Preview

Post Modernist Director: Jim Jarmusch

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2621 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Post Modernist Director: Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch is one of the prominent post-modernist directors whose works produced a profound impression on the audience and often evoked quite controversial emotions. His films are very original and convey the authentic message of the author, but the director often chooses such means of conveying his ideas that his works are perceived in different way by different people. In fact, some people enjoy his films and believe they are genius, while, on the other hand, there are people who do not really understand his works and are very critical in relation to his works. At the same time, it should be said that his films are destined not only for specialists but also for the mass audience, though the director’s ideas may be not always clear for ordinary viewers.
Nevertheless, the artistic value of his works is practically undeniable. As a rule, his films are stylistically and artistically rich. The director skillfully applies different stylistic devices which help him convey his message to the audience. Among films created by Jim Jarmusch, it is possible to single out his film “Down by Law”, which depicts the tragedy of main characters who have to pass through serious challenges in the course of the film. At the same time, this film is a perfect sample of post-modernist films, where main characters confront severe reality of the modern world and where it is really difficult to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong. In his film the author shows that in the epoch of high technologies, there are still a lot of problems which affect the life of ordinary people and make the life very difficult and even tragic.
On analyzing the film “Down by Law” by Jim Jarmusch, it is necessary to start with the title of the film because it gives insight into the contents and message of the film. In fact, the title of the film is quite symbolic, though it is practically directly indicates to the overwhelming power of law and its impact on an individual. The title of the film

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    He uses his analysis of the two media, the book and the film, to make his final argument that filmic novels are not good for screening. While the influence of film in these books, whether fiction or non-fiction novels, justifies in their story telling and development, the vice versa is not true for film (Murray 132-137). Filmic novels are no easier to adopt for film than the traditional novels of the past times. While non-filmic novels give the filmmakers room for interpretation and creativity in their redesign, filmic novels give a framework for the redesign. Creating a film adaptation of such books requires the filmmaker to either create an exact translation of the original or to conceive a new piece of artworks, none which is a hard job as Murray shows in Brooks’ failure to create a great film adaptation of a great book. He ends the article by explaining that filmic novels are not easy for film redesigns due to their complexity (Murray 132-137). Sub-literary novels, he writes, whether filmic or not, make better film redesigns than distinguishable…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw” (Nelson Mandela). This quote expresses that each person is cable of circumventing the law to believe what they cerebrate is true and just. This however, is not implicatively insinuating that everything they do is veridical or ending with the best consequences. In the following short stories “Harrison Bergeron”(Kurt Vonnegut), “On the Sidewalk, Bleeding” (Ed Mcbain), and “Lamb to the Slaughter”(Roald Dahl), all the characters have thwarted around the law to get to what they believe in is postulate. A theme can also be illustrated that resisting oppression could lead to calamitous consequences.…

    • 159 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    PHL 612: Philosophy of Law

    • 5890 Words
    • 24 Pages

    PHL 612 Philosophy of Law [Calendar Description]: What is law? What makes something a legal norm? Should citizens always obey the law? What is the relationship between law and morality? This course will explore competing theories of law, such as natural law and positivism, and touch on crucial debates over civil disobedience, purposes of punishment, and interpretation of legal texts. It will deal with contemporary controversies over the legal regulation of human behaviour, for instance in matters of sexual morality.…

    • 5890 Words
    • 24 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Oscar Micheaux

    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The purpose of the auteur theory is then to analyze films if not to understand the characteristics that identify the director as auteur. In the study of film criticism, during the 1950s, the basis behind “auteur theory” studies how a director's film reflects the director's personal and creative vision, as if the director was the original creator or author. François Truffaut, the famous French film director and critic, maintains that a good director (including the bad ones), exhibits such a distinctive style if not promotes a consistent theme that his or her influence is unmistakable in the body of his or her work. Like Truffaut, Andrew Sarris believed through analyzing film, an ‘auteurist” becomes appreciative of directors whose works detail a marked visual style as well as those whose visual style was less noticeable but whose movies reflected a consistent theme. As a result of this influence by critics like Truffaut, the auteur theory and “auteurism” have become a very crucial and influential aspect of film criticism since 1954.…

