Down By Law Process Notebook by jon heter

JONATHAN HETER VISC: 204 CARPENTER FALL 2012

DVD REDESI PROCESS NO

IGN/ OTEBOOK

For our third and final project in Visual Concepts 204, we were asked to redesign one of five, previously selected, Criterion Collection DVDs. Without using any photographs, and utilizing a minimal color palette, we first designed multiple covers for our film and later developed the rest of the package, including a multi-page insert. I chose Down By Law, a Jim Jarmusch film about three clashing personalities who find themselves in the same prison cell and ultimately escape through the Louisiana Bayou. Since the film focuses mainly on the relationship and dynamic between these three men, I tried to visualize that relationship, first in my sketches.

SKETCHES/N

NOTES

COVERS/POS

STERS

DOWN BY LAW DIRECTED BY JIM JARMUSCH

DOWN BY LAW

DIRECTED BY JIM JARMUSCH

Down By Law

Tom Waits / John Lurie / Roberto Benigni / Directed by Jim Jarmusch

1. Prologue [4:27] 2. Titles [1:22] 3. "We Can't Live in the Present Forever" [3:45]

Director Jim Jarmusch followed up his brilliant breakout film Stranger Than Paradise with another, equally beloved portrait of loners and misfits in the

DOWN BY LAW

a film by jim jarmusch

DOWN BY LAW

a film by jim jarmusch

Tom Waits / John Lurie / Roberto Benigni

DOWN BY LAW A FILM BY JIM JARMUSCH

DVD REDESI

IGNS

a film by jim jarmusch

it's a sad and beautiful

world. Director Jim Jarmusch followed up his brilliant breakout film Stranger Than Paradise with another, equally beloved portrait of loners and misfits in the American landscape. When fate brings together three hapless men—an unemployed disc jockey (Tom Waits), a small-time pimp (John Lurie), and a strong-willed Italian tourist (Roberto Benigni)—in a Louisiana prison, a singular adventure ensues. Described by Jarmusch as a “neo-Beat noir comedy,” Down by Law is part nightmare and part fairy tale, featuring sterling performances and crisp black-and-white cinematography by the esteemed Robby Müller.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION: •New, restored digital transfer. •Audio interview with Jarmusch from 2002 •Interview with director of photography Robby Müller from 2002 •Footage from the 1986 Cannes Film Festival, including a press conference with Jarmusch and actors John Lurie, Roberto Benign, and Nicoletta Braschi, and an interview with Lurie. •Music video for Tom Waits’s cover of Cole Porter’s “It’s All Right with Me,” directed by Jarmusch •Q&A with Jarmusch in which he responds to fans’ questions •Recordings of phone conversations between Jarmusch and Waits, Benigni, and Lurie •Production Polaroids and location stills •Isolated music track •Optional French dub track, featuring Benigni •PLUS: An essay by critic Luc Sante

ISLAND PICTURES Presents A BLACK SNAKE/GROKENBERGER PRODUCTION DOWN BY LAW With TOM WAITS • JOHN LURIE • ROBERTO BENIGNI Director of Photography ROBBY MULLER Music JOHN LURIE Songs by TOM WAITS Editor MELODY LONDON Co-Producers TOM ROTHMAN • JIM STARK Executive Producers OTTO GROKENBERGER • CARY BROKAW Producer ALAN KLEINBERG Written and Directed by JIM JARMUSCH

DOWN BY LA

Director Jim Jarmusch followed up his brilliant breakout film Stranger Than Paradise with another, equally beloved portrait of loners and misfits in the American landscape. When fate brings together three hapless men—an unemployed disc jockey (Tom Waits), a small-time pimp (John Lurie), and a strong-willed Italian tourist (Roberto Benigni)—in a Louisiana prison, a singular adventure ensues. Described by Jarmusch as a “neo-Beat noir comedy,” Down by Law is part nightmare and part fairy tale, featuring sterling performances and crisp black-and-white cinematography by the esteemed Robby Müller.

