Aestheticizing the Downfall of Industrial Capitalism: Jim Jarmusch’s Tale of Intellectual Vampires in Zombies’ World

Abstract

This study aims to read Jim Jarmusch’s movie Only Lovers Left Alive from the perspective of downfall of industrial capitalism and ecosocialist approach. The movie mainly takes place in Detroit Michigan, which is a symbol of the collapse of Fordism and industrialization. Ecosocialist critique of industrial capitalism has common notions with Jarmusch’s tale. Thus, theoretical framework of this study has been established on ecosocialist paradigm. In the movie, Jarmusch represents vampires as intellectuals with a wide accumulation of culture and knowledge and places his critique of industrialization from their point of view. Multimodal Discourse Analysis was applied to the movie to find out how the movie did use visual and literal signifiers to establish its narrative.

Keywords

• Jim Jarmusch, Only Lovers Left Alive, Ecosocialism, Industrial Capitalism, Detroit Bankruptcy