Travelling without Moving in Postmodernist (Road) Movies by Jim Jarmusch
Travelling without Moving in Postmodernist (Road) Movies by Jim Jarmusch

Summary/Abstract: Jim Jarmusch is today considered to be among the most prominent and highly revered of independent American film directors. He is well known for incorporating experimental music into his films, for his deadpan humor, and for his fondness for lone characters from the margins. Another prominent feature of his films is the adroit blending of the high and the low and the incorporation of elements of genre film, while simultaneously bending and twisting their boundaries and skewing their conventions. One genre in particular stands out in his oeuvre—that of the road film or road movie—and he has returned to it at several points in his career. Through the analysis of four of his films—Stranger than Paradise (1984), Dead Man (1995), Ghost Dog (1999) and Broken Flowers (2005)—this paper will, therefore, focus primarily on the notion of genre film, particularly the road movie genre and the ways in which Jarmusch establishes a postmodernist dialogue with its conventions in order to create a new, meaningful whole.

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