SIMONINI: Jim, do you make much music on your own outside of this project?
JIM JARMUSCH: For the last five years, I’ve been making music with a band called Sqürl [with Carter Logan and Shane Stoneback]. It’s very slow kind of molten stoner-y stuff. We’ve been making a lot of stuff for this new film that I’m working on.
SIMONINI: Which film?
JJ: It’s called Only Lovers Left Alive, with Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, John Hurt, Anton Yelchin, and Jeffrey Wright. It’s kind of a crypto-vampire movie. It’s a love story between two people who have been together for centuries and who happen to be vampires. It takes place in Detroit and Tangier, Morocco. It’s pretty strange. The characters have been alive for so long—she’s like 2,000 years old and he’s maybe 500 years old, and he’s actually a musician, the character. This mixing of lute music—this older, beautiful renaissance style—with electric feedback and the heavy rock trance drone stuff works beautifully in this film.
JJ: It’s called Only Lovers Left Alive, with Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, John Hurt, Anton Yelchin, and Jeffrey Wright. It’s kind of a crypto-vampire movie. It’s a love story between two people who have been together for centuries and who happen to be vampires. It takes place in Detroit and Tangier, Morocco. It’s pretty strange. The characters have been alive for so long—she’s like 2,000 years old and he’s maybe 500 years old, and he’s actually a musician, the character. This mixing of lute music—this older, beautiful renaissance style—with electric feedback and the heavy rock trance drone stuff works beautifully in this film.
SIMONINI: Do you ever consider making videos for your music?
JJ: I’d rather let other people make them. In a lot of my endeavors I’m a control freak, but with Jozef, he’ll title things, he’ll throw pieces to me, he’ll have ideas for sequencing things and for mixing them. He’ll say, “Why don’t you play that here?” He guides me, which is a relief because I’m usually the one organizing all the details.
JJ: I’d rather let other people make them. In a lot of my endeavors I’m a control freak, but with Jozef, he’ll title things, he’ll throw pieces to me, he’ll have ideas for sequencing things and for mixing them. He’ll say, “Why don’t you play that here?” He guides me, which is a relief because I’m usually the one organizing all the details.
SIMONINI: You’ve used the phrase “the agnostic concept of the godhead” a few times when discussing your song “Etimasia.” What does it mean?
JOZEF VAN WISSEM: It comes from this idea of Hetoimasia, which means “empty throne.” A lot of people don’t know if there’s a god or if there’s heaven. What is heaven? What is this concept of afterlife? And we just like to leave it open, to leave it at that.
JOZEF VAN WISSEM: It comes from this idea of Hetoimasia, which means “empty throne.” A lot of people don’t know if there’s a god or if there’s heaven. What is heaven? What is this concept of afterlife? And we just like to leave it open, to leave it at that.
JJ: I’m not monotheistic. I’m not into this one god thing. I’m interested in Buddhism and indigenous cultures but I’m not a practitioner. I learned some years ago that in Lakota Sioux, “god” is translated to “the great mystery” so there’s no definition of what it is. It’s just something that’s strong and mysterious but there’s nothing saying, “He will judge you.” It’s just the mystery of nature, of everything, the universe. So that makes a lot of sense to me. I think being agnostic means that you’reopen but you don’t have an opinion. I’m vegetarian but I don’t go around telling people why meat is murder. I think a sin in any religion should be telling anyone else what they should believe. That should be a crime. You should be slapped. You should be allowed to believe whatever you want. You want to stand on your head and worship Donald Duck? Man, that’s your choice.
SIMONINI: Is there a musicality to filmmaking?
JJ: They’re inherently related: a film passes before you on its own timeframe like a piece of music. It’s not like reading a book or looking at a painting—it has its own time signature. You take the ride, and you don’t control the speed or direction. You just get on the boat.
JJ: They’re inherently related: a film passes before you on its own timeframe like a piece of music. It’s not like reading a book or looking at a painting—it has its own time signature. You take the ride, and you don’t control the speed or direction. You just get on the boat.
SIMONINI: You have to just go with it, or—
JJ: Jump off.
JJ: Jump off.
Read the interview in full at Bullet.
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