Mystery Train

Mystery Train
Poster for Mystery Train
Directed by	Jim Jarmusch
Produced by	Jim Stark
Written by	Jim Jarmusch
Starring	Youki Kudoh Masatoshi Nagase Screamin' Jay Hawkins Cinqué Lee Nicoletta Braschi Elizabeth Bracco Rick Aviles Joe Strummer Steve Buscemi
Music by	John Lurie
Cinematography	Robby Müller
Editing by	Melody London
Distributed by	Orion Classics (USA)
Release date(s)	May 13, 1989 (Cannes Film Festival) November 17, 1989 (United States)[1]
Running time	113 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English Italian Japanese
Budget	$2,800,000[2]

Mystery Train is a 1989 independent anthology film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and set in Memphis, Tennessee. The film comprises three different stories involving foreigners (a Japanese couple, an Italian widow, and a British criminal) unfolding over the course of the same night. They are linked by one run-down hotel run by a night clerk (played by Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and his dishevelled bellboy (Cinqué Lee), a scene featuring Elvis Presley's "Blue Moon",^[3] and a gunshot.

The film was entered into the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Artistic Achievement.

Plot

The first story, "Far From Yokohama", features a teenage couple from Yokohama, Japan—Mitsuko (Yuki Kudoh) and Jun (Masatoshi Nagase)—making a pilgrimage to Memphis, Tennessee during a trip across America. Mitsuko is obsessed with singer Elvis Presley, even to the extent of proclaiming him to be the basis for Madonna and the Statue of Liberty. The narrative follows the couple from the train station through downtown Memphise, an exhaustive trip to Sun Records and their checking-in to the Arcade, a run-down hotel where each scantily-furnished room is adorned with a portrait of Elvis Presley and presided over by the night clerk (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and bellboy (Cinqué Lee).

The second story, "A Ghost", follows a stop-over with an Italian widow, Luisa (Nicoletta Braschi), escorting her husband's coffin back to Italy. Stuck in Memphis for the night (after being conned twice and stuck with armfuls of magazines), she is forced to share a room at the hotel with Dee Dee (Elizabeth Bracco), a young woman who talks constantly. When Dee Dee finally quietens and goes to sleep, Luisa still doesn't get any sleep, due to a visit from an apparition of Memphis' most famous export – Elvis Presley.

In the final story, "Lost In Space", Dee Dee's husband, Johnny (known, much to his chagrin, as Elvis, and played by former Clash front-man Joe Strummer) is introduced. Having gotten himself drunk after losing his job, Johnny drives around the city along with his friend Will Robinson (former stand-up comic Rick Aviles) and brother-in-law Charlie (Steve Buscemi). When they stop at a liqour store, Johnny brandishes a gun and attempts to rob it, severely wounding the owner in the process. The trio retire to the hotel to hide out for the night, which Johnny spends getting further drunk. There, Charlie realizes that Will shares the same name as the character Will Robinson from the television show Lost in Space, which Johnny's never heard of. Charlie and Will proceed to tell him about the show, which Will says that's how he feels now 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 then tries to shoot himself, and while struggling to stop him, Charlie gets shot in the leg. Leaving the hotel, the three escape a police car that isn't even looking for them. The closing credits show the train and the airport and the final views of the characters from the first two stories.

Cast

"Far from Yokohama"

• Masatoshi Nagase as Jun
• Youki Kudoh as Mitsuko
• Screamin' Jay Hawkins as Night Clerk
• Cinqué Lee as Bellboy

"A Ghost"

• Nicoletta Braschi as Luisa
• Elizabeth Bracco as Dee Dee, sister of Charlie the Barber.

"Lost in Space"

• Joe Strummer as Johnny aka Elvis
• Rick Aviles as Will Robinson
• Steve Buscemi as Charlie the Barber

Jarmusch's long-time girlfriend Sara Driver makes an appearance in the film as an airport clerk, while Tom Waits reprises his role of radio DJ Lee Baby Sims from Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986), though only as a voice appearance. Other cameos include Rufus Thomas as the man in the train station who greets the Japanese couple,^[4] 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.^[1]

Production

Jarmusch wrote the script for the film under the working title "One Night in Memphis",^[5] without ever having been to the southern city.^[6] As with his other films, his starting point for writing the script for Mystery Train was the actors and characters he had foremost in mind.^[7] The interconnected stories were inspired by Jarmusch's dwelling on literary forms, and specifically the work of Chaucer,^[8] "Italian episodic films" and "Japanese cinema of ghost stories".^[9][10] He wrote the part of Luisa with actress Nicoletta Braschi in mind; the two had previously collaborated on Down by Law (1986), and Jarmusch sent her the screenplay in May 1988.^[11] Other frequent Jarmusch collaborators who worked on the film included John Lurie, who provided the original music, and cinematographer Robby Müller.^[12]

