Jim Jarmusch Jokingly Floats Theory About Cate Blanchett’s Criminal DNA, Dissects Writing Process in Marrakech Masterclass
17.11.2022 - 15:59
/ deadline.com
Jim Jarmusch was a hot ticket at the Marrakech International Film Festival this week as seasoned cinema professionals, film students and high school kids packed out a rare on-stage conversation with the U.S. director.
The 300-strong audience were not disappointed as Jarmusch shared insights into his 40-year career.
“I am a self-proclaimed dilettante, not in a negative way, because life is short, and all the incredible things you can learn or be interested in, it’s insane to me. I’ve become interested in many things, mycology, the study of fungi, ornithology, history of European motorcycles,” he said.
The Ohio-raised filmmaker said he owed a debt of gratitude to France and the French Cinematheque in Paris for his discovery of cinema when he spent 10 months in the French capital as part of his American and English literature degree at Columbia.
“I got incompletes in my college course because I spent all my time at the Cinematheque or wandering the streets of Paris at night. It was an incredible period for me,” he recounted.
“Consequently, France has always been a very strong thing. I have dear friends who are French, and I love Paris. The Cannes Film Festival has been very supportive of me, whereas in Hollywood I can’t even get arrested,” he said.
Jarmusch won Cannes Camera d’Or for his first feature Stranger Than Paradise in 1984 and has since shown eight of his films in competition at the festival, including Broken Flowers, which won the Grand Prize of the Jury in 2005.
“After Stranger Than Paradise people asked me, ‘Where do you see yourself geographically with your work?’ I said, ‘On a very small sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic’ because European cinema is so important to me and American too, especially more