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Down By Law [1986] [DVD]
 
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Down By Law [1986] [DVD]

DVD ~ Tom Waits
4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Down By Law [1986] [DVD]
61% buy the item featured on this page:
Down By Law [1986] [DVD] 4.6 out of 5 stars (8)
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Product details

  • Actors: Tom Waits, John Lurie, Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Ellen Barkin
  • Directors: Jim Jarmusch
  • Writers: Jim Jarmusch
  • Producers: Alan Kleinberg, Cary Brokaw, Jim Stark, Otto Grokenberger, Russell Schwartz
  • Format: Black & White, PAL
  • Language English, Italian
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: Second Sight Films Ltd.
  • DVD Release Date: 31 Mar 2007
  • Run Time: 106 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00005NSVN
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 37,491 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law is in the same minimalist, oddball, black-and-white groove as his classic of American independent cinema, Stranger than Paradise (1984). The setting is Louisiana, where two losers (musicians Tom Waits and John Lurie) find themselves stuck in a jail cell together. One day they are joined by a boisterous Italian (Roberto Benigni), and the chemistry changes--suddenly an escape attempt is on the horizon. Conventional drama is not Jarmusch's intention; one of the emotional high points of this film is the three guys marching around their prison cell shouting, "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!" Yet the deadpan style creates its own humorous mood, underscored by melancholy (also underscored by the music of Lurie and the gravel-voiced songs of Waits). This was the first American film for Italian comedian Benigni, (Life is Beautiful), and he lights it up with his effervescent clowning. Jarmusch has said that Down by Law forms a loose trilogy with Stranger than Paradise and the subsequent Mystery Train (1989)--a triptych of disaffected, drifting life in the United States. Few filmmakers have ever surveyed ennui so entertainingly. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com

Special Features
English
Region 2


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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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 (7)
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Jarmusch manual, 7 May 2005
By randolfff (London) - See all my reviews
  
Jarmusch is often consigned to the critically lazy category "acquired taste". His films are usually slow-paced, seemingly directionless, often focusing on dead-beats, outsiders, foreigners and other socially marginalized figures. As he's said himself, if he see's a character taking a phonecall and arranging a meeting, a cut, then the meeting itself, he wonders what the character might have done in the interim to amuse himself. Was he bored? Nervous? Did he watch some tv? Sing along in scat to a crackly jazz record on the radio?

If these kind of questions interest you, most likely Jarmusch will. 'Down By Law' is a visual treat, a fact quickly prefaced by its opening shots of New Orleans, seemlessly concluded with the final, symmetrical frame of the protagonists going their separate ways. If the performances are very natural but also very idiosyncratic, that might be because John Lurie and Tom Waits are principally musicians, not actors. And because Roberto Benigni genuinely knew very little English when the film was made.

The music, and the story, are enchanting, surprising and resistant to full narrative closure or an obvious moral. Benigni was not then the worldwide star he is today, and he has to fight on screen for air-time. It's worth the wait when the master comic raconteur gets going.

So here are some tips:
(1) if you like Benigni in this, check out a later Jarmusch film 'Night on Earth'. He gets a full half-hour solo as a chattering taxi driver. More adult than 'La Vita e Bella'. Funnier too.
(2) if you like John Lurie and Tom Waits, listen to their music. Between them they've scored a subtantial amount of Jarmusch's oeuvre. Lurie also stars in 'Stranger Than Paradise', an earlier Jarmusch film.
(3) if you like the style and pace of Jarmusch, dig a little deeper and watch some of the filmmakers who influenced him. John Cassavetes and Yasujiro Ozu I'd particularly recommend.
(4) if you wonder "who is Jim Jarmusch?", watch Wayne Wang and Paul Auster's 'Blue in the Face'. You'll get a good 5-10 minute cameo riff from the man himself on the merits of smoking.

But 'Down By Law' is a great place to start. It's a top dollar showing from Jarmusch's penniless down-and-outs.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Buzz of to you to, thank you!, 10 Nov 2003
By Jasminka Sabol (Zagreb, Croatia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Far from being only a story about three guys in prison, this is amazing movie. Zack and Jack and Roberto (Waits, Lourie and Benigni)are in the prison for being in wrong place at wrong time, and maybe a bit because of doing wrong things. The story of escape is developed through the rich play of characters (no Speed-like actions... graciously, just people in time). My personal highlights: All of Tom Waits. Looking at the window drawn on the prison cell wall. I-screaming. Roberto's story of his dreams of his mother catching a rabbit. Terribly funny and inspiring.
Of course, when you dig Jarmusch, Waits, Lourie, Benigni.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Moody, atmospheric, brilliant..., 2 Feb 2006
This is one of the best films I have ever seen. The photography is stunning throughout, atmospherically filmed in b&w, capturing both the seedy side of New Orleans in the 1980s and the beauty of the Louisiana bayous. It is essentially a black comedy about the interplay between the three central characters (Tom Waits is Zack, the unemployed DJ, John Lurie is Jack the small time pimp and Roberto Benigni is Bob, the wacky Italian tourist) who for dubious reasons all find themselves thrown together in a New Orleans jail. The film is beautifully understated - there are many periods when nothing much is happening, but it's magnificently enacted, adding comic tension, creating extra dynamic between the characters. The director, Jim Jarmusch said about the film: "I would call the style of the film 'neo-beat-noir-comedy', with a story line that openly accepts conventions and an atmosphere that is part nightmare and part fairy tale" That about sums it up. If I had to single out just one favourite passage it would probably be Bob's "rabbit" monologue - watch out for it - it's simply genius. A totally fantastic, hilarious film. Pass the popcorn and let's see it again.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars i ham a good egg!
this is a wonderful little film, typical Jarmusch and i was not disappointed.
the region 1 dvd offers a lot of extras such as an extensive Q&A with Jarmusch about the film,... Read more
Published on 11 Mar 2005 by BA Baracus

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favourites, if not the best!
If you like Benigni or like good movies, then this is a must!
Published on 16 Mar 2004 by StrayDog

5.0 out of 5 stars not enough space to swing a cat
Roberto Benigni amazing English skills are a must together with Tom Waits' painfully messed up DJ character and John Lurie as the good looking but deceived pimp. Read more
Published on 4 Feb 2004

2.0 out of 5 stars Whats that all about ...
Very sllloooowwww film, When it get's going ... it stops? Funny Jail scene though ...
Published on 12 Jan 2004 by Mr. S. Pritchard

5.0 out of 5 stars a brilliant movie
Down by Law is a one of a kind movie that will most definitely astonish you if you haven't seen it before. Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2001 by maria@ysbl.york.ac.uk

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