True Detective Dream Director: Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch can be a polarizing director. Much like Wes Anderson he has a unique, singular vision that people either enjoy or hate; a Wes Anderson film is obviously a Wes Anderson film, and the same is true for Jim Jarmusch. His films tend to be slow character studies that mix various elements — including Noir — into something all his own that is also quite often on the stranger side of things.
Jarmush is, without a doubt, one of the top directors that we’d like to see take on True Detective.
Take, for example, 1999 samurai/gangster/Shakespearean drama that is Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Ghost Dog is a film most obviously inspired by Akira Kurosawa, but it’s also a distillation of all that is Jarmush. It’s also impossible to properly describe to someone without sounding like an idiot.
Jarmush also has a few anthologies under his belt such as the surreal Mystery Train and the nighthawk Taxicab Confessions styles of Night on Earth — not exactly the type of anthology that True Detective is, but it shows that he has experience in other storytelling formats.
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And all of that makes him the perfect fit for True Detective. His experience with characters that are usually not on the “up and up,” coupled with his strict attention to detail and often melancholic tone are just some of the obvious reasons.
Jarmush has only directed films that he himself wrote, so we’re looking at a collaboration here that’s not very likely. But thinking about the possibilities is maddening for all the reasons that it would never happen and all the reasons that it would be a perfect match if it did.