What is family if you can’t depend on them to stress you out or support you. Sometimes you get the best of people and other times you just get people at their worst. Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother, a mixed bag of three disconnected families who successfully reconnect or fail miserably at basic conversation. It is reflection of the very first people who shape their identity, wants and needs.
In celebration of Father Mother Sister Brother, NYFF held a press conference to provide a deep dive in the mind of its creator Jarmusch, and stars Adam Driver, Luka Sabbat, Tom Waits, Vicky Krieps, and Indya Moore.
“I always have a kind of half hazard way of writing where I’m gathering small ideas that I don’t quite know the overall structure or picture yet and I write thinking of actors I would like to collaborate with on these characters,” Jarmusch began. “So, I started with the first thing I thought was it be cool to make a film with Tom Weights as Adam Driver’s father. That’s where it started. While writing that story, [I thought of my sister], she was a host on Jeopardy and I’m a kind of Jeopardy. I just thought, ‘Oh, wow. That Jeopardy host kind of character could be close to the sister.’ And then while kind of thinking about that, I started thinking about the mother story and Kate and Vicki. They all kind of happened. I gather them sort of all the details and then I write really fast like a month. But it’s hard. I can’t exactly tell you how it works because it’s really collecting separate ideas that don’t quite connect the dots picture yet, he explained.
“I’ve worked with everybody before except never with Charlotte, but I was a fan. So, all I wrote for all these actors. Luca and Indya, I had worked with both before, and I wrote all for these actors. I had to trick them into doing it, but I was successful. It’s sort of presumptuous to write for someone and then not really them not know it and then if they don’t want to do it, it’s kind of a disaster and have to rethink it and but that rarely has happened. So, I’ve been very lucky,” Jarmusch finished.
For Waits, joining the cast was an easy decision. “Jim and I have done a lot of pictures together, so I don’t know what it is that I contribute genuinely but I do bring something of myself to it which is really what you’re supposed to. But I had a good time. I got up early in the morning saying that’s the only thing I’d like to correct in the future. I had a good time. Yeah, it was it was great. It was almost effortless.”
Driver wanted to work with Jarmusch no matter what. “We have met briefly on the Don’t Die and for me, any anytime he calls about anything I’m in, regardless of what it is, if it’s there to be wallpaper, I’d be interested in doing that. He’s one of my favorite directors of all time. He’s one of my favorite people. So, to me, there’s no question. And the cast, to do it with Tom, he’s incredible. He’s amazing actor. Jim is very particular about what’s in the frame. So, you come knowing that someone’s paying attention, there’s no detail that’s too small, it’s all worth it and makes it fun,” said Driver.
Krieps added to that sentiment, “We wake up early and then we make a film. And I think what was very special with working with Jim aside that it is also my all-time hero and I cannot even start telling you what it means for someone like me. Making the film was in the best way, like we used to make films when we were 15. I think the recipe to making a good film is when you are so honest that making a film is just making a film. That is also nice and it’s very very difficult. But to make a film like a student or like a child means that you honestly try to take in everything that is really there in the moment when you are there. That’s what Jim is doing. He’s not trying to turn it into science or make it like the same or the next film of his own. It’s just a film and by being just a film, it becomes everything for everyone, and it leaves the ego and it leaves the signature. It becomes music and poetry at the same time as it is a film, and I think making the film felt like that.”
Moore also praised Jarmusch’s approach to filmmaking. “Jim creates such a great work environment. He’s particular without being arrogant or mean in any sort of way. He really knows how to communicate his ideas. I feel like as an actor, it’s so helpful to be with somebody who really knows what they want to communicate your ideas, their ideas. It was so awesome.”
“I’ve always wanted to be an actor and I grew up watching his films and actually moved to I grew up in Paris and I had moved to New York to become an actor and then the first big time movie I got to shoot it back in Paris with one of my favorite directors. I was just so grateful to even be trusted with this script and his ideas and then being on screen with India who was just like really such a joy to work with and building this like brother sister connection in real time off and on screen was really special,” said Sabbat.
To learn more about Father Mother Sister Brother and its filming process, check out the full interview in the video above.
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