I didn't get my degree at NYU; I got it later, they gave me an honourary one. Jim Jarmusch More Quotes by Jim Jarmusch More Quotes From Jim Jarmusch America is a very venal place; everything has to be sold there. You can repackage your own s**t and sell it if it is marketed in the right way. The motivation is to sell. It's so illogical and strange to me. It's such a disposable culture and yet I feel comfortable being American. Jim Jarmusch motivation america way I have to tell everyone that when I finish a film and it goes out and is released, I never look at my films again. I don't like looking back. I don't even like talking about 'em! So I'm really digging back in my memory because I don't like to sit and look at my films again. Jim Jarmusch digging talking memories The New York School poets are my godfathers creatively. Jim Jarmusch poet new-york school In the words of the ancients, one should make his decision within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break through to the other side. Jim Jarmusch break-through space dog When I'm trying to imagine something, I have a few elements, a few ideas, maybe a certain actor or actress I want to create a certain type of character for, or maybe a certain place. Jim Jarmusch trying character ideas I wanted to make an Indian character who wasn't either a) the savage that must be eliminated, the force of nature that's blocking the way for industrial progress, or b) the noble innocent that knows all and is another cliche. I wanted him to be a complicated human being. Jim Jarmusch progress block character Music, to me, is the most beautiful form, and I love film because film is very related to music. It moves by you in its own rhythm... Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you? Jim Jarmusch music beautiful moving Consequently, I get inspiration from all over the place. But it's not like a calculated thing on my part, or a way that I see myself, you know? I'm just interested in things that move me, and I don't care where they come from. In fact, I'm interested if they come from a place I wouldn't expect, or would seem foreign to me on some level. Jim Jarmusch levels inspiration moving Life has no plot, why must films or fiction? Jim Jarmusch plot film fiction A lot of poets too live on the margins of social acceptance, they certainly aren't in it for the money. William Blake - only his first book was legitimately published. Jim Jarmusch acceptance book firsts Specific music starts feeding my imagination and gives me a landscape that corresponds somehow, in some abstract way, to the world I'm just starting to imagine. Jim Jarmusch imagination giving world I'd wanted to be a writer and when I came back to New York worked as a musician too, but I found my writing starting to get more and more referential to cinema. Jim Jarmusch starting-over new-york writing Baseball is one of the most beautiful games. It is. It is a very Zen-like game. Jim Jarmusch baseball games beautiful Music just gives me so much energy and inspiration. Music and literature in a way probably influence me more than cinema does because they're different forms and yet related. I probably know as much about music history as I do about the history of cinema. Jim Jarmusch cinema inspiration giving I never start with the story first, which is maybe obvious, because the narrative line of my films is really not that strong or dramatic. They're very simple. Jim Jarmusch lines strong simple Those of us who make films try to make something that we're feeling and that we would like. Then we just hope an audience responds the same way. It's very important to have the electrical circuit made, but I don't have control over how people feel when they flip the switch. So the whole idea of marketing research and test screenings is just foreign to me. Jim Jarmusch feelings people ideas I even think the commercial element of new American directors is really fertile right now. There are a lot of filmmakers with very particular visions, like Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson and P.T. Anderson and Alexander Payne and Peter Sollett and Harmony Korine and Vincent Gallo. At least they're making films that they choose to make, and they're on their own. That's positive to me. This is not a dead period for American cinema at all. Jim Jarmusch vision directors thinking I still consider myself to be an amateur filmmaker. And I say that because in the Latin origin of the word amateur is the word love, and it's love of a form, whereas professional implies something you do for money or for work. Jim Jarmusch filmmaker form latin It meant a kind of real liberation of expression. It embraced amateurism in a way that I still am inspired by. It was not about trying to get, you know, stadium gigs or even commercial radio play or even record deals for that matter. It was about saying something 'cause you meant it, and expressing something that you felt. And that was primary for that - whatever the scene, whatever punk rock means, it was very, very important to me, very formative. Jim Jarmusch rocks real mean I think of myself as an amateur filmmaker, not a professional, in the sense that "amateur" means love of something, for the form. Jim Jarmusch form mean thinking
