The Jim Jarmusch Collection: Volume 1

Evidently any extras for Permanent Vacation have gone on an extended holiday...

If Stranger Than Paradise the main feature defines 'laid back', then Stranger Than Paradise In Cleveland the extra is positively soporific. Shot on Super 8 by Jim Jarmusch's brother Tom on location in Cleveland (which is to say in and around a car in the snow), this silent, narrative-free document is less featurette than home video, showing the real cold behind the film's studied sense of cool, and focusing more on the cast and crew as friends than as part of a filmmaking process. Does one detect in the way that Tom shoots Sara Driver's face a connection that goes beyond the professional? Richard Edson, on the other hand, proves charmingly camera-shy. Still, this is hardly riveting stuff.

The included trailer for Stranger Than Paradise, isolating slow-paced scenes away from their context, is even more low-key than the film that it advertises, and probably won Stranger Than Paradise few converts (even if it is remarkably true to its spirit).

If the first two films in this Collection suffer from a paucity of extras, then Down By Law more than compensates.

It seems entirely appropriate that a film with such memorably elegant tracking shots and long takes, such a crisp monochrome look, and such flawless use of natural (and well-hidden artificial) light, should include something on the cinematographer, and accordingly there are 22 minutes of interview with Robby Müller, who expresses his great admiration for Jarmusch (from whom he learnt "how films should be"), discusses the cinematographer's art ("you should not feel the camera"), bemoans the end of the era when it was possible to make truly independent movies, and claims that the only direction he received from Jarmusch was: "it's just a fairytale." Interspersed throughout the interview are production stills whose vivid colour contrasts with the film's black and white.

There is a total of 16 deleted scenes from the film, including an alternative, somewhat more mean-spirited ending. All are of high quality (apart from minor sound problems on two), and presumably were omitted from the final cut not because there is anything wrong with them as such, but because they did not quite fit into the film's carefully managed pace and rhythm. Most noteworthy are several dark sequences that show Jack (John Lurie) going stir crazy (all trace of which ended up on the cutting room floor).

Jarmusch claims he cannot stand to rewatch his old films, so in place of a director's commentary, there is something just as good: three phone 'interviews', each about half an hour, conducted by the director in 2002 with the three stars of Down By Law. Tom Waits observes that "it takes a lot of courage to wear plaid", and that the film is "like an odd ride – it's like a funhouse, but the car's moving very slow", while Jarmusch admits to him that Down By Law was the best experience he has ever had on a film production, and that most of the film's dialogue was improvised by the cast. Declaring Down By Law the greatest film in the world (it is certainly the coolest), Roberto Benigni still sounds as effusive and irrepressible as the character he played some 15 years earlier. He in fact spoke no English when he signed up to the film, and had never been to the US ("first time in America, I'm in a swamp with the crocodile!"). John Lurie reminisces about his childhood in New Orleans, and describes a terrifying local pimp with whom he rode as preparation for the film.

Finally, there is the video for Tom Waits' It's Alright With Me, directed by Jarmusch, and featuring monochrome tracking shots reminiscent of Down By Law.