y Law

enigni / Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Down

Tom Waits / John Lurie / Roberto

1. Prologue [4:27] 2. Titles [1:22] 3. "We Can't Live in the Present Forever" [3:45] 4. These Boots Are Made for Walking [2:22] 5. "If You Was a Good Pimp" [3:14] 6. "A Piece of Chicken" [3:27] 7. Do Not Enter [1:17] 8. "Someone to Take Care of You" [2:33] 9. "It's a Sad & Beautiful World" [2:15] 10. "I'm in a Bad Mood" [3:43] 11. Lagnlappe [4:09] 12. "You Don't Even Exist" [8:18] 13. "Right Here on WYLD" [3:29] 14. "Makin' Time Go Slower" [1:03] 15. "Call Me Bob" [3:38] 16. Italian Hiccups, American Cigarettes [2:11] 17. "Do You Like Walt Whitman?" [:54] 18. "La Bella Finestra" [1:41] 19. "We Are a Good Egg" [4:22] 20. "I Scream-a, You Scream-a" [2:50] 21. "Hit Was a Prison Film" [2:15] 22. A Walk in the Yard [:48] 23. Mark Twain Will Save You [1:29] 24. "My Family in Half an Hour?!" [2:24] 25. "All I Ever Knowed" [1:39] 26. Bob Frost [:47] 27. "Goin' Around in Circles" [5:21] 28. Which Way Now? [2:39] 29. "I Love to Catch, to Dream..." [3:10] 30. Civilization [4:35] 31. "It's a Mirage" [1:43] 32. "Like in a Book for Children" [3:18] 33. "Have to Keep Going" [4:04] 34. "Wish You Were Here" [3:56] 35. Two Roads Diverged in a Wood [1:27] 36. End Credits [2:57]

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a sad and beautiful world.

FINAL PACKA

AGE D

BY OWN

LAW

it's a sad and be a film by jim jarmusch

eautiful world. “The excitement (of Down by Law) comes from the realization that we are seeing a true film maker at work, using film to create a narrative that couldn't exist on the stage or the printed page of a novel.” -New York Times Director Jim Jarmusch followed up his brilliant breakout film Stranger Than Paradise with another, equally beloved portrait of loners and misfits in the American landscape. When fate brings together three hapless men—an unemployed disc jockey (Tom Waits), a small-time pimp (John Lurie), and a strong-willed Italian tourist (Roberto Benigni)—in a Louisiana prison, a singular adventure ensues. Described by Jarmusch as a “neo-Beat noir comedy,” Down by Law is part nightmare and part fairy tale, featuring sterling performances and crisp black-and-white cinematography by the esteemed Robby Müller.

DOWN BY LA

CHAPTER SELECTION

1. Prologue [4:27] 2. Titles [1:22] 3. “We Can’t Live in the Present Forever” [3:45] 4. These Boots Are Made for Walking [2:22] 5. “If You Was a Good Pimp” [3:14] 6. “A Piece of Chicken” [3:27] 7. Do Not Enter [1:17] 8. “Someone to Take Care of You” [2:33] 9. “It’s a Sad & Beautiful World” [2:15] 10. “I’m in a Bad Mood” [3:43] 11. Lagnlappe [4:09] 12. “You Don’t Even Exist” [8:18] 13. “Right Here on WYLD” [3:29] 14. “Makin’ Time Go Slower” [1:03] 15. “Call Me Bob” [3:38] 16. Italian Hiccups, American Cigarettes [2:11] 17. “Do You Like Walt Whitman?” [:54] 18. “La Bella Finestra” [1:41] 19. “We Are a Good Egg” [4:22] 20. “I Scream-a, You Scream-a” [2:50] 21. “Hit Was a Prison Film” [2:15] 22. A Walk in the Yard [:48] 23. Mark Twain Will Save You [1:29] 24. “My Family in Half an Hour?!” [2:24] 25. “All I Ever Knowed” [1:39] 26. Bob Frost [:47] 27. “Goin’ Around in Circles” [5:21] 28. Which Way Now? [2:39] 29. “I Love to Catch, to Dream...” [3:10] 30. Civilization [4:35] 31. “It’s a Mirage” [1:43] 32. “Like in a Book for Children” [3:18] 33. “Have to Keep Going” [4:04] 34. “Wish You Were Here” [3:56] 35. Two Roads Diverged in a Wood [1:27] 36. End Credits [2:57]

