‘DOWN BY LAW’ DIRECTOR REFLECTS ON FAME

Framed by the blue-brown sky of afternoon Hollywood, Jim Jarmusch sat on the pale blue couch at his Chateau Marmont suite and groused (a little) about the necessary evils of promoting a new movie, Hollywood-style.

“I don’t mind the whole process when it’s about my work, and I think it’s necessary to promote a film like ‘Down by Law’,” the director said in the flat twang of a native Ohioan. “What makes me nervous is when people want to write about things that have nothing to do with the work.

“I don’t like it when people have to write about how you dress or whether you chew ‘post-modernist gum,’ ” the 33-year-old film maker continued, alluding to a recent published interview with him. “The problem is that even if you don’t engineer your image, people are just going to assume you did. And it’s just a waste of time for me to try to counter that because that’s not what I do.”

What Jarmusch has done is to have written, edited and directed two of what have been called “American foreign films”--tightly budgeted independent films full of quirky visual puns on audiences’ expectations of narrative films. And doing these things makes Jarmusch--a self-effacing, young-looking man gone prematurely gray--much happier than dealing with selling the finished product.

The marketing angle especially galls him, since his work--contemplative small films that rely on mood, style and offbeat dialogue--often is packaged to appeal to the “pseudo-hipster crowd.”

(Jarmusch’s films generally show at only a few screens in major markets. Since its opening Oct. 3, “Down by Law,” playing at the Beverly Center Cineplex, the Royal in West Los Angeles and the Balboa Cinema in Newport Beach, has taken in $60,000 in ticket sales, considered a respectable figure.)

“It’s kind of insulting when journalists decide to tell you that now you’re hip--while you never said you were hip--and then they get to turn around and say you’re not hip anymore,” continued Jarmusch, dressed somberly save for a pair of shiny, chained cowboy boots. “It’s like, you say, ‘Well, hey! I never said I was hip in the first place!’ And then it becomes your problem all of a sudden. Well, I’m learning as I go, anyway.”

He also believes he’s learning the cinema trade as he goes. He said he tries not to let reviews or criticisms--most of which have been favorable, for both “Down by Law” (which opened the New York Film Festival) and his 1984 work, “Stranger Than Paradise”--affect that learning process.

“Reviews are kind of like cheap drugs: They get you up or bring you down for a few hours and then afterward it’s just something that happened to you a few hours ago,” he said with a dry chuckle. “That’s why I don’t mind bad reviews and it’s why I don’t mind negative things written by people who understood it and thought about it and didn’t like it, or by those people who honestly just didn’t get it.”

In terms of how he grades himself, Jarmusch gives a different report.

“I feel fairly confident of myself visually--as a crafter of cinema--and as a writer, but what I need work in and what I really want is to be a director of actors,” he said, lighting another cigarette. “That’s essential, and I’ve got a long way to go to break the ice--I’ve just started to become aware it is ice. And ‘Down by Law’ was a big step in that direction.”

The new film also represented a more than fivefold increase (from $180,000 to $1,030,000) in budget over the shoestring “Stranger,” a reflection of the film business’ recognition of his earlier film’s impact. Jarmusch said the money helped him attract a noted cinematographer (Robby Mueller, who worked for German director Wim Wenders) and allowed him a few creature comforts (such as an air-conditioned trailer) during “Down by Law’s” shooting schedule.

“ ‘Stranger’ was a scramble to get any money at all--in a way, that scramble somewhat shaped the way it evolved,” he noted dryly. “ ‘Down by Law’ was the opposite: I wrote the story, I wrote the script and then we made budgets, just like the big boys do. I was able to pay people adequately; I was even able to have a production office. It was refreshing.”

At this stage in his career, Jarmusch couldn’t see spending “more than $2 million” on his next project (about which he was superstitiously silent), and the New York-based film maker expressed amazement at “the way money is spent out here.”

“I can’t understand how a simple film about characters winds up costing $7 million--you know they could have made it for $2 million, easy,” he continued, settling restlessly against the couch and gesturing at the view out the windows. “I guess it’s because of this whole network of agents and lawyers whom I see as basically skimming all the money off to put together some kind of marketing package. That, to me, is a greater waste of money than a film that is about special effects. At least with a special-effects movie, you know what your money’s going into. But what’s the money going for in that other case? I guess a lot of swimming pools.”

And publicity, perhaps?

Jarmusch winced slightly, then nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I have trouble with all this self-revelation,” he said curtly. “I really don’t understand why we indulge in a cult of personality rather than a cult of work.

“When a ‘famous’ director shows up two hours later than his crew in some kind of elaborate transportation and brings in his entourage and his specially catered lunches and his special bottled waters--that really upsets me, too, because I think the director is no more important than the production assistant who’s out there directing traffic control,” he continued, crossing his arms. “You’re not going to get the shot if he’s not doing his job, just like you won’t get it if you’re not doing your job as the director or the cinematographer. It’s all interconnected and this personality-cult thing about ‘famous’ directors defeats that delicate kind of teamwork. Often it makes the film a drag to behold.”

But Jarmusch feels that the tone and reach of his work preclude--for now anyway--his achieving “famous” status.

“Still infamous, I guess,” he said, smiling. “As long as I keep trying to go past the expected, established peaks in my movies--shooting for the denouement rather than the climax--I’ll be staying at a million a movie.

“And that’s fine,” he added, patting the plush couch. “Heck, I hate to say it, but that’s almost comfortable.”