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| Jim Jarmusch with Adam Driver, Luka Sabbat, Tom Waits, Vicky Krieps and Indya Moore on the cast of Father Mother Sister Brother: “We found our way, each of us together. So generous and attentive and beautiful to get to work with all of them … Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother (Golden Lion winner of the 82nd Venice Film Festival), shot by Frederick Elmes and Yorick Le Saux, and edited by Adam Driver, Tom Waits, Mayim Bialik, Cate Blanchett, Indya Moore, Vicky Krieps, Luka Sabbat, and Charlotte Rampling was the Centerpiece Gala selection and a highlight of the 63rd New York Film Festival.
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| Jim Jarmusch: “I thought it’d be cool to make a film with Tom Waits as Adam Driver’s father.” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
The day after the press conference, music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman and I went to the Memorial for Robert Wilson, where Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan ran into us in the lobby of BAM’s Harvey Theater. Tom had worked with Bob on three productions: The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets (with William S Burroughs), Alice (with Paul Schmidt, based on Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland, and with Kathleen, Woyzeck (based on the play by Georg Büchner). Tom answered the pressing question I had from the day before: What is Cookie Chicken (alluded to in Father Mother Sister Brother)? He patiently gave me the history of its origin along with the recipe that he uses to make this dubious dish for his family in real life to this day.
Jim Jarmusch previously had seven of his films selected for the New York Film Festival: Stranger Than Paradise (NYFF22), Down By Law (NYFF24 Opening Night), Mystery Train (NYFF27), Night On Earth (NYFF29), Only Lovers Left Alive (NYFF51), Paterson and Gimme Danger (Special Event in NYFF54) all graced the festival and he designed the 61st official poster with an “image of film star Yûzô Kayama (Sword Of Doom, Red Beard, Sanjuro, etc.).”
Jarmusch’s latest comes in the form of a triptych. In the first segment, a father, played by Tom Waits, is visited by his two children, Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik). It has been a while since they all saw each other, and as we accompany the “kids” in the car, driving to a secluded house by a river, we hear them filling each other in about how puzzled they are in regards to Dad’s financial situation and living conditions.
By chance, it turns out they all decided to wear shades of burgundy for their respective sweaters - a running gag of seemingly genetic colour-coordination magic that runs through the entire film. As does the trope of water. Jeff wonders if one is allowed to toast with it. (No!) They do it anyway and the same question arises about tea and coffee.
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| Tom Waits with Jim Jarmusch on playing the father: “I do bring something of myself to it.” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
Several times, audiences may perceive something, question something, only to find the characters wonder the same thing out loud a few minutes later. The timing here is impeccable and funny, and Dad, who sports what he calls a fake Rolex and offers to cook a childhood favourite, called Cookie Chicken, may not be altogether what he seems.
The second chapter drops us off in Ireland, in the house of a famous writer, played by Charlotte Rampling, on a phone session with her therapist, preparing mentally for the annual visit by her two very different daughters. Cate Blanchett’s Timothea has car trouble on the way and Lilith (Vicky Krieps) is driven there by her secret girlfriend, who she has to pretend is her Uber driver.
The table spread looks like the Irish nuclear family version of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette pastries and treats, (complete with the visually always striking Battenberg checkerboard cake), but the conversation between the three mismatched women could hardly be more awkward. In a way, they resemble the pink and yellow squares, finely separated, also from the motherly marzipan enveloping them for this very short while.
The final episode features Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat), siblings who return after their parents’ sudden death to the empty Paris apartment where they grew up. They stop for a coffee first to give them strength, especially Skye, as it was her brother who emptied out the place and he has some objects to show her. There are photos, children’s drawings, the Rolex (sponsor of NYFF) from grandpa and mom’s movie star sunglasses. Plus a number of birth certificates and fake IDs.
How much do you really know your parents? How often do we jump to conclusions that turn out to be utterly false? These are the kind of questions posed by Father Mother Sister Brother. How the cast felt working with Jarmusch on this film, is what they discussed during the New York Film Festival press conference before the North American première:
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| Adam Driver with Jim Jarmusch on Tom Waits: “Tom, he’s incredible, an amazing actor.” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
Jim Jarmusch: I thought it’d be cool to make a film with Tom Waits as Adam Driver’s father. Really that’s what started writing that story. Mayim Bialik was a host on Jeopardy and I’m kind of a Jeopardy nerd and I hadn’t really seen her acting. She’s a famous TV actress, right? But I just thought, oh wow, that Jeopardy host kind of character could be close to the sister.
