Jim Jarmusch's Favorite Musical Moments in Film

"Movies where a band plays I love, like Blow Up; or where it's a rock'n'roll film without music, where rock'n'roll is integrated into the film, it's an experience of the characters." And films with cameo appearances: "When a band will suddenly appear, like Ski Party or something, when suddenly James Brown and the Famous Flames appeared in the ski lodge."

He was less enamoured by Fastest Guitar Alive, which starred Roy Orbison. "He's very stiff. It's a predictable movie. Not a good movie." And dismisses also the popular trend for biopics such as Walk the Line and Ray. "I have an aversion to biopics in general. The Johnny Cash movie was well done but I couldn't get inside of it because it wasn't Johnny Cash and I'm a Johnny Cash fan." He then swoops back to Scorsese, whom he lauds for his use of songs such as Cream's The Sunshine of Your Love in Goodfellas, and the Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash in Mean Streets. "It works because the music doesn't seem tacked on," he explains. "So often, music in films seems like wallpaper bought by the yard. Yunno, 'Give me 10 yards of hip-hop.'"

Music is an integral part of how Jarmusch works. "I always make mix tapes of songs that inspire me when I'm writing a script," he explains. "And often that will be the music I use in the film. Right now it's a strange mix of old blues recordings and music from the 15th century; English composers William Lawes and William Byrd, with Wanda Jackson, Boris, Tom Verlaine and Jozef von Wissen, a composer who uses lutes and little electronic things. I've also had a five-year Kinks obsession." Throughout Dead Man, for example, Jarmusch was listening to a lot of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, "particularly the solos". He then asked Young to score the film...