Jarmusch’s first major success came with the low budget, black and white film Stranger than Paradise, which won the Caméra d'Or for debut films at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 1984. Stranger than Paradise is a deadpan road movie. It has minimal plot—distinctive of Jarmusch’s films—portraying the mundane existence of two aloof outsiders living in New York City. The film centers on Willie (played by John Lurie) and Eddie (played by Richard Edson) whose self-consciously detached lifestyles are interrupted by the arrival of Willie’s young Hungarian cousin (Eszter Balint)—a symbol of linguistic and cultural barriers, another Jarmusch characteristic—who’s arrived with a stash of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins tapes.

It’s worth mentioning Lurie and Edson are both musicians. Lurie, a saxophonist, founded the jazz ensemble The Lounge Lizards; the group is known for their ironic, irreverent take on jazz and wrote the soundtrack for the film. Edson was the original drummer for Sonic Youth. Laurie’s dissident appreciation for jazz is apparent in his outfit. Throughout the film he wears a slightly oversized leather blazer recalls Prada’s Fall/Winter 2013, boxy leather jackets. However, his silhouette plays with expectations—everything is worn just slightly too big. The silhouette is close to that of Balenciaga’s Spring/Summer 2018 and much of the purposefully oversized clothing Balenciaga produces; the garments fit on the body but parody the notion of “correctly” fitting garments at the same time. Willie subtly resembles a recalcitrant teenager goofing around in his dad’s old jazz wardrobe.

Eddie, on the other hand, wears an argyle mohair cardigan, which looks unmistakably similar to those Needles has been producing for several seasons. Given Jarmusch’s New York roots, it’s easy to be reminded of Supreme’s vertically striped mohair Fall/Winter 2013 cardigan. During a frosty beach scene, as gusty winds lash all three characters, the cardigan is a striking sign of warmth and comfort.

In one winsome scene Willie interrupts his cousin as she shuffles around the kitchen to the rhythm of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s I Put A Spell on You, telling her “I really hate that music,” shutting-off the tape player. It’s such an uncomplicated, minimal scene, exemplifying early Jarmusch and setting the tone of Willie and his cousin’s troubled, yet playful relationship. It displays Jarmusch’s fascination with on-screen noise and music: We hear diegetic music, shuffling shoes, a fridge door closing, Willie ruffling plastic. We also see music being used as signifier of character’s identity and a symbol of nostalgia for a different period in time.

While not the only important film of Jarmusch’s earlier career Stranger than Paradise is a good example of his themes: The importance of sound and noise, his slow pace, minimal plot, his attraction to outsiders and meticulous soundtracks.

Jarmusch came back hard with Ghost Dog after a four-year hiatus from making feature films. Forest Whitaker plays a dauntless, reclusive hitman, “Ghost Dog” who fervently follows the samurai code of honor outlined in the book Hagakure (1716), compiled from the commentaries of Yamamoto Tsuramoto. Although he’s not a mobster, he carries out hits for the mob, until after one job, the mafia decide he must be killed.

One of Jarmusch’s most stylistically polished films, Ghost Dog retains a similar structure and style to his earlier films—using elements like static shots, the central role of music, outsider characters—but introduces new components. Ghost Dog is driven more by plot, the cuts are shorter, the camera is mobile and then-new editing techniques, like blurring, are added to action shots. It retains a slow pace, but the layering of the ancient samurai code of honor—at times read over the action—with the mafia narrative renders the film compact and seamlessly flowing.

As with Stranger than Paradise, in Ghost Dog character and clothing are influenced by music; the film bangs to a score and soundtrack produced by RZA of the Wu Tang Clan, using music to create a strong sense of space and atmosphere. In one of the film’s (and arguably, Jarmusch’s) most faultless scenes, Ghost Dog, having just stolen a Lexus, deftly spins a CD into the car’s CD player and, as Killah Priest’s “From Then Till Now” (1998) begins to play, the whole mood of the scene changes. The camera quickly cuts from a mid-close-up of Ghost Dog to the character’s first-person perspective—we’re given Ghost Dog’s view as he drives through the night city lights, as though we’re getting a glimpse from within his psyche. Further insight into Ghost Dog’s mind comes from the Killah Priest track, which flows like it could have been written just for him.