Then I started thinking about the Mother story and Cate and Vicky. I gathered them, sort of all the details and then I write really fast, like in a month. It’s really collecting disparate ideas that I don’t really know the overall connect-the-dots picture yet. I’ve worked with everyone before except with Charlotte Rampling but I was a fan. So I wrote for all these actors. Then I had to trick them into doing it. But I was successful.
Tom Waits: Well, yeah, Jim and I had done a lot of pictures together [The Dead Don't Die; Coffee And Cigarettes; Coffee And Cigarettes III; Mystery Train; Down By Law]. I don’t know where it is that I contribute genuinely, but I do bring something of myself to it. Which is really what you’re supposed to do. But I had a good time. I got up awfully early in the morning. That’s the only thing I’d like to correct in the future. But Adam and I had a good time. It was great. It was almost effortless.
Adam Driver: We [he and Tom Waits] had met briefly on The Dead Don’t Die. For me, Jim, anytime he calls about anything, I’m in, regardless of what it is. It could be wallpaper and I’d be interested in doing that. He’s one of my favourite directors of all time. He’s one of my favourite people, so there was no question. And the cast, doing it with Tom, he’s incredible, an amazing actor.
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| Indya Moore with Jim Jarmusch: “I got to do my best work on Jim’s film.” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
Vicky Krieps: It was very special in working with Jim, aside that he is also my all-time hero and I cannot even start telling what it means for someone like me to be asked by Jim Jarmusch to be in his movie. Making the film was in the best way like we used to make films when we were 15 and I think this is maybe the recipe to making a good film. It’s when you’re so honest that you know that making a film is just making a film.
But making a film like a student or a child means that you honestly try to take in everything that is really there in the moment when you are there. And I think that’s what Jim is doing. He’s not trying to turn it into science or make it like a thing or the next film of his own. It’s just a film and by being just a film it becomes everything for everyone. And it leaves the ego and the signature. It becomes music and poetry at the same time as it is a film.
Indya Moore: I got to do my best work on Jim’s film. But when it comes to my instrument as an artist what I find is that I’m able to provide the most sincere reflection of whatever human experience I’m reflecting as an actor when the environment supports that. Oftentimes, when you approach art from a corporate capacity it’s very easy to forget about the needs of the artist, the humanity of the space. The compassion, the respect that is necessary for everyone, from 1 to 110 up to the bottom of the call sheet.
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| Luka Sabbat with Vicky Krieps: “Jim creates such a great work environment and he’s particular without being arrogant …” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
I think a lot of people in power sometimes when it comes to creating, they get caught up in controlling the environment and they lose track of what it means to take care. I think Jim created a safe space through his intention to bring out the best of our humanity in this world. I felt respected. There was food. People were kind. I made so many friends, everyone’s really easy. I’m a very vocal artist, I don’t just tell people stories on screen, I talk about them in real life. For some reason that scares people. For me, I don’t compartmentalise humanity outside of my work or in it.
JJ: The film is constructed very very carefully to accumulate as three movements in one piece of music. Thanks to everyone who collaborated on this film. That’s why our feeling of shooting was good and positive and felt very focused and we worked really hard.
IM: Special shout out to YSL and Anthony (Vaccarello) for supporting us. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have met Jim.
JJ: That’s correct. We met working on a short film for Saint Laurent some years ago and they asked me to make a short surrealist film, anything I wanted. And we worked together with Chloë Sevigny, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Julianne Moore and we had fun making that little film. That’s where we met. It’s about French water. It’s called French Water.
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| Tom Waits at the press conference and with Ed Bahlman at the Memorial for Robert Wilson Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
Luka Sabbat: Jim creates such a great work environment and he’s particular without being arrogant or mean in any sort of way and he really knows how to communicate his ideas. For me it was so awesome, I always wanted to be an actor and I grew up watching his films.
I grew up in Paris and I had moved to New York to become an actor and then the first big-time movie I got to shoot back in Paris with like one of my favourite directors. I was so grateful being trusted with the script and then being on screen with Indya who was just like really really such a joy to work with, building this brother-sister connection in real time, off and on screen, was really really special.
JJ: This cast was just incredible to work with. They all work in different ways. It’s not all one way to work together. We found our way, each of us together. So generous and attentive and beautiful to get to work with all of them, so I’m really indebted to them because they embody some silly thing I imagine. And then to create it with this collaboration with these incredible people. So, thanks to you, guys!
Father Mother Sister Brother has two sold-out screenings at the London Film Festival, Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Adam Driver, and Cate Blanchett are expected to attend for an introduction and post-screening Q&A on Sunday, October 19 at 14:45pm.
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| The Memorial for Robert Wilson at BAM’s Harvey Theater Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
