Mystery Train is a 1989 independent anthology film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and set in Memphis, Tennessee. The film is a triptych of stories involving foreign protagonists unfolding over the course of the same night. "Far from Yokohama" features a Japanese couple (Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase) on a blues pilgrimage, "A Ghost" focuses on an Italian widow (Nicoletta Braschi) stranded in the city overnight, and "Lost in Space" follows the misadventures of a newly single and unemployed Englishman (Joe Strummer) and his companions (Rick Aviles and Steve Buscemi). They are linked by a run-down flophouse overseen by a night clerk (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and his disheveled bellboy (Cinqué Lee), a scene featuring Elvis Presley's "Blue Moon", and a gunshot.
Mystery Train | |
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French theatrical poster | |
Directed by | Jim Jarmusch |
Produced by | Rudd Simmons Jim Stark |
Written by | Jim Jarmusch |
Starring |
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Music by | John Lurie |
Cinematography | Robby Müller |
Edited by | Melody London |
Production company | Mystery Train Inc Victor Company of Japan MTI Home Video |
Distributed by | Orion Classics (USA) |
Release date | May 13, 1989 November 17, 1989 (United States) | (Cannes Film Festival)
Running time | 113 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English Japanese Italian |
Budget | $2,800,000 |
Box office | $1,541,218 (domestic) |
The starting point for the script was the ensemble cast of friends and previous collaborators Jarmusch had conceived characters for, while the tripartite formal structure of the film was inspired by his study of literary forms. Cinematographer Robby Müller and musician John Lurie were among the many contributors who had been involved in earlier Jarmusch projects and returned to work on the film. Mystery Train's US$2.8 million budget (financed by Japanese conglomerate JVC) was considerable compared to what the director had enjoyed before, and allowed him the freedom to rehearse many unscripted background scenes. It was the first of Jarmusch's feature films to depart from his trademark black-and-white photography, though the use of color was tightly controlled to conform with the director's intuitive sense of the film's aesthetic.
Mystery Train was released theatrically by Orion Classics under a restricted rating in the United States, where it grossed over $1.5 million. It enjoyed critical acclaim on the film festival circuit, and like the director's earlier films premiered at the New York Film Festival and was shown in competition at Cannes, where Jarmusch was awarded the Best Artistic Achievement Award. The film was also shown in the Edinburgh, London, Midnight Sun, Telluride, and Toronto film festivals, and was nominated in six categories at the Independent Spirit Awards. Critical reaction was overwhelmingly positive, with reviewers praising the structure, humor, and characters of the film, though there was criticism that the director had not been sufficiently adventurous.
Screenplay
The film consists of three stories that take place on the same night in downtown Memphis. The three stories are linked together by the Arcade Hotel, a run-down flophouse presided over by a night clerk (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and a bellboy (Cinqué Lee), where the principal characters in each story spend a part of the night. Every room in the hotel lacks a television (as is noted in each story) but is adorned with a portrait of Elvis Presley.
The first story, "Far from Yokohama", features Mitsuko (Youki Kudoh) and Jun (Masatoshi Nagase), a teenage couple from Yokohama making a pilgrimage to Memphis during a trip across America. Mitsuko is obsessed with Elvis, and has put together a scrapbook detailing her belief that the singer has a mystical connection to other cultural figures ranging from Madonna to the Buddah to the Statue of Liberty. The story follows the couple as they travel from the train station, through downtown Memphis and an exhausting tour of Sun Records, to the Arcade hotel, and eventually depart to board the train again.
The second story, "A Ghost", is about an Italian widow, Luisa (Nicoletta Braschi), who is stranded in Memphis while escorting her husband's coffin back to Italy. Luisa, after being conned twice, is forced to share a room at the hotel with Dee Dee (Elizabeth Bracco), a young woman who has just left her British boyfriend (Johnny from the final story) and plans to leave the city in the morning. Luisa is kept awake by Dee Dee's constant talking. After Dee Dee finally goes to sleep, Luisa is visited by an apparition of Elvis Presley.
