Director: Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Dead Man, Broken Flowers, Coffee and Cigarettes)
Writers: Jim Jarmusch
Starring: Isaach De Bankolé, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, John Hurt, Gael García Bernal
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 116 min.
(4.5/5)In my experience, the greatest films tend to be those I didn’t see coming, and in many of these cases only after a second or third viewing do they begin to resonate in my bones. They exist on the periphery of what I know or think I know, they taunt me with revelations that I maybe never considered or experienced before. I believe Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control could be one of these films, a masterpiece until proven otherwise. I remain dazzled by things I cannot account for, and while this could be a sort of self-delusion or con of art, I think something big happened here.
The Limits of Control operates on the premise of show not tell, and even though there are scenes where characters divulge exposition, nothing is quite what it appears to be. The film is a richly layered frenzy of semiotic images and linguistic turns of phrase that pose more than enact a narrative and in their flirtations with the audience they take us deeper down the rabbit hole. To call this meta would be an understatement, and while it is definitely swimming in the ether of Lynch’s Mulholland Dr, its less about mood and psychology so much as it is about ideas, and in this respect probably owes more of its lineage to the works of Godard.
In the representational component of this abstract painting we encounter a Lone Man (played stoically by Isaach De Bankolé) who intermittently drinks espressos, passes secret messages between contacts, takes in the sights and sounds of Spain, and refrains from having sex with a naked brunette. Espionage intrigue is clearly a veneer in this film, as is virtually everything in frame at every moment. While the film flirts with the dreadfully pedantic cipher-cinema of Godard’s Alphaville, Jarmusch allows his images to breathe in that Jarmuschian way; less about the need of deciphering to understand the loaded images, The Limits of Control requires you to perhaps sense in a more immanent way the essence of the ideas its collage effect serves.
These painting and collage metaphors I am using are deliberate. The Lone Man frequents museums and stares longingly at representations of life. In addition, music, dance, sculpture, performance are also at one point or another throughout the film displayed to our protagonist. He, like us, is a voyeur of the ‘reality’ surrounding him. The collage effect of layers of representation interpenetrating one another are part of the allure of this film, and though slight on content it is nonetheless full in associations. The Magritte surrealism of paintings within paintings is brought to life by the cinematography of this film, as Christopher Doyle sheathes everything with the same aesthetic deliberation and vitality that hangs in the walls of the museum. On a purely visual level, this is the most beautiful film I have seen in quite some time, and everything from the floor tile patterns to matchbox packaging to stylized cigarette burns are painfully rendered to propound this song of itself. The film dances even when it is standing still.
I look forward to revisiting this on dvd and deepening the analysis, but until that time here is my admittedly broad and tentative interpretation of what this film may be about. Tilda Swinton’s character in the film gives a long bit of exposition about the magic of cinema and how it can be experienced like a dream. Its easy to see that as emblematic of the film at large, which is unabashedly dream-like and rich in cinematic pastiche, but this to me is just one layer among many of this collage effect, as other characters provide their own non-cinematic qualifications for the ‘reality’ that is at stake in the film. To me, it is more about what joins everything together, the idea of aesthetics itself. But unlike the very cerebral approach of a Godard who has tackled this ‘idea’, Jarmusch has opened rather then closed the meanings, has embraced an ambiguity that is inescapable due to the very subjectivity of aesthetic experience. The title may be a clue to this: for whatever limits may be imposed on the semiotics of Jarmusch’s images, they are out of his control as director, he is playing them, arranging them, making something out of nothing but there seems to be a revelatory futility at work that is embraced in the film and that finally accepts the limits, and surrenders the film over to you.
This also makes sense of the tagline on the poster: “For every way in, there is another way out”.
I think Alphaville is a much more accessible movie than this.
Alphaville only works on a cerebral level, and as a veneer without any interest in the thesis of what Godard is doing I find it heartless and dull, whereas Limits of Control, while it does have a cerebral level to it, is not solely enjoyable on that level. There is a pleasure to Limits I don’t find in Alphaville, Godard is too damn interested in making things pedantic, and this isn’t pedantic, it may be boring to some but I never felt like I was being lectured to in the film.
that said, not ten minutes into the film someone was snoring in my audience. He hadn’t even arrived at the tower.
I’ll have to see this for sure now, to get the distinction you’re making between this and Godard. I’d argue that Godard is also not as much about deciphering as you seem to think, and more about playing with and testing the limits of cinema. At least in his 1960s work – I haven’t seen anything after Weekend – 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her and Weekend seem to me to veer a little more toward didacticism, but I seem much more playfulness in Breathless, A Woman is a Woman, Band of Outsiders, Pierrot le fou, and Made in USA especially. Contempt isn’t particularly playful, but I don’t think he comes fully to a conclusion, either, being rather more interested in exploring questions than in reaching conclusions.
I don’t think Godard’s meanings are closed, either – he picks up the same themes over and over in his films, modifying and morphing them, as if each film is a step on the way to a solution he may never reach, rather than containing its own answer.
In other words, the way you see the Jarmusch film seems to be very similar to the way I see Godard films, but obviously you’re seeing something almost opposite in Godard (similar on the surface, perhaps, but very ultimately very different). Watching Godard doesn’t lead me to think about the ideas in his films so much as to experience the texture of the film itself. Which sounds like what you got out of The Limits of Control (end of your third paragraph).
