Editing Jim Jarmusch (section)

===Themes===
[[File:Jim Jarmusch Cannes.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Jarmusch at the [[2005 Cannes Film Festival]]]]
Though his films are predominantly set in the United States, Jarmusch has advanced the notion that he looks at America "through a foreigner's eyes", with the intention of creating a form of world cinema that synthesizes European and Japanese film with that of Hollywood.<ref name=bio/> His films have often included foreign actors and characters, and (at times substantial) non-English dialogue. In his two later-nineties films, he dwelt on different cultures' experiences of violence, and on textual appropriations between cultures: a wandering Native American's love of [[William Blake]], a black hitman's passionate devotion to the ''[[Hagakure]]''. The interaction and syntheses between different cultures, the arbitrariness of national identity, and irreverence towards ethnocentric, patriotic or nationalistic sentiment are recurring themes in Jarmusch's work.<ref name=yabroff/><ref name=klein/>

Jarmusch's fascination with music is another characteristic that is readily apparent in his work.<ref name=allmovie/><ref name=canby/> Musicians appear frequently in key roles—[[John Lurie]], [[Tom Waits]], [[Gary Farmer]], [[Youki Kudoh]], [[RZA]] and [[Iggy Pop]] have featured in multiple Jarmusch films, while [[Joe Strummer]] and [[Screamin' Jay Hawkins]] appear in ''Mystery Train'' and [[GZA]], [[Jack White (musician)|Jack]] and [[Meg White]] feature in ''Coffee and Cigarettes''. Hawkins' song "[[I Put a Spell on You]]" was central to the plot of ''Stranger than Paradise'', while ''Mystery Train'' is inspired by and named after [[Mystery Train|a song]] popularized by [[Elvis Presley]], who is also the subject of a vignette in ''Coffee and Cigarettes''.<ref name=allmovie/> In the words of critic [[Vincent Canby]], "Jarmusch's movies have the tempo and rhythm of blues and jazz, even in their use—or omission—of language. His films work on the senses much the way that some music does, unheard until it's too late to get it out of one's head."<ref name=canby/>

During a 1989 interview Jarmusch commented on his narrative focus, "I'd rather make a movie about a guy walking his dog than about the emperor of China."<ref name=sante/>