The final story, "Lost in Space", introduces Johnny (Joe Strummer). Upset after losing his job and his girlfriend (Dee Dee), Johnny – called Elvis, much to his chagrin – drunkenly brandishes a gun in a bar before leaving with his friend Will Robinson (Rick Aviles) and his ex-girlfriend's brother, Charlie (Steve Buscemi), who believes Johnny to be his brother-in-law. They stop at a liquor store, which Johnny robs, shooting its clerk (Rockets Redglare) in the process. Fearing the consequences, Johnny, Will and Charlie retire to the hotel to hide out for the night; there, they all become increasingly drunk. Charlie realizes that Will shares the same name as the character Will Robinson from the television show Lost in Space, which Johnny has never heard of. Charlie and Johnny proceed to tell him about the show, and Will comments that the title describes how he feels then with Charlie and Johnny: lost in space. The next morning, Charlie discovers that Johnny isn't really his brother-in-law, which angers him because of what they've been through. Johnny attempts to shoot himself, and while struggling to prevent him, Charlie is accidentally shot in the leg. Leaving the hotel, the three rush to escape a police car that isn't even looking for them. The closing credits show the train, the airport and the final views of the characters from the first two stories.
- Masatoshi Nagase as Jun
- Youki Kudoh as Mitsuko
- Screamin' Jay Hawkins as Night Clerk
- Cinqué Lee as Bellboy
- Rufus Thomas as Man in Station
- Jodie Markell as Sun Studio Guide
- Nicoletta Braschi as Luisa
- Elizabeth Bracco as Dee Dee, Charlie's Sister
- Sy Richardson as Newsvendor
- Tom Noonan as Man in Arcade Diner
- Joe Strummer as Johnny aka Elvis
- Rick Aviles as Will Robinson
- Steve Buscemi as Charlie the Barber
- Vondie Curtis-Hall as Ed
- Tom Waits as Radio D.J.
Script and casting
Jarmusch wrote the script for the film under the working title "One Night in Memphis", without ever having been to the southern city. The idea for "Far from Yokohama", the first segment, he took from a one-act play he had been writing before filming Down by Law (1986). The play – unrelated to Elvis or Memphis – concerned a constantly argumentative young couple, one of whom gradually comes to realize that their fighting is a unifying force in the relationship. The interconnected stories were inspired by Jarmusch's dwelling on literary forms, and specifically the work of Chaucer, Italian episodic films and Japanese ghost story cinema. As with his other films, Jarmusch's starting point for writing Mystery Train was the actors and characters he had foremost in mind. The great number of these collaborators contributed to it being "the most complicated film to write and execute" according to the director.
—Jim Jarmusch, Interview, November 1989.
The role of Johnny was written by Jarmusch specifically for Joe Strummer, who had been the frontman of The Clash, the director's favorite 1980s rock band. Jarmusch had conceived the part a few years previously while the two were together in Spain, and although the musician had been in a period of depression at the time following the collapse of the band, he was drawn by the Memphis setting of the film. Unlike the jovial Steve Buscemi, Strummer did not stay on set to joke with the veteran actors between shots, but instead preferred to keep his own company, focusing intensively on orienting himself to the role.
Jarmusch had met blues singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins after featuring his music prominently in his breakthrough feature film debut Stranger Than Paradise (1984). Although reticent about acting, Hawkins responded favorably to the director's offer to appear. The part of Luisa was also written by the director with the star – actress Nicoletta Braschi – in mind; the two had previously collaborated on Down by Law (1986). Cinqué Lee is the younger brother of director Spike Lee, a longtime friend of Jarmusch from their days at New York University's film school, while Youki Kudoh was cast after the director saw her performance in S?go Ishii's The Crazy Family (1984) while promoting Down by Law in Japan. Repeat Jarmusch collaborators who worked on the film included John Lurie who provided the original music, cinematographer Robby Müller, and singer Tom Waits, who in a voice appearance reprised his role of radio DJ Lee Baby Sims from Down by Law. Other cameos include Jarmusch's long-time girlfriend Sara Driver as an airport clerk, Rufus Thomas as the man in the train station who greets the Japanese couple, Rockets Redglare as the clerk of the liquor store, Vondie Curtis-Hall as Ed, Sy Richardson as the news vendor, and Richard Boes and Tom Noonan as diner patrons.
Filming
Mystery Train was filmed in Memphis in the summer of 1988. After arriving in the city during a snowstorm to scout for shooting locations, Jarmusch drove around without direction before coming to the intersection of a disused train station, the Arcade Luncheonette diner, and the dilapidated Arcade Hotel that would become the film's core setting. He would later recount the experience in a March 1990 interview in Spin: "Man, ... this crossroad is filled with so many ghosts. You know Robert Johnson walked down that street, you know Muddy Waters was in that train station." The locale of the intersection was one of the film's primary formal elements; the effect of Jarmusch returning to the setting with different characters under different circumstances was one of the variations on a theme.
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