Chords, Coffee and Cigarettes

For reasons I cannot explain
There’s some part of me wants to see Graceland
I’m going to Graceland
-Paul Simon, Graceland

These words sum up the feeling one gets after watching Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train. The movie narrates incidents of three sets of tourists visiting Graceland, the cradle of rock ‘n roll, connected by a common thread of a Radio music show being played in the background.

There is something about the movies made by people who have a passion for music, even though the movie is not centered on Music as its theme. For instance- Tarantino, Cameron Crowe, Coen Brothers. You can expect a monumental Soundtrack for sure, apart from the musical references in the movie. References like - how Jackie plays the record of The Delfonics when Max Cherry visits her to get back his gun in Tarantino’s Jackie Brown or this whacky conversation centered on Elvis in Tony Scott’s True Romance:

In a cocktail bar in Detroit, Clarence Worley is trying to pick up an older lady named Lucy.

CLARENCE to LUCY: In "Jailhouse Rock" Elvis’ everything rockabilly's about. I mean he is rockabilly: mean, surly, nasty, rude........... I'd watch that hillbilly and I'd want to be him so bad. Elvis looked good. I'm no fag, but Elvis was good-lookin'. He was fuckin' prettier than most women. I always said if I ever had to fuck a guy... I mean, had to, 'cause my life depended on it... I'd fuck Elvis.

(Lucy takes a drag from her cigarette.)

LUCY: I'd fuck Elvis.

CLARENCE: Really?

LUCY: When he was alive. I wouldn't fuck him now.

CLARENCE: I don't blame you.
(they laugh)
So we'd both fuck Elvis. It's nice to meet people with common interests,
isn't it?
(Lucy laughs.)
--True Romance (Written by Tarantino)

After watching Mystery Train, I browsed through Jarmusch's filmography and my admiration for him grew when I read that he directed Neil Young’s concert documentary Year of the Horse (though he is a bit overrated as the Godfather of American Independent movies). He also had musicians like Tom Waits and Screamin’ Jay act in his movies! The background score of these movies were entirely different from the Spielbergian Philharmonic scores (Dead Man had a score by Neil Young on Guitars).

Hmm…I wanted to write something on interesting musical references in movies, but digressed to Jarmusch’s movies. But then, I aint no good to write on movies... At least these movies gave me enough pointers to quality music, not to mention the sheer bliss of watching them!