    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Kracauer, Siegfried. “Basic Concepts.” Film Theory and Criticism. Braudy, Leo and Cohen, Marshall. New York: Oxford, 2009. 147-158.…

    • 2775 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first paragraph discusses how a law can be created for the right reasons, but ultimately be used to support injustices. The writer ties the second paragraph to the first by showing a clear need and purpose for breaking these "unjust" laws. The third paragraph gives the reader a glimpse at the history of civil disobedience, and its importance to society.…

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Justice is generally agreed upon in the Western world as the upholding of moral rightness through authority’s supervision of the law. However, due to differences in laws and authority figures around the world, every individual has a unique set of moral values and ideas of what is “right.” As a result, one may develop an idea of justice that seems corrupt to someone who is familiar with a different system of laws. Franz Kafka presents this scenario in his short story, “In the Penal Colony.” The officer of the penal colony believes that justice is the fulfillment of what is morally right through the violent punishment of all persons suspicious of breaking the law. Kafka invites his readers to consider that this idea of justice that contrasts…

    • 1974 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Over a period of time, specific audiences construct expectations of different types of media, related to either what they have been told, or perhaps what the media have exposed them to in the past. Indeed, it could be argued that the success of a film to a large degree, rests on whether or not such expectations are met, surpassed, else the audience successfully surprised. Certainly, such expectations have to be addressed by the film, if it is to be considered satisfying for the audience, and in this way, elements within the film, such as character representations, the narrative and cinematography are all important components which allow this to be achieved. Additionally, the social and political context in which the film is being viewed must be considered, as it is against this background that their expectations will have been formed.…

    • 3110 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The film also presents a critical question of which law is closest to a consensual perspective of justice: the fanatic or trackers?…

    • 2854 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The two texts Dracula and Nosferatu have been used to create the film shadow of the vampire. Shadow of the vampire is not a straight transformation of Dracula and Nosferatu, it is a new text representing new elements that resonate with a contemporary postmodern audience. This postmodern film has used elements from the two historical texts, in a playful and ironic fashion to appeal to a postmodern audience. One of the main aspects of the film that appeals to a postmodern audience is the idea of the emphasis on the process, which is all about making a film about the making of a film. Ironically the post modernists have used a film about the making of a film to critic the film industry, the very industry that produces their film.…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Dancing to the ceiling,” “kissed the ceiling,” and “breaking the chains,” metaphorically reflects on the abandonment of the laws in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron.” At the end of the short story, Harrison…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the Heat of the Night

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The novel and the motion picture have radically different perceptions of the attitudes and perceptions of the time. In adapting the plot, the producers of the motion picture created a work which is very different from that of the novel.…

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dead Poet Society

    • 543 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The concept of challenging authority is explored in the two texts: Dead Poets Society (1898) a film directed by Peter Weir and Raw (1998), a novel written by Scott Monk. Both texts involve an individual or group who challenge the authority of a certain power. The composers of these texts utilise film and literary techniques to broaden the audience’s understanding of challenging authority.…

    • 543 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Horror Genre Dissertation

    • 6729 Words
    • 27 Pages

    I have researched on the Horror genre, looking at when it begun, the decline in popularity it has foreseen and how it has been able to recreate itself each time. I looked at comedy horror films and what part it plays within the film industry.…

    • 6729 Words
    • 27 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Ideology Genre Auteur

    • 552 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Robin Wood’s essay: Ideology, Genre, Auteur, Wood revisits Hitchcock’s films and analyses the different characteristics in the films. Wood focuses mostly on Shadow of a Doubt and It’s a Wonderful Life in which he compares and describes the different values of Hollywood cinema. One of Wood’s major points to hear two opposing views. Wood stresses that a critics job should be to look at a piece as a whole rather than at the particular aspects of one of the theories or too superficially, like a genre. Wood, however, then demonstrates what a proper critic should be like, by analyzing and comparing every single aspect, characteristic, and plot details in Shadow of a Doubt and It’s a Wonderful Life.…

    • 552 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays