the words weren't mine

“Jarmusch, Falk here. What’s going on with Gena? Do you need anything?” Jarmusch laughs (having nailed Falk’s gruff voice). “She was a lioness; she didn’t really need protection.”

A few years after Night on Earth, Rowlands sent Jarmusch a Cassavetes script called Unless That Someone Is You. It was “a beautiful, nonjudgmental love story about a woman and a younger person on the spectrum” that Cassavetes had written for Rowlands before he died. Rowlands hoped Jarmusch might direct; if not, the film would remain unmade. In turn, Jarmusch said he would do it only if Rowlands took the lead role, but she declined. Two years passed, then Rowlands changed her mind; her Alzheimer’s was progressing and, she told Jarmusch, time was running out. read more

IMAGE: Anna Balecho