392 - Down By Law, United States, 1986. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Did you hear the one about the D.J., the pimp, and the Italian?
It goes like this.
A D.J. and a pimp walk into a jail cell. The warden says, "You're guilty." The D.J. says, "I was set up." The pimp says, "I was set up." The warden says, "Oh, yeah. Well, here's an Italian to keep you company."
The Italian says, "I ham a good egg."
Ta! Ta! Ta!
Then the Italian tells his story. He was playing cards. He was cheating. They caught him cheating. They chased him into the billiards room. A man threw a ball at him. "You throw a ball against me, I throw a ball against you, no?" So he threw a ball back. The 8-Ball. He hits the very big man. First stroke. Dead. On the ground.
It was the Italian in the Billiards Room with the 8-Ball. I win!
He blackballed him.
Ta! Tum! Ta!
Zack and Jack and Roberto are stuck in this small cell. If their notches on the wall are accurate, they have been here 187 days. But how did they get here?
For that we must go back to the beginning.
The film is composed of three acts: the streets of New Orleans, Orleans Parish Prison, and the swamps. We follow Zack's and Jack's stories in the first section, where we are also introduced to Roberto.
Zack is played by singer-songwriter Tom Waits, who also provides the songs for the film.
Hey, little bird, fly away home.
Your house is on fire; your children are alone.
The film opens with "Jockey Full of Bourbon" playing as we car-dolly down the streets of New Orleans. The urban streets. The rural streets. Streets with history. Streets with character. We pause twice to meet our protagonists and their women, and then return to the driving shots--moving right to left, then left to right, and then right to left again.
Zack is with Laurette, played by a young Ellen Barkin. She is tired of how he treats her, and tired of how he keeps losing jobs at radio stations. He is talented, and he has worked at big stations in New York, Detroit, and Baltimore. But he keeps getting into arguments with his station managers and he keeps losing jobs. He has just lost a job here in New Orleans. She calls him "stubborn and stupid."
Jack is played by musician and Jarmusch staple John Lurie. Lurie founded the jazz group The Lounge Lizards with his brother Evan. He later founded the John Lurie National Orchestra. He now paints and continues to compose.
Jack is with his girl Bobbie. He prides himself on how he takes care of his girl, but she mocks and accuses him of not taking care of her.
The men are each set up in interesting ways.
Back in the jail cell, Roberto speaks little English. He has a spiral-ring flip-pad on which he has written some phrases to help him.
"If looks can kill, I am a dead man."
"Not enough room to swing a cat."
"I have the hicc-outs."
His phrases do not help him very much.
Roberto draws a window on the wall.
He asks, "Do you say in English, 'I look hout the window,' or do you say in English, 'I look hat the window"?
Jack explains, "Well, in this case, Bob, I'm afraid you gotta say, 'I look at the window.'"
Because Roberto has watched American prison escape movies, he knows how to escape.
Jarmusch cleverly does not show us how. We just cut to their run through the swamps. And then the movie gets really fun.
Cinematographer Robby Muller with his black-and-white photography makes good use of the landscape to give you the feeling that they are in the middle of nowhere miles away from nowhere.
Roberto is played by Roberto Benigni, most known for his Oscar-winning film with his Oscar-winning performance, Life is Beautiful (1999). But he had acted in and directed several movies in Italy before then. He was still unknown in America when Jim Jarmusch began working with him in his own films.
Nicoletta Braschi plays Nicoletta in this film, and it was here where Benigni met her, whom he later married and cast in all his movies. They have since made around six films together.
The men get lost.
And they become archetypal.
Walt Whitman. Robert Frost. Mark Twain.
Italian and American fugitives quoting American writers.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler . . .
Wait. What if you could be two travelers? Then you can travel both.
Look, man. Don't matter to me. You go whichever way you want, right?
Then I'll go the other way.
That sums up Jim Jarmusch.
He has gone the other way.
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