The film was financed by Japanese conglomerate JVC Company and produced on a budget of $2.8 million.^[13][2] Mystery Train was filmed in the Summer of 1988,^[14] and unlike Jarmusch's previous black-and-white films, was shot in bright, primary colors.^[15][16] Stills from the film as well as on-location shots of the actors and the film crew were collected by photographer Masayoshi Sukita and published to accompany the film as Mystery Train: A Film by Jim Jarmusch.^[14]

Release

The film had its domestic premiere at the 27th New York Film Festival (1989),^[17] thereby emulating the director's previous features Stranger Than Paradise (1984) and Down By Law (1986).^[18] The Miami Herald declared it the "quiet triumph" of the festival.^[19] The film was picked up for theatrical distribution by Orion Classics in the United States, where it was released under a R-rating (according to which filmgoers under the age of seventeen required an accompanying parent or adult guardian to view it in theaters) due to scenes featuring brief nudity and mild profanity.^[20][21] Its total domestic gross was $1,541,218, making it the 153th highest-grossing film of 1989, and the 70th highest R-rated film of the year.^[20] Internationally, it was first shown in competition at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival on May 13 and 14, 1989,^[18] and subsequently featured in the Edinburgh, Midnight Sun, London and Toronto film festivals.^[1]

Critical reception

Mystery Train like Jarmusch's previous films was critically well-received, particularly after its showing at Cannes, where it was recognized as the festival's Best Artistic Achievement.^[22][23] Review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes assigned it an 80% "fresh" rating, based on twenty critical reviews.^[24] Entertainment Weekly reviewer Ira Robbins gave the film a B+ rating, complimenting it as "conceptually ambitious" and concluding that its "offbeat characters, fine cinematography, and novel structure make for entertaining viewing".^[25] Robert Fulford of The National Post hailed it as "eccentric and deliriously funny",^[26] with Rolling Stone's Phil Whitman commenting that the director's "bracing, original comedy may be mostly smoke and air, but it's not insubstantial".^[15] The Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert proclaimed that "[t]he best thing about Mystery Train is that it takes you to an America you feel you ought to be able to find for yourself, if you only knew where to look."^[27]

Of the film's characters, critic Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader wrote that some were "beautifully imagined and realized, while others seem drawn from a more familiar stockpile, designed for reuse rather than discovery".^[28] Postmodern cultural critic bell hooks cited the interaction in the Memphis train station between Thomas and the Japanese couple as one of the few examples of the challenging and subversion of blackness in American film.^[29] In The New York Times, Vincent Canby called it "thoroughly fascinating, a delight" and the director's best effort to date, citing its retention of the "same kind of dour, discordant charm" exhibited by Stranger Than Paradise.^[16] He praised both Jarmusch's development as a screenwriter – citing the restrained dialogue, humor and subtlety of the narrative and the careful construction of the plot – and the performances he elicited from the ensemble cast.^[30][16] John Hartl, in The Seattle Times, also drew a comparison with Stranger Than Paradise, judging Mystery Train to be the more accessible work while retaining the dry wit of its predecessor.^[21] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post was unimpressed with the film, calling it Jarmusch's "least engaging, and the first in which his bohemian posturing actually becomes an irritant".^[31] Hinson's reproach was echoed by other reviewers who found that the film did not stray far stylistically from the director's earlier work – a critical backlash that would amplify following the release of Night On Earth (1991).^[32]

References

External links

• Mystery Train at the Internet Movie Database
• Mystery Train at The Jim Jarmusch Resource Page
• Mystery Train DVD review at dvdtimes.co.uk
• "Communication Breakdown" an essay on the film from the Bright Lights Film Journal
• Offline reading on the film, curated by Ludvig Hertzberg

v • d • e Films directed by Jim Jarmusch 1980s Permanent Vacation (1980) • Stranger Than Paradise (1984) • Down by Law (1986) • Mystery Train (1989) 1990s Night on Earth (1991) • Dead Man (1995) · Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) 2000s Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) • Broken Flowers (2005) • The Limits of Control (2009) Other Year of the Horse (1999) · Int. Trailer Night (2002)