You seem particularly antagonistic towards Alphaville – interestingly, it’s not one of my favorites, either…at least seventh or eighth out of his pre-1968 films for me. (My favorite things about it are the Brave New World-esque language play scene and the wind-swept halls homage to Cocteau’s Orpheus.) What do you think of the others?
I’m thinking particularly of Alphaville when I am referring to Godard in this post, have you seen it Jandy?
I admit there are many Godards, I mean how many films has he made, and certainly Breathless is playful. But Alphaville is pedantic, its deliberately dense, and very much about ideas first. From what I have seen Godard is very keen on disrupting the flow of how we view cinema, I mean the whole New Wave movement is that but my experience has been largely about how Godard does this. I think that conceit can work but for me anyways it cannot work as the primary motive for the project, not post-mod conceit with story as empty vessel to get across this conceit. There has to be a dual ability for the film to work both narratively without the subtext and in tandem with it. It can’t feel pedantic. The Godard of Alphaville is very much that because everything is a disruption and exists solely to overturn convention. It is the cinematic equivalent of Pop Art, high concept low substance.
I compare Alphaville with Limits because they are superficially very similar, in that I am fully aware things exist in this film as signifiers and dialogue is used to be poetically expressive, the Alphaville template is superimposed on this universe of Limits, but it doesn’t overwhelm it, because there is enough life in itself to go on, which I feel is embedded in the thesis of the film… that everything you are seeing in the film is art, both the theory and practice together interwoven. Its hard to explain if you haven’t seen it, and even then its hard to explain… Kurt and I are hoping to do an extensive dialogue post about it when we watch it on dvd.
see even those things you consider favorite aspects of Alphaville are dependent upon external reference points to derive value… and what I am trying to say is what about Alphaville works on an immediacy level as cinema rather than commentary on cinema? To me virtually nothing. Its an empty vessel.
Limits is both theory and practice, is I guess the best most succinct way I can express what I mean. There is stuff to think about in it if you want to, A LOT, but your enjoyment does not hinge upon that solely, because alongside the knowable parts I believe there is a deliberate ambiguity that celebrates the subjective experience of aesthetics that extends beyond the limits of control.
Godard of Alphaville is the imposition of the limits of control, that Jarmusch is, I think, releasing back into the wild.
by the way, when you watch it let me know if I heard right: I believe John Hurt when speaking broken spanish says “Godard” at the end of his sentence.
I agree with you, mostly, on Alphaville. The reason it’s one of my less favorite Godard films is because it is pedantic. It’s one where I feel like he has Something He Wants To Say from the outset, rather than trying to explore his own responses to things, as he does in Contempt, Pierrot le fou, etc.
Interesting that you’re referring again to Godard as postmodern – I argued for his postmodern tendencies in a paper once, but most theorists see him as modernist (one intro to film theory book I read even used him as the example of modernist filmmaking by which to contrast postmodern films). If asked now, I’d probably say he’s postmodern in style but modernist in worldview. He’s seeking too hard for something to hold on to for him to be fully postmodern – ironically, the way you describe Jarmusch’s release of control sounds more postmodern to me. I don’t know that you’d disagree, as your distinction seems to be about the presence or absence of a signified (rather than just signifiers) – Jarmusch’s film has it, Godard’s doesn’t.
And I don’t know that Godard DOES work as anything other than a commentary on cinema most of the time. But I don’t have a problem with that. Sometimes he seems to get political (Le petit soldat, Made in USA, then increasingly through Masculin Feminin, 3 or 3 Things, and Weekend), but I think that’s mostly a mask, honestly, as you do – pretending to be about something in the world, but really about art. It just doesn’t bother me the way it bothers you – I enjoy it.
But re: my favorite moments in Alphaville – I saw Alphaville before I saw Orpheus, but I liked that scene anyway. I thought it was beautiful and worked within the story of trying to get away from an all-encompassing controlling force while still being drawn toward it almost metaphysically. It became MORE meaningful once I saw Orpheus, but I don’t think it wholly depends on knowledge of the reference. Same thing with the language play – it reminds me of Brave New World, but it isn’t dependent on it.
Dude… Alphaville rocks.
“What is the privilege of the dead?”
“To die no more.”
Alphaville is a cinema studies essay brought to life, I am surprised at the love for this film from everyone I talk to around here, almost makes me want to revisit to see what people are seeing that I am not.
I don’t know enough about Godard’s work to say in general terms if he is postmod or mod but Alphaville is very postmodern, its sole purpose for existing is to disrupt the familiar ways of telling a cinematic story, its like the postmod kitsch architecture.
Not to get too bogged down with labels, but I would say Limits is postpostmodern, and looking at wikipedia, reconstructivist, and I quote:
“A reconstructivist art work builds upon prior, deconstructionist artworks and techniques, but adapts them to classic themes and structures, with the goal of creating works of genuine emotion and significance. In this way, reconstructivism (when it works) combines the vitality and originality of deconstructionism with the comforts, pleasures and rewards of classicism. The overall purpose of reconstructivism is to reawaken a sense of the Real in a world where everything has been demonstrated to be an illusion.”
That is what I meant in my post, it possesses a genuine emotion and significance that distinguishes it from the distance Godard employs in Alphaville.
I should add how great it is that a poster as awesome as this is given a movie worthy of its spectacle. definitely buying it now.