As with the atmosphere, the clothing is informed by hip-hop. In another terrific scene, Ghost Dog sits wearing a classic black zip hoodie (like those produced by Champion) a black military M-65 jacket, a gold chain, baggy pants and military boots as he watches a group of men freestyle and drink forties. The men are all dressed in blue, the jeans recall those that Martine Rose designed for her Spring/Summer 2018 collection, while their voluminous jackets and hoodies are reminiscent of Napa by Martine Rose. Again, in this scene music is telling us something about the narrative, with lines like “Vengeance, black ninjas with monkey wrenches”, which allude to Ghost Dog’s character arch.

Ghost Dog has been a difficult film for Jarmusch to match. There were mixed responses to The Limits of Control (2009), a crime film and in 2013 he launched unreservedly into another genre film: the vampire flick, Only Lovers Left Alive. The vampires in question are a couple, Adam (played by Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) a musician and his muse. In a twist their blood-sucking seems to stand in for drug use (cue “heroin chic”), but rather than feed from the necks of humans directly, these blood addicts score from local suppliers like blood banks.

One of the film’s quips is that the vampires are secret agents of musical achievement and just about every other artistic achievement throughout history. In a reversal of the typical relationship, it is the humans who are parasitic to the vampires—only for their genius instead of their blood.

This heavily curated film is rife with illustrious objects, which the two aesthetes collect and adore. The stylistic structure of Only Lovers Left Alive departs from Jarmusch’s earlier movies Stranger than Paradise and Ghost Dog, creating a dark and moody film about outsiders (it’s all shot at night), but in a distinctly more commercial manner. The lingering of Jarmusch’s static camera is gone and there is less of an overt relationship between the characters, music and the actors themselves.

It’s still a film about style. Richard Brody at The New Yorker perceptively noted that Only Lovers Left Alive “makes its director’s style its subject” rather than vampires. In this film, style can be pinned down to rock and decadent heroin chic. In a telling scene, Adam and Eve sit in a bar as the New York psych-rock band White Hills play a gig. The camera is more frenetic than we’d expect from previous Jarmusch films and the actors deliver their lines in an artificial mode far removed from the more naturalistic style of Stranger than Paradise and Ghost Dog.

Adam and Eve both look as though they could have walked out of Hedi Slimane’s Fall/Winter 2005 Dior Homme show (or any one of his Saint Laurent runways, for that matter). The couple look emaciated—Slimane’s preferred look for his models—their silhouettes are slim and garments are worn in a louche manner, they both have on tight fitting jeans, slim jackets and wayfarer-esque sunglasses. All the other characters in the scene mirror the couple in silhouette, but with added embellishments—like polka dot and floral tops—that continue the ’70s rock vibe. The psych-rock revivalist band, the mood and the lighting of the scene create an ambiance that recalls the Saint Laurent Spring/Summer 2015 presentation.

A lavish showcase of Jarmusch’s interests and a somewhat interesting foray for the director into the vampire genre, Only Lovers Left Alive doesn’t quite live up to Stranger than Paradise and Ghost Dog, which both embrace music and style to create well-rounded, poignant cinema, which is left wanting in Only Lovers Left Alive.

The Dead Don’t Die will continue Jarmusch’s exploration of genre film. This time it’s the “zombie movie”, specifically a zombie comedy with an ensemble cast—Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Steve Buscemi, Chloë Sevigny and Adam Driver, to name just a few. The plot, as might be expected, appears as a humans versus zombies scenario, but what’s interesting is whether Jarmusch can pull it all together in a subversion of well-worn zombie genre. Keeping Jarmusch’s focus on “style” (in all its myriad forms), we’re left wondering: What’s the soundtrack going to be, and—better yet—how do you dress for a zombie apocalypse?