Jim Jarmusch trivia: 70 facts about the eccentric filmmaker!

Jim Jarmusch is one of the most prolific filmmakers and one with the most diverse list of films!

So, let’s find out some trivia and facts about this filmmaker!

1. His full name is James Robert Jarmusch
2. He was born in January 22, 1953
3. He is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor, and composer
4. He has been a major proponent of independent cinema since the 1980s
5. Directing such films as Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Down by Law (1986), Mystery Train (1989), Dead Man (1995), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), Broken Flowers (2005), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), and Paterson (2016)
6. Stranger Than Paradise was added to the National Film Registry in December 2002
7. As a musician, Jarmusch has composed music for his films
8. And released two albums with Jozef van Wissem
9. He was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
10. He is the middle of three children of middle – class suburbanites
11. His mother, of German and Irish descent, had been a reviewer of film and theatre for the Akron Beacon Journal before marrying his father
12. His father was a businessman of Czech and German descent who worked for the B.F. Goodrich Company
13. She introduced Jarmusch to cinema by leaving him at a local cinema to watch matinee double features while she ran errands
14. The first adult film he recalls seeing was the 1958 cult classic Thunder Road
15. The violence and darkness of which left an impression on the seven-year-old Jarmusch
16. Another B-movie influence from his childhood was Ghoulardi
17. An eccentric Cleveland television show which featured horror films
18. Despite his enthusiasm for film, Jarmusch was an avid reader in his youth
19. And had a greater interest in literature
20. Which was encouraged by his grandmother
21. Though he refused to attend church with his Episcopalian parents
22. Jim Jarmusch credits literature with shaping his metaphysical beliefs
23. And leading him to reconsider theology in his mid-teens
24. From his peers he developed a taste for counterculture
25. And he and his friends would steal the records and books of their older siblings
26. This included works by William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and The Mothers of Invention
27. They made fake identity documents which allowed them to visit bars at the weekend but also the local art house cinema
28. Which typically showed pornographic films
29. But would occasionally feature underground films such as Robert Downey, Sr.’s Putney Swope and Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls
30. At one point, he took an apprenticeship with a commercial photographer
31. After graduating from high school in 1971, Jarmusch moved to Chicago
32. He enrolled in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University
33. After being asked to leave due to neglecting to take any journalism courses, Jarmusch favored literature and art history
34. He transferred to Columbia University the following year
35. With the intention of becoming a poet
36. At Columbia, he studied English and American literature under professors including New York School avant garde poets Kenneth Koch and David Shapiro
37. At Columbia, he began to write short “semi-narrative abstract pieces”
38. And edited the undergraduate literary journal The Columbia Review
39. During his final year at Columbia, Jarmusch moved to Paris for what was initially a summer semester on an exchange program
40. But this turned into ten months
41. There, he worked as a delivery driver for an art gallery
42. And spent most of his time at the Cinémathèque Française
43. Jim Jarmusch graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1975
44. Broke and working as a musician in New York City after returning from Paris in 1976
45. He applied on a whim to the graduate film school of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts
46. Despite his lack of experience in filmmaking, his submission of a collection of photographs and an essay about film secured his acceptance into the program
47. He studied there for four years
48. Meeting fellow students and future collaborators Sara Driver, Tom DiCillo, Howard Brookner, and Spike Lee in the process
49. During the late 1970s in New York City, Jarmusch and his contemporaries were part of an alternative culture scene centered on the CBGB music club
50. In his final year at New York University, Jarmusch worked as an assistant to the film noir director Nicholas Ray
51. Who was at that time teaching in the department
52. In an anecdote, Jarmusch recounted of the formative experience of showing his mentor his first script
53. Ray disapproved of its lack of action
54. To which Jarmusch responded after meditating on the critique by reworking the script to be even less eventful
55. On Jarmusch’s return with the revised script, Ray reacted favourably to his student’s dissent
56. Citing approvingly the young student’s obstinate independence
57. Jarmusch was the only person Ray brought to work, as his personal assistant, on Lightning Over Water
58. A documentary about his dying years on which he was collaborating with Wim Wenders
59. Ray died in 1979 after a long fight with cancer
60. A few days afterwards, having been encouraged by Ray and New York underground filmmaker Amos Poe and using scholarship funds given by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation to pay for his school tuition
61. Jarmusch started work on a film for his final project
62. The university, unimpressed with Jarmusch’s use of his funding as well as the project itself, promptly refused to award him a degree
63. Jim Jarmusch rarely discusses his personal life in public
64. He divides his time between New York City and the Catskill Mountains
65. He stopped drinking coffee in 1986
66. The year of the first installment of Coffee and Cigarettes
67. Although he continues to smoke cigarettes
68. In a February 2014 interview, Jarmusch stated that he is not interested in eternal life
69. As there’s something about the cycle of life that’s very important
70. And to have that removed would be a burden