consistent theme is certainly the difficulty of empathy or even communication between individuals, but is this indulgence in oddball disjunctions among places and people just another way to convey an urban, hip, comic cynicism? Is it meaningful to observe that some Hollywood residents would rather be a mechanic than a movie star, or is this just too, too cool? In the second episode, the culture clash among the incompetent East German cabby, his Black Brooklynite fare named Yo-Yo, and Yo-Yo’s brassy, bossy sister-in-law Angela (Rosie Perez) is all very amusing, but how does this scene connect to the segment where a Roman cabby (Roberto Benigni) confesses his greatest sin while his confessor, the priest in the back seat, sleeps unaware? And how does this episode relate to the drunk in the final segment who despairs over his work and family difficulties after a night of bingeing? Peter Travers finds this film a “compassionate comedy of missed connections” even though “the flickers of humanity in those taxis are soon dulled by barriers of time, sex, race, language and money” (112). For me, these flickers are not enough to hold the film together.

            Apparently starting a new direction, Dead Man is about a reluctant badman in the West, whose slow demise from a bullet wound becomes a spiritual journey directed by a wise Indian. This film initially made so little impression on me that when I watched it a second time it was half over before I realized I had seen it. Still, I found it clever and thoughtful, but more tedious than engaging. It’s the kind of film for which “you have to be in the mood” and that is slow.

            Ghost Dog depends on our sympathy toward a contract killer because he adopts a zen sense of fate; he befriends a Jamaican ice cream man; he trades books with a little girl; and he seems a gentle soul even when called upon to serve his master, the Mafia weasel who once saved his life. It is a film with aspirations and contradictions, but we must wonder at reading so many inscrutable passages from The Way of the Samurai on screen as Forest Whitaker intones the wisdom aloud. Finally, a viewer must wonder if this insistent Buddhist viewpoint is necessary to the film, or just a hip affectation. For me, these newer films just try too hard.

The Film

Down by Law is more substantial. The opening shots of a cemetery are not promising. The day is beginning, but we witness a run-down, gritty New Orleans still apparently suffering from last night’s excess and waste. And over the scene we hear Tom Waits’ own gritty lament setting the mood—not carefree certainly, but at least an honest black-and-white, no frills matter-of-fact-ness. The first scenes showing the disruption of relationships pretend that what you see is what you get, and the pace is unhurried, letting characters reveal their insipid human flaws. But early on, the film states an undercurrent of themes: a tension between living in the present or the future, between being serious or funny, and questioning the validity of this opposition.

On the surface, the film is about a couple of self-important losers, dreamers, and incessant performers. Zack (Tom Waits) and Jack (John Lurie) begin in trouble, go downhill fast, end in the slammer and go stir-crazy until Roberto (Benigni) shows up to save them from themselves. Already, the quirky foreigner who lends a refreshing perspective to American culture has expressed a more promising viewpoint: “It’s a sad and beautiful world.” As the three related plot-lines converge, at first there is a tension in the scenes with the Italian, partly because he must consult his notebook for appropriate English expressions, partly because he is so nervous, and partly because the others cannot quite believe his apparent stupidity and murderous innocence. But Bob is a charming character for his love of American poetry (recited in Italian); he has a zest for language and for life. Through his character, the film becomes very literate in a word-loving way, self-reflective and almost amused with itself.

If prison is hard for our heroes, the Louisiana swamp is no fun either. But freedom is a luckier thing than captivity. Here, again, the pacing of the film builds tension and lets the audience experience the characters’ tedium. For the two macho losers, the journey becomes an escape from self-deception and a quest for self-discovery, as Bob leads the way not only through the swamp, but to peace and sanity, and finds, for himself, a redemptive love and a future.

For Jack and Zack, the story of losers and dissolution turns to a shared endurance and optimism that they have learned from Bob and earned through their journey. The final image recalls Bob’s earlier incantation of Bob Frost (though he spoke the words in Italian): “Two roads diverged in a wood. I took the one less traveled by. And it has made all the difference.” Even though the characters don’t know where the parting roads lead, the film is about making a difference, about being serious without losing humor, about choosing a present that will create a future, rather than dreaming an adolescent fantasy that is only an escape from present troubles.

Works Cited

Kauffmann, Stanley. “Carrying On.” New Republic, 6 June 2000, 26+.

Travers, Peter. “When Worlds Collide in a Taxicab.” Rolling Stone, 14 May 1992, 111+.

Winning, Rob, and Rob Edelman. “Jim Jarmusch.” International Dictionary of Films and

Filmmakers, Volume 2, Directors. 3rd ed. Ed. Laurie Collier Hillstrom. Detroit: St. James Press,

1997. 490-92.

Handout prepared by Greg Lyons
for the Fall 2000 "Off Beat Cinema" Film Series,
organized by Greg Lyons, with the support of
COCC Humanities Dept. & Westside Video (Bend, OR)

Related links:

All-Movie Guide. All Media Guide, AEC One Stop Group, Inc., 1992-2002.
Search by Title, Person, or Keyword: http://allmovie.com/
...Down by Law
...Jim Jarmusch: Director, Screenwriter
URL: http://allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=B95892

Down by Law (1986). Internet Movie Database - IMDb.com, 1990-2002.
URL: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0090967
...External Reviews of Down by Law (1986)
URL: http://us.imdb.com/TUrls?COM+0090967
...Jim Jarmusch
URL: http://us.imdb.com/Name?Jarmusch,+Jim

Available online handouts for films shown in Fall 2000 "Offbeat Cinema" Series:

Days of Heaven (1978). Dir. Terrence Malick.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/daysofheaven.htm
Down by Law (1986). Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/downbylaw.htm
Last Days of Chez Nous (1992). Dir. Gillian Armstrong.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/lastdaysofcheznous.htm
Oscar and Lucinda (1997). Dir. Gillian Armstrong.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/oscarlucinda.htm
The Limey (1999). Dir. Steven Soderbergh.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/thelimey.htm

See also Popular Culture Video List (2000).
Detective | Science fiction | Travel | Film noir | Spy thriller | Western
Greg Lyons, comp. COCC Library & Humanities Dept. video holdings, 2000.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/courses/film/popculture.html

Return to Film Studies - Index of Online Resources
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/index.htm

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Last updated: 26 May 2003
Cora Agatucci ~ E-Mail: cagatucci@cocc.edu
Copyright © 2002-2003, Greg Lyons,
Humanities Department, Central Oregon Community College