Music: Del Byzanteens

In the early 80s before/around the release of Jim Jarmusch's debut Permanent Vacation Jarmusch was in the 'Del Byzanteens', which apparently had a bit of an underground success here in the UK. They released two singles and one album, all on vinyl only. Above is a live performance of My World is Empty which features backing vocals and keyboards from Jarmusch and sax by John Lurie.

You can also listen to there album and download three mp3s on the official MySpace page

Film: Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Now this is Jarmusch's true debut!

Split into three episodes in the first an Hungarian girl called Eva comes to America to live with her aunt but must stay with her disinterested cousin Willy for 10 days till she gets out of the hospital. The second Willy and his best friend Eddie travel to Cleveland to visit Eva and in the last the three visit Florida.

Stranger Than Paradise started out as 30 minute short made on old stock given to Jarmusch by Wim Wenders and was later expanded int o the film we know today. Every scene is shot in single long takes with blackouts inbetween making the film presented more as moments than want conventional editing to conceive.

What Stranger has that Permanent Vacation didn't was ability bring across the actors/characters personalities making the quality of the acting less strident. An aspect that would be seen in later films where Jarmusch would cast many non-actors in roles.

Film: Permanent Vacation (1980)

A boy spends this time wandering the streets, at times coming across some odd characters.

I'm a huge fan of Jarmusch's work so I was excited to finally see this film. Permanent Vacation is his debut feature film, completely self funded and shot of 16mm. Jarmusch was a film student at the time of production and actually quit university to finish the film. It doesn't seem too surprising to me that the film has the same feel as a student film. The acting from the main leads is pretty terrible and is a far cry from the dream set of players that Jarmusch would soon be hand picking and writing parts especially for. Because of this the film seem too scripted and the actors at times seem to be too reliant on the script, with later films such as Down By Law a lot of the dialogue is improvised. The building used for the hospital scene also gives off an atmosphere of a student made film.

But enough of the negatives, John Lurie who would play keys in Jarmusch's next two film, has a small part as a street saxophonist. He and Jarmusch also collaborate on the soundtrack together. The main character Allie mostly wanders around streets of decay, which is the films main attraction however I think the sequence shown with the opening monologue as the stand out a moment. It shows an array of once occupied rooms which could be still in use but are purposely lacking in personal possessions.

Permanent Vacation is interesting but possible only to those with a liking towards Jarmuash or independent cinema, though it seems to be setting itself up as the archetypical indie-art house film it's probably safer to say that Jarmusch's next film Stranger Than Paradise is his true debut.