THE DEAD DON’T DIE
Indie king Jim Jarmusch turns his wry eye to flesh-eaters in the all-star comedy-horror The Dead Don’t Die. James Mottram meets the man who makes zombies look cool
Jim Jarmusch’s star-studded take on the zombie apocalypse.
“It’s really Tilda Swinton’s fault. Let’s blame her,” muses Jim Jarmusch about his new zombie comedy, The Dead Don’t Die. The kernel for it came after Jarmusch made his 2013 vampire movie, Only Lovers Left
Alive, with Swinton. “For a few years after that, Tilda was always saying, ‘When are you going to make the zombie film?’” Trouble is Jarmusch – as well versed as he is in horror classics – was not a fan of the undead.
“Among horror films, zombies are my least favourite. I’ve never seen The Walking Dead, for example. So I’m not a zombie guy. I’m more of a vampire guy… vampires are so sophisticated and elegant and sexual in a way. And they can change into a bat or a wolf, and they’re highly intelligent. Zombies are just dumb-ass vessels, walking around. They’re just stupid entities. They’re just the undead coming back.”
Nevertheless, after Swinton’s pestering, Jarmusch decided to script The Dead Don’t
Die, a typically droll tale set in a small American town called Centerville. After “polar fracking” leads the Earth to spin off its axis, suddenly the undead are rising from their graves. Moreover, they’re all gravitating towards what they once loved – Chardonnay, Wi-Fi and coffee among other things – not to mention sating their lust for flesh.
The stellar cast is led by Bill Murray, Adam Driver and Chloë Sevigny, all members of the Centerville sheriff department. “People think we had a big budget for them,” says Jarmusch. “They got paid in oatmeal, man. The actors were paid not well at all. They did this because they’re either my family, or my tribe. I’m so moved. ‘Oh Jim’s calling us in, we gotta do it.’ Tom Waits, Tilda Swinton… my god, I really can’t believe they did all this. They were there for the film.”
Aside from this superstar support, Jarmusch admits it was “a really stressful, difficult film to make”, with a short shoot and not enough budget. He also got a bout of pneumonia, there were severe rain delays and the team had to swiftly shoot out Driver, as he was returning to
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. “Ah man, it was the hardest film I’ve ever made, even more than Dead Man, which was very hard, but I was half my age. I had more resilience then.”
SPECIAL-PRICE EFFECTS
One of the toughest things about making the film was completing the gory visual effects in post-production, something that was completely new to Jarmusch. “It was very complicated,” he says. Working with the VFX artists at Chimney, the director was left very impressed. “They’re so cool, man. They did things I didn’t even ask them to. We even ran out of money to pay them at some point and they were like, ‘Woah, we’ve started, we will
It’s a comedy that has a lot of darkness, and ridiculousness. I hope it’s funny
finish.’ They were like soldiers. And great artists too – I love them.”
Still, all these troubles mean Jarmusch hasn’t exactly grown fond of the zombie genre. “I hate them more now. I’m sick of fucking zombies!” he groans. He doesn’t exactly help that he sees them “everywhere” he goes in his home city, with people glued to their iPhones. “I’m sick of walking in New York City… I can’t get through the phone zombies! They don’t even know other people there. They’re zombified!” He admits to being sorely tempted to knock the phone zombies out the way and shout, “Wake the fuck up!”
While Jarmusch calls his take on the genre an “updating” of the consumerism-zombie motif that George A. Romero explored in Dawn Of The Dead, the writer-director doesn’t want to get too heavy. He’s keen to avoid the comparison to Donald Trump, despite Steve Buscemi’s character wearing a cap that reads ‘Make America White Again’. “I don’t think The Dead Don’t Die is a fatalistic statement,” he adds. “I think it’s a comedy with a lot of darkness too. And some ridiculousness, I hope. I hope it’s funny.”
The jokes are certainly plentiful, from puns (RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan plays a delivery man for WU-PS) to visual gags. Take the Star Destroyer key-ring given to Driver’s character Ronnie Peterson, suggested to Jarmusch by the prop master. Initially, Lucasfilm refused to allow it. “Adam loved the joke too; he has a very funny, dry sense of humour. And he said, ‘What do you mean we can’t do it?’ I said, ‘Well, Star Wars said no.’ And he replied, ‘Let me make a few calls!’”
Yet underneath all the gore and in-jokes is the serious theme of mankind’s impending ecological self-destruction. “I think that’s the most grave thing facing human survival,” acknowledges Jarmusch. “I’m one of the guilty people. I drive a car with fossil fuel. I fly in airplanes. I’ve got a credit card. I have plastic bottled water. I’m making a silly zombie movie. I’m not an activist. I respect and admire those who are, especially the young people with the strength and courage to stand up.” JM
The Dead Don’t Die opens on 12 July.