Join us for a screening of Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train to celebrate the release of Jules O’Dwyer’s Hotels, the second instalment in Cutaways, a series of pocket-sized books co-edited by Erika Balsom and Genevieve Yue. Each Cutaways volume offers a journey through the history of cinema guided by a single motif or formal device. In Hotels, O’Dwyer unfolds how spaces of temporary dwelling are more than a mere backdrop to a film’s action: they actively scaffold the formal, aesthetic, and narrative possibilities of cinema. Among the eclectic array of films discussed is Jarmusch’s moody triptych Mystery Train, in which a hotel in downtown Memphis provides a common space and time for otherwise disconnected, wayward characters and gives rise to a reflection on race, labour, and belonging in America.
About the film:
Aloof teenage Japanese tourists, a frazzled Italian widow, and a disgruntled British immigrant all converge in the city of dreams - which, in Mystery Train, from Jim Jarmusch, is Memphis. Made with its director’s customary precision and wit, this triptych of stories pays playful tribute to the home of Stax Records, Sun Studio, Graceland, Carl Perkins, and, of course, the King, who presides over the film like a spirit. Mystery Train is one of Jarmusch’s very best movies, a boozy and beautiful pilgrimage to an iconic American ghost town and a paean to the music it gave the world.
Followed by a q&a with author Jules O'Dwyer (University of Cambridge) chaired by Erika Balsom (KCL). Hotels will be available to purchase before and after the screening.
