1 Greg Merritt, Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2000, p. 359.
2 Jgoresy, “Jim Jarmusch: Birth of the Indie Cool”, site Reel Fanatics, 4-8-2014. ˂http://www.reelfanatics.com/2014/04/08/jim-jarmusch-birth-of-the-indie-cool/˃ Accessed on 11 November 2015.
3 The epithet is used in books, online newspapers and blogs alike. See Emanuel Levy, Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film. New York and London: New York University Press, 1999, p. 188: Lévy, for instance, considers that Jarmusch’s second feature, Stranger than Paradise, “boasts a cool, fresh comic tone”.
In the title of his review on Down by Law Peter Bradshaw claims that, “Jim Jarmusch Masters Cinematic Cool”, The Guardian, 11 September 2014. ˂http://wwwtheguardian.com/film/2014/set/11/down-by-law-jim-jarmusch-tom-waits˃ Accessed on 11 November 2015.
On an entry posted on the blog Madman Entertainment on April 17, 2014, entitled “Jim Jarmusch – The Coolest Outsider Alive”, Michael_FM uses the adjective 13 times in three pages and a half. ˂https://www.madman.com.au/news/jim-jarmusch-the-coolest-outsider-alive/˃ Accessed on 11 November 2015.
4 Geoff Andrew, “Why ‘cool’ doesn’t do Jim Jarmusch justice”, British Film Institute site, April 2014. ˂http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/why-cool-doesnt-jim-jarmusch-justice˃ Accessed 11 November 2015.
5 For Barry Langford, Post-Classical Hollywood: Film Industry, Style and Ideology since 1945. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010: This period begins in 1966, but the transition can be perceived as early as 1945, which corresponds to the aftermath of WWII.
6 Martín Figueroa R., “Hacia una Poética del Fragmento: el Cine de Jarmusch. Una lectura desde Deleuze”, A Parte Rei. Revista de Filosofia. Vol. 66, November 2009, pp. 1-18.
7 My position is aligned with that of André Gaudreault, for whom the extra-diegetic narration of the author is composed of two layers of fictional manipulation: a pictorial demonstration regarding the mere articulation of frames ( “monstration” in French), and a second one highly charged with a temporal dimension, consisting of the relationship between shots ( “narration” in French). André Gaudreault and François Jost, Cinéma et récit II - Le Récit cinématographique. Paris: Nathan, 1990, p. 55.
8 Patricia Waugh, Metafiction: The Theory of Practice and Self-Conscious Fiction. London and New York: Routledge, 1996 [1984], p. 2.
9 Kenneth Weaver Hope, Film and Meta-Narrative. Doctoral Thesis. Indiana University Bloomington, 1975.
10 Fátima Chinita, “Do Metacinema Auto-Reflexivo como Forma de Enunciação Autoral”. Doctoral Thesis. Vol. 2. University of Lisbon, 2013.
11 David Bordwell, “Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrational Principles and Procedures”, Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader. Philip Rosen (ed.). New York: Columbia University Press, 1986, pp. 17-34.
12 David Bordwell, The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2006.
13 Explained in great detail by David Bordwell in Narration in Fiction Film. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985, pp. 157-2014, and in David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Modes of Production to 1960. London: Routledge, 1985, pp. 3-84.
14 David Bordwell, “Film Futures” and “Mutual Friends and Chronologies of Chance”, The Poetics of Cinema. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 171-187 and 189-250.
15 Previously I defended a meta-narrative taxonomy with three very large and encompassing categories: intra-diegetic meta-narratives, extra-diegetic meta-narratives, and hybrid meta-narratives. All the films by Jarmusch analyzed in this article belong to the second category. Intra- and extra-diegetic narratives are the polar opposites of an imaginary meta-narrative continuum, of which the hybrid variety would occupy the middle position. In intra-diegetic meta-narratives the film structure is determined by the acts of the characters or, at least, the events are directly related to the diegesis. The hybrid meta-narratives, being comprised both of intra- and extra-diegetic elements, are very complex and ambiguous, since the origin of the enunciation (s) is extremely difficult to determine. The extra-diegetic meta-narratives represent the pinnacle of authorial manipulation; the enunciation is clearly placed outside the stories in a multiple diegesis format that evinces the structural will and power of the author. Fátima Chinita, “Metanarrativa Cinematográfica: A Ficcionalização como Discurso Autoral”, Atas do II Encontro Anual da AIM, Tiago Batista and Adriana Martins (eds.). Lisbon: AIM, pp. 40-53.
16 Only instead of the addictive substances referred to in this article we have taxis and taxi drivers.
17 The portrait of Elvis in room number 22 matches to perfection the decrepitude of that place. Instead of the young and elegant Elvis, this portrait is off the frame and corresponds to a later stage in Elvis’s career when he was already on the decline.
18 Fátima Chinita, “Juggling Time Concepts: Complex Metanarrative”, Storying Humanity: Narratives of Culture and Society. Richard Wirth, Dario Serrati, Katarzyna Macedulska (eds.). Oxford: Inter-disciplinary Press, 2015, pp. 83-90.
19 The enunciation is further reinforced in Mystery Train: (a) the permanent verbal disagreements of the Japanese couple call attention to the literal nature of narration as a fact of language, as does the extremely fast speech of the Sun Studios guide; (b) the various nationalities and accents of the characters (in the first story the dialogues of the Japanese couple are subtitled in English), as well as the speed of their perorations; (c) the references to dreams, notably by the Japanese girl who loves to sleep so that she can dream; (d) the legend of Elvis Presley himself who has been turned into an urban myth.
20 The main one is to bring to the fore the filmic narrative, which is the purpose of all meta-narratives.
21 The dialogues refer to him as having starred in the films Groundhog Day (1993) and Ghost Busters (1994), which is quite true.
22 They are usually very brief and the characters spend more time arguing and misunderstanding one another than anything else.
23 “Caffeine leads to depression, makes you all irritable. Have your heart beating fast, faster heart-rate. Worse than anything, if you drink coffee, it gives you the shits. […] Crisp and clean, no caffeine.”
24 According to the characters they are in the Armory.
25 The coffee shop clerk that keeps offering her more coffee can hardly count as such.
26 For instance, the stories “Somewhere in California” and “Champagne” both allude to the 1970’s ( “Champagne” also alludes to the 1920’s).
27 The characters tell themselves they can have one smoke because they have officially “quit” smoking.
28 There are also weaker connections to be made between stories throughout the film: the unhealthy consumption of coffee and cigarettes on an empty stomach; the wearing of outmoded clothes so as to make the whole more abstract; and the reference to kinship. These become verbal motifs, rather than anything else, but they also stress the enunciation contained in the film.
29 Although only separated by two calendar years, Mystery Train and Night on Earth were actually released in different decades (the 80’s and the 90’s, respectively) and Coffee and Cigarettes was released in 2003, although it had been in Jarmusch’s head since the 80’s. The first three vignettes/stories contained in this feature had already been made before as shorts, although “Somewhere in California” was slightly different as an autonomous short film.
30 Martín Figueroa R., op. cit., p. 5.
31 Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Regis Filmmaker’s Dialogue: Jim Jarmusch” (1994), Jim Jarmusch: Interviews. Ludwig Hertzberg (ed.). Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001, pp. 128-129.
32 Danny Plotnick, “Jim Jarmusch” (1994), Jim Jarmusch: Interviews. Ludwig Hertzberg (ed.), Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001, p. 135.
33 Ibid., pp. 133-134.
34 Ibid., p. 135.
