Infinite Variations

Jim Jarmusch’s new film Limits of Control has just been released to DVD. It is a wonderfully abstract film with sensational cinematography by Chris Doyle. As an added bonus, there is a nifty documentary included on the DVD that includes scenes of Jarmusch and Doyle during the production of the film. (I may post a clip to YouTube in the next few days). It is in this bonus material that Jarmusch states the following:

“Nothing is original. All human expression is really just endless variations. There are only a limited number of stories you can tell. But there’s an unlimited number of ways to tell the same story”

What Jarmusch says here is interesting and consequential for young would-be screenwriters and filmmakers. It is the how that is essential (how you tell the story), much more so than the what (what is it about). And yet, most screenwriting manuals and filmmaking manuals tell you the reverse: they tell you that the how has been solved for you in advance; the mold into which your story will be poured into is preset, has been fabricated in advance. Your job as a screenwriter or filmmaker – according to these guides – is to focus on the what and to make this what go “pop” (especially for the producer who sees $$ flash before his mind’s eye). This is one of the reasons why there are so few interesting films being written or shot today. The what is pure gimmick and the how is pure formulae. Worse, this focus on what means that most aspiring young filmmakers pay little attention to the medium they are working in, when in fact the opposite should be the case: to focus on the how – how you tell the story – would mean that one thinks specifically about the medium they are using, to think about the modes of expression made possible by or through this medium that distinguishes it from other kinds of storytelling. Films tell stories with images drawn from the everyday world; images in movement and time; images placed in relation with other images and transformed through their contact with sound. What the consequences of this are for the stories we tell in cinema, and how we tell them, should be one of the central concerns of young screenwriters and filmmakers.

So, far from being discouraged by Jarmusch’s statement, we should use this as the starting point for our investigations/research into the medium. Indeed, what he is pointing to – if we think about it – is profoundly complex and mysterious: how is it that the same story can produce endless variations? How is it that the same story never exhausts itself but has the potential to reveal, through its repetition, a hidden reserve of meaning, an unexpected depth of feeling? And what role can cinema play in revitalizing the limited repertoire of stories through which we come to know ourselves, through which we come to know the world?

S I-G