Tom Waits John Lurie Roberto Benigni Nicoletta Braschi Ellen Barkin Billie Neal Rockets Redglare Vernel Bagneris Timothea L. C. Drane Joy Houck Jr. Carrie Lindsoe Ralph Joseph Richard Boes Dave Petitjean Adam Cohen Alan Kleinberg Archie Sampier

Director Jim Jarmusch Written by Jim Jarmusch Director of photography Robby M端ller Music John Lurie Editor Melody London Songs Tom Waits Producer Alan Kleinberg Coproducers Tom Rothman Executive producers Otto Grokenberger Production manager Rudd Simmons Unit manager/Locations David Ross McCarty Set dresser/Prop master Janet Densmore Assistant director Claire Denis Production troubleshooter Sara Driver First assistant camera Jack Anderson Sound mixer Drew Kunin Gaffer Christopher Porter Key grip Paul Ferrera Supervising sound editor John Auerbach Sound editor Frank Kern Music recorded and mixed by Tom Lazarus

CAST & CREDITS

Zack Jack Roberto Nicoletta Laurette Bobbie Gig Preston Julie L. C. Detective Mandino Young girl Detectives Cajun detective Uniformed cop Corpse Prisoner Credits

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION: •New, restored digital transfer, supervised by director Jim Jarmusch, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition •Audio interview with Jarmusch from 2002 •Interview with director of photography Robby Müller from 2002 •Footage from the 1986 Cannes Film Festival, including a press conference with Jarmusch and actors John Lurie, Roberto Benigni, and Nicoletta Braschi, and an interview with Lurie, featuring commentary •Sixteen outtakes •Music video for Tom Waits’s cover of Cole Porter’s “It’s All Right with Me,” directed by Jarmusch •Q&A with Jarmusch in which he responds to fans’ questions •Recordings of phone conversations between Jarmusch and Waits, Benigni, and Lurie •Production Polaroids and location stills •Trailer •Isolated music track •Optional French dub track, featuring Benigni •PLUS: An essay by critic Luc Sante

DOWN BY LAW: CHEMISTRY SET BY LUC SANTE Down by Law, released in 1986, was Jim Jarmusch’s third movie. Unlike its predecessors, Permanent Vacation (1980) and Stranger Than Paradise (1984), it did not take off from a semi-documentary view of downtown Manhattan. It was shot entirely on location in Louisiana, which in the context of low-budget independent New York City filmmaking was exotic, even more so than the previous picture’s forays to the forlorn outskirts of Cleveland and whatever derelict stretch of highway stood in for Florida. Here, the location is announced and front-loaded during the credits. New Orleans and its surroundings pass in review, from left to right, etched in crystalline black and white by Robby Müller’s camera: mausoleums, wrought-iron balconies, low-slung housing projects, shacks on stilts. After that, scenes unfold amid semitropical architecture and in the bayous; you hear Cajun accents and Irma Thomas singing, but for all the flavor ofilé gumbo, the actual setting is no more Louisiana than the setting of Macao is Macao. Down by Law takes place in the land of the imagination, in the province of the movies. John Lurie’s Jack, a pimp, seems to hail from film noir. Seeing him in his working duds of suit, dark shirt, and bright tie, you figure he was born somewhere on the frame edge of Joseph H. Lewis’s The Big Combo and acquired his face by studying Jean-Paul Belmondo in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. The fact that Lurie wore the exact same getup in his offscreen role as leader of the Lounge Lizards, a postpunk band that exploited and shredded the conventions of 1950s postbop jazz, and came by his lip from

