Daily Inspiration Quote by Jim Jarmusch

Jarmusch is needling the whole idea that a movie’s legitimacy can be measured by how efficiently it “goes somewhere.” His tone is defensive on the surface (yes, yes, I hear the complaints), but the subtext is mischievous: he knows critics want a tidy causal chain, and he’s quietly refusing to give them the satisfaction of winning that argument.

The line does two things at once. First, it reframes “lack of plot” as a category error. If your unit of meaning is character - their rhythms, silences, little detours of behavior - then conventional plot becomes a secondary byproduct, not the engine. Second, it exposes how criticism can mistake preference for principle. When he says it’s “very obvious,” he’s poking at the critical tic of treating deviation from Hollywood momentum as absence rather than choice, as if atmosphere and observation are just what you film when you can’t manage structure.

Context matters: Jarmusch’s cinema is built out of deadpan drift, marginal people, and time you’re “not supposed” to spend on the in-between. The intent isn’t to abolish plot; it’s to demote it, to stop making narrative payoff the only reason to watch. That’s why the parenthetical “although I think they do have plots” lands like a smirk. He’s not arguing that nothing happens. He’s arguing that what happens is often internal, social, tonal - the kind