A quintessence of dust: "Only Lovers Left Alive" | MZS

Madness! And so very welcome. The ethos of modern commercial cinema is hurry, hurry, hurry, faster faster faster. It's as if contemporary movies are made to please some hypothetical cigar-chewing old-movie boss type whose favorite phrase is, "Don't waste my time, kid." Because time is so very important to the viewer, you see. Because American moviegoers are so very busy. Busier than any generation in the history of human civilization, apparently. Doing what? Things that are much more important than contemplating a silent pause or admiring an intelligently framed shot, apparently. Like taking pictures of their food, or arguing with strangers on Twitter. I digress. Perhaps it's better not to speculate. 

But we do have a pretty good idea of what people, by and large, are not really doing much of anymore, relative to a generation or two ago: taking long strolls during which they spend a great deal of time admiring the play of light on buildings and the sound of wind rustling through trees; reading novels and poetry; discussing science and philosophy and considering those conversations a kind of entertainment. The vampires in "Only Lovers" are ambassadors from the past, the analog past, the tactile past, the meditative past: holdovers from a time of patience and concentration. They are basically your grandmother and grandfather, but they look like Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton, and sometimes they drink blood and lustily bare their fangs. 

Is Jim Jarmusch himself a vampire? It would explain a lot, including the easygoing empathy he has for these night dwelling, centuries-old bohemians. Were it not for their tendency to sip blood from dainty little chalices and flasks, Adam and Eve would more clearly seem stand-ins for a particular type of creative person: not a rich and famous and popular one, but a fringe dweller with addictive tendencies; perhaps a brilliant but under-appreciated innovator (like Adam, a multi-talented composer and musician who's been toiling away on a new kind of droning, doom-y, hypnotic nightclub music) or a connoisseur like Eve, who can match Adam Shakespeare quote for Shakespeare quote, takes suitcases of books with her on trips, and seems able to speed-read in different languages. (I should note here that, in this film's world, Shakespeare is a fraud, or a front; Christopher Marlowe, played by John Hurt in a rather amazing wig, is the true author of the Bard's poetry and plays, and Jarmusch's script generously quotes from passages of his work, especially ones pertaining to love and death.)

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