playing saxophone, matters only to the extent that his act was seamless. John Lurie invented “John Lurie,” a figure of unassailable cool who is nevertheless capable of executing pratfalls, a drinker of highballs and driver of Cadillacs who gets his mail at a crud-filled tenement rather than at the Eden Roc, and who barely requires a change of backstory to become Jack. Tom Waits’s Zack, a radio disc jockey who works under the moniker of Lee “Baby” Sims, is a bit harder to place. Shades of Expresso Bongo collide with images of hobo jungles and cockfight arenas and Okies propelling dead jalopies across the desert by force of will. He is the lone hipster, sceneless except for his invisible audience of the airwaves—he and Jack are, naturally, like oil and water. His hair, a thicket of weeds, is styled by nature; he sank his entire fortune into his shoes, rockabilly gunboats that would set off metal detectors. None of this is at variance with the persona Waits has constructed over the many years of his recording career, and which, at the time the movie was made, had recently taken a turn from its beatnik lounge-act base deeper into dream logic. The character is just as immediately evocative and ultimately unyielding as the two songs from Waits’s album Rain Dogs that bookend the movie. Jarmusch, as Stranger Than Paradise amply demonstrated, loves the number three. (At one time, he considered making a trio of films set in cities crucial to American music, but after Down by Law and 1989’s Mystery Train, set in Mem-

phis, a third picture, to be set in Kansas City, never materialized.) The Jack and Zack routine needed a third element, which could only be a wild card, and that requirement was fulfilled beyond all expectations by Roberto Benigni. Jarmusch, who had met Benigni—famous as a comedian in Italy but unknown elsewhere—at a film festival, wrote the part for him at a time when neither spoke the other’s language. Benigni, like his character, Roberto, kept a notebook of American idioms; language became the character’s prop. A wood sprite or maybe Pinocchio, he tips the balance of the movie, sabotaging the cutting contest between Jack and Zack and admitting pure, unburdened wonder. He leads the hipsters out of jail and into the wilderness, and ultimately to heaven, although he is the only one who gets to stay there. You can throw any number of glosses onto the picture. It is an open-ended fable that both invites interpretations and gleefully defeats them. In this and other ways, the movie justifies the clichéd label of “poetic cinema.” Jarmusch has something of the amateur chemist about him— he enjoys assembling diverse ingredients in a flask and seeing how they will interact. This shows up most obviously in his casting. In his early movies, especially, he sought out performers who had established themselves in noncinematic media, and among these he juxtaposed the most wildly contrasting styles. Here as elsewhere, he built characters around the actors rather than shoehorning them into roles, wrote detailed scripts but incorporated improvisations by the players, feasted on happy accidents. Then he

set the characters down on terra incognita; by his own admission, he wrote the script of Down by Law before ever visiting Louisiana. He plucked the jailbreak plot from the warehouse of cinematic commonplaces (We’re No Angels comes to mind) and found plain, eloquent locations that combined a budgetary genius with an unerring eye for American archetypes. He hired Robby Müller, whose Dutch sensibility might be considered as lying a pole away from bayou rococo, and assigned him black-and-white stock, which was no more current in 1986 than it is today. Then Jarmusch shook and stirred his ingredients. The result is irreducible, a movie as self-contained as an egg. Luc Sante’s books include Low Life and Kill All Your Darlings. This piece originally appeared in the Criterion Collection’s 2002 edition of Down by Law.

“A Sad and Beautiful World” The Jim Jarmusch Interview Cinema Gotham: You’ve said that you don’t watch your own films after they’re done. Jim Jarmusch: No. I try to avoid it at all cost. I just got a bad thing about looking back over your shoulder. It doesn’t make me comfortable. CG: Do you look back at the shoots themselves the way most filmmakers might look back at the films? Like you’re more likely to think about the good time you had on location with Benigni or something like that? JJ: Yeah, definitely. In fact, the movies sort of become like home movies that are ancillary to the actual experience of making the film, which is somehow more predominant in my memory. You know, the film you make, you work on it and you work really hard and in the end you abandon it at a certain point and say, “Ok, it’s done.” And that’s it, you know, so there’s nothing really more to learn from looking at it because you’ve seen it so many times while preparing it and constructing it. But the actual experience is somehow more valuable to me, in a weird way, in my memory. And Down by Law was particularly, I think that’s the film that I have the most fond, positive memories of making. I don’t know if it was the group of people and where we were and the time. I don’t know exactly why. It was a really kind of amazing experience. Every film I’ve made has been a really interesting experience but that one I have the most positive memories of.

CG: You’ve always got some really interesting personalities in your films but it seems like that one has the combination of the most interesting all together at the same time for such a long period of time of the shoot, I’d imagine. JJ: Yeah, I guess so. And the crew was just amazing, too. Just such a mixture of oddballs from everywhere. But then all my crews that I’ve worked with are like that. Dead Man had an incredibly varied amazing crew as well but that was a lot harder, more difficult shoot so it didn’t have the same kind of feeling. But Down by Law had a lot of great people on the crew, too. It was really a fun mixture of people. CG: Down by Law has some really incredible black-and-white photography. When you’re starting to think of an idea at what point does it become a black-andwhite or color film? JJ: Really, really early, like when I’m even first trying to imagine elements of the script or fragments of ideas that become a script. From the very beginning I’m starting to get visual flashes that I pay a lot of attention to as far as them being signals to some part of my brain. So I’ve always known very early on whether I wanted to film a certain project in color or black-and-white and often what kind of color or black-and-white as they certainly can vary a lot. That happens really early on for me and I stick to it like an idiot. Even when they offer me enough money to actually make the film adequately if only it’d be in color, I still have refused.

CG: Is there a cohesive thematic quality to that defines a black-and-white film versus a color film for you? JJ: It’s so intuitive I wouldn’t know how to analyze it. It’s like dream I have and I’m not sure exactly why. The obvious thing is that black-and-white gives you less information and that can be a strength for a certain type of story where you don’t want the extra information of what color certain objects are. You want it somewhat reduced in a way. And that can be to a kind of poetic consequence or to a prosaic one depending on the nature of the story or how you’re choosing to use it. And I’m not very analytical. CG: After I saw Ghost Dog I came up with this whole theory that put your blackand-white films in one continuum and your color films in another and how Dead Man and Ghost Dog were the culmination of each continuum and I’m a little embarrassed to say that I have no idea what that theory was any more. JJ: Whoah. If you remember let me know. I could use it. I honestly don’t know either how that works. CG: What do you think about the Down by Law DVD? JJ: For me there’s too much stuff on it. There’s one category of me just blabbering endlessly. I think it would have been better if I had just answered questions that people had sent in, which I really enjoyed. I hate just hearing myself talk so I’ll never hear that again.

CG: I was amazed at how long that sequence was. JJ: Yeah, and I kept asking them to cut it down. Originally they had about 2 1/2 hours of that stuff. So for me, I would be happier if that wasn’t on there at all... but they liked it and I trust them. I think Criterion is really a class act as far as how they treat films and the kind of extras, but I’m not a big extras guy. I refuse to do a commentary over the film because I want people to watch the movie and the great thing about DVD is having the chance to put out a really beautiful transfer of a film. I’m really happy with Criterion and that aspect of it, as I am with the extras, too, like there’s one thing I love is there are mostly black-and-white Polaroid production stills that are technical stills that were made while we were shooting and you can flip them over and look on the back and see – and I’m probably one of the few people that this is of great interest – but you can find technical information on the back of each photograph. And I love that. When I first saw that I was like “Wow! This is cool” They were very open and they’re very happy with all the stuff, so I am, too. Me, I would be happy if it were just the film and a couple trailers. I just refuse to do a commentary over the picture. Maybe it would be good if I was really drunk or if I was with some other people and we did it almost like a radio show and just kind of treated it not so seriously. Maybe some day I’ll do something like that but as far as the serious, I don’t know, giving you exactly how we devised a shot and what lens we used, I just don’t think I could do that.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

If looks could kill, I am a-dead now.

Not being able to use photography for this assignment proved to be difficult for me as I tend to rely quite heavily on photos for my designs. However, having those parameters produced some good work I likely wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have achieved otherwise. As designers, I think it is easy to become complacent with our techniques and style, but we need to be able to solve design problems with whatever the best solution may be, regardless of the technique. Therefore, this project proved to be a good exercise for myself.