Permanent Vacation (15.)
Directed by Jim Jarmusch. 1980.
Starring Chris Parker, Leila Gastil, Richard Boes, Frankie Faisan and John Lurie. 75 mins. Part of the Jim Jarmusch Collection released by Soda Pictures.
It's not unusual for the career of an acclaimed director to start with a duff first film. Often it's a fairly anonymous genre effort done just to get some experience, but sometimes its a work where you can see their style is already largely in place but there's something a bit off. In Jarmusch's debut most of the elements that would mark out his future work are already present – long unbroken scenes of people talking and people walking down the street in profile, the interest in cool outsiders, the unhurried pace – but there's none of the magic that would lift up his future films.
First films are for learning and the main lesson learnt from this was surely if you are going to film long scenes of people talking be careful who you to choose to point the camera at. Permanent Vacation follows one Aloysius Parker, a self styled outsider as he drifts around New York, meeting up with various other outsider characters. Nobody has much to say for themselves and those that do don't have anything interesting to say.
The film's main problem is that lead actors Chris Parker has almost no screen presence whatsoever. I think the idea is that Parker is not quite the cool existential loner he thinks he is, but Parker comes across as a poor parody of cool. He has a drony, flat voice that kills any life his lines may have. Films like this show you how tricky screen acting is. Even walking naturally on screen needs skill. Just watch the nurse in the mental home when Parker goes to visit his mother – head back and arms flapping, she strides down that corridor like it was a catwalk.
If you make it to the end the final scene has a nice irony to it but overall it's a deadly dull affair. Arguably it's no duller than The Limits of Control, but that was dull with Bill Murray, Paz De La Huerte, John Hurt and Isaach De Bankole, and that kind of cast can earn dullness a bit of leeway.
Extras.
Permanent Vacation’s chief merit is that, inexplicably, the Germans loved it and their enthusiasm gave Jarmusch's career the boost he needed. (Wim Wender even offered up some money to allow Jarmusch to buy some film stock to make Stranger Than Paradise.) The chief merit of the disc is the inclusion of an episode of Kino 84, in which the German equivalent of Barry Norman sent a film crew over to New York to make a 40 minutes film on him during the making of his second film.
The film is interesting little time capsule. That period was the most violent and lawless in New York history yet just five years later the tough streets were beginning to be cleaned up. It's also enlightening just how precious and up themselves Jarmusch and his collaborators were. Lurie is hostile to the German interviewer, cinematographer Tom DiCillo complains that he's not really a cinematographer but an actor while Jarmusch strides around in his sunglasses like he's his very own Velvet Underground song.
Jim Jarmusch collection
Directed by Jim Jarmusch. 1980.
Starring Chris Parker, Leila Gastil, Richard Boes, Frankie Faisan and John Lurie. 75 mins. Part of the Jim Jarmusch Collection released by Soda Pictures.
It's not unusual for the career of an acclaimed director to start with a duff first film. Often it's a fairly anonymous genre effort done just to get some experience, but sometimes its a work where you can see their style is already largely in place but there's something a bit off. In Jarmusch's debut most of the elements that would mark out his future work are already present – long unbroken scenes of people talking and people walking down the street in profile, the interest in cool outsiders, the unhurried pace – but there's none of the magic that would lift up his future films.
First films are for learning and the main lesson learnt from this was surely if you are going to film long scenes of people talking be careful who you to choose to point the camera at. Permanent Vacation follows one Aloysius Parker, a self styled outsider as he drifts around New York, meeting up with various other outsider characters. Nobody has much to say for themselves and those that do don't have anything interesting to say.
The film's main problem is that lead actors Chris Parker has almost no screen presence whatsoever. I think the idea is that Parker is not quite the cool existential loner he thinks he is, but Parker comes across as a poor parody of cool. He has a drony, flat voice that kills any life his lines may have. Films like this show you how tricky screen acting is. Even walking naturally on screen needs skill. Just watch the nurse in the mental home when Parker goes to visit his mother – head back and arms flapping, she strides down that corridor like it was a catwalk.
If you make it to the end the final scene has a nice irony to it but overall it's a deadly dull affair. Arguably it's no duller than The Limits of Control, but that was dull with Bill Murray, Paz De La Huerte, John Hurt and Isaach De Bankole, and that kind of cast can earn dullness a bit of leeway.
Extras.
Permanent Vacation’s chief merit is that, inexplicably, the Germans loved it and their enthusiasm gave Jarmusch's career the boost he needed. (Wim Wender even offered up some money to allow Jarmusch to buy some film stock to make Stranger Than Paradise.) The chief merit of the disc is the inclusion of an episode of Kino 84, in which the German equivalent of Barry Norman sent a film crew over to New York to make a 40 minutes film on him during the making of his second film.
The film is interesting little time capsule. That period was the most violent and lawless in New York history yet just five years later the tough streets were beginning to be cleaned up. It's also enlightening just how precious and up themselves Jarmusch and his collaborators were. Lurie is hostile to the German interviewer, cinematographer Tom DiCillo complains that he's not really a cinematographer but an actor while Jarmusch strides around in his sunglasses like he's his very own Velvet Underground song.
Jim Jarmusch collection
