Sublime Banality: The Sensibility of Jim Jarmusch

Using deadpan realism to mask a deep sense of the absurd, Jim Jarmusch has a mindset unmatched by any other American director (though, as we’ve noted, he’s got a spiritual twin in Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki). Indeed, despite his dryness, he’s awfully quick with the razor-sharp left-field gag: the aging gangster who abruptly launches into a Flavor Flav rap, or the hired killer who carries around a teddy bear. This series gathers six Jarmusch films, starting with 1986’s Down By Law, casting Tom Waits and Roberto Benigni as prisoners on the lam, and winding up with our favorite, the hip-hop Zen noir Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Also in the series on Mondays and Tuesdays: Fishing With John, a droll documentary series originally made for the Independent Film Channel, in which host and longtime Jarmusch actor John Lurie goes out trolling for carp with hipster musicians and actors like Waits, Dennis Hopper, and Willem Dafoe. It’s like John Candy’s old SCTV sketch “The Fishin’ Musician” brought to life.