Jim Jarmusch

About Jim Jarmusch

Jim Jarmusch (born January 22, 1953 in Akron, Ohio; pronounced /ˈdʒɑrməʃ/) is an American independent film director.

Jarmusch obtained his B.A. from Columbia University. Before graduating from New York University's school of film, Jarmusch decided to drop out of the program and funnel his scholarship funds into his first feature. His advisor at the time, Thaddeus Sebena, helped to support the release. This resulted in his first film, Permanent Vacation, which introduced audiences to the deadpan style that he would later develop in Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law. Jim had worked as a teaching assistant to American director Nicholas Ray while at NYU. Through Ray's efforts, Jarmusch became a production assistant on Wim Wenders' tribute to Ray, "Lightning Over Water" (1980).

Jarmusch's first major film, Stranger Than Paradise, was released in 1984 to much critical acclaim. Recounting a strange journey of three disillusioned youths from New York to Cleveland to Florida, the film broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood moviemaking, and to this day is still considered a landmark work in modern independent film. In 1986, Jarmusch wrote and directed Down by Law, a film about three convicts in a New Orleans jailhouse. As a result of his early work, Jarmusch became an influential representative of the trend of the American road movie. His next two films each experimented with parallel narratives: Mystery Train told three stories, one after the other, set on the same night in and around a small Memphis hotel, and Night on Earth involved five cab drivers and their passengers on rides happening simultaneously in five different world cities, beginning at sundown in Los Angeles and ending at sunrise in Helsinki.