Debuting in New York City in the fall of 1984, Jim Jarmusch's STRANGER THAN PARADISE helped point the way to later independent films. Jarmusch offers a minimalist style and a low-key but empowering do-it-yourself aesthetic--visually sharp and relentlessly stoic, with characters as likely to be played by a musician as an actor and laconic dialogue that crackles with bone-dry wit. Through a variety of formats (black-and-white, color, super 8mm and digital video) and genres (the buddy picture, screwball comedy, western, rockumentary and gangster film), the crux of Jarmusch's work has remained: he casts his wry eye on a small, seedy, diverse world where fleeting moments of connection trump the pervasive loneliness of life. To accompany the forthcoming release of BROKEN FLOWERS (which won the Grand Prix at Cannes in May), AFI Silver presents a comprehensive look at the career of an American original.

STRANGER THAN PARADISE

Brooklyn slacker John Lurie and his dim-but-chatty sidekick, Richard Edson, decide to take Eszter Balint, Lurie's visiting Hungarian cousin, on a road trip to visit Aunt Lotte in Cleveland. Filmed in long takes, with an apparent simplicity that belies its sophisticated underpinnings, this triptych of tales, shot by Tom DiCillo (who would go on to direct LIVING IN OBLIVION), employs a starkly minimalist blackand- white urban industrial landscape-- contrasting with Screamin' Jay Hawkins's over-the-top rendition of I Put a Spell on You--to convey a detached new cool for the 1980s. Lurie also provides the original soundtrack.

DIR/SCR Jim Jarmusch; PROD Sara Driver. US, 1983, b&w, 89 min. RATED R

MYSTERY TRAIN

Jarmusch pays homage to the Memphis of Sun Studios, a town haunted by the ubiquitous ghost of Elvis and the no less important soul of Carl Perkins. Screamin' Jay Hawkins manages a fleabag hotel where several stories intersect, including Japanese teens on a pop culture pilgrimage and a botched heist attempt by Steve Buscemi and The Clash's late frontman, Joe Strummer. Shades of DOWN BY LAW, with Tom Waits returning to play the voice on the radio and John Lurie once again providing the original score.

DIR/SCR Jim Jarmusch; PROD Jim Stark. US, 1989, color, 113 min. RATED R

PERMANENT VACATION

Jarmusch's rarely seen, ultra-lowbudget debut, set in the blight of pre-Giuliani downtown New York. A bored protagonist wanders through a spare urban landscape populated by such oddball characters as a Vietnam vet, a car thief and Lounge Lizard John Lurie, who also provides a moody sax score. Punctuated with quirky humor, the encounters only serve to increase the sense of alienation, a theme that will permeate Jarmusch's career.

DIR/SCR/PROD Jim Jarmusch. US, 1980, color, 77 min. UNRATED

The short film INT. TRAILER NIGHT has been cancelled.

COFFEE & CIGARETTES

This omnibus collection of vignettes shot over the course of Jarmusch's long career features a who's-who hipster cast expounding on, and indulging in, the merits of nicotine and caffeine. Memorable scene duos include Roberto Benigni with Steven Wright, Tom Waits with Iggy Pop and Cate Blanchett with herself; plus BROKEN FLOWERS star Bill Murray hanging out with GHOST DOG composer RZA and his Wu Tang Clan-mate GZA.

DIR/SCR Jim Jarmusch; PROD Jason Kliot, Demetra J. MacBride, Rudd Simmons, Jim Stark and Joana Vicente. US, 2003, b&w, 95 min. RATED R

DOWN BY LAW

A postmodern Marx Brothers jailbreak set in the Louisiana Bayou (or as singer/songwriter and frequent Jarmusch collaborator Tom Waits later described it, "a Russian neofugitive episode of THE HONEYMOONERS"). Slick pimp John Lurie and gravel-voiced DJ Waits are cellmates doing time for crimes they didn't commit. Joining up with Roberto Benigni, whose limited command of English accentuates his frenetic gifts as a physical comedian, they go on the lam. Robby Mueller's high-contrast cinematography imbues the swamps with an otherworldly quality--proof of Benigni's observation that it's "a sad and beautiful world."

DIR/SCR Jim Jarmusch; PROD Alan Kleinberg. US, 1986, b&w, 107 min. RATED R

YEAR OF THE HORSE

Working on 16mm, Super 8mm film and Hi-8 Video, Jarmusch chronicles a year on the road with Neil Young and his reunited band Crazy Horse. "Made loud to be played loud"-- the grainy texture of the footage mirrors the raucous, grungy, beautiful distortion of the band's trademark sound.

DIR/SCR Jim Jarmusch; PROD L.A. Johnson. US, 1997, b&w, 106 min. RATED R

Archival Print!
DEAD MAN

A weird, gritty trip into America's past that divided critics. Johnny Depp stars as mild-mannered William Blake (an accountant, not the poet) headed west on a job, and Gary Farmer is his American Indian guide, Nobody. Wounded in an altercation, Depp turns into an outlaw-- and a killer. There's also a pair of marshalls named Lee and Marvin, as well as tough guy icon Robert Mitchum in his final role. Neil Young's haunting distorted-guitar soundtrack and Robby Mueller's brilliant black-and-white photography ensure that this is not your father's western.

DIR/SCR Jim Jarmusch; PROD Demetra J. MacBride. US, 1995, b&w, 121 min. RATED R

GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI

Forest Whitaker stars in the title role as a hitman who coldly executes mafia contracts, yet lives by the samurai's ancient code of honor. The tables turn when his former bosses put out a hit on him. Highly stylized violence fuses this collision of Eastern and Western cultures, while the original score by Wu Tang Clan's RZA adds "street cred."

DIR/SCR Jim Jarmusch; PROD Jim Jarmusch and Richard Guay. US, 1999, color, 116 min. RATED R

NIGHT ON EARTH

Five stories in five taxis in five cities, all taking place simultaneously. Jarmusch's formal exercise-- which far pre-dates the TV series TAXICAB CONFESSIONS--segues from Los Angeles at twilight to Helsinki at dawn, stopping along the way in New York, Paris and Rome. With limited camera setups, the sequences feature characters at a turning point, the stellar cast including Gena Rowlands, Winona Ryder, Armin Mueller- Stahl, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez and Roberto Benigni.

DIR/SCR/PROD Jim Jarmusch. US, 1991, color, 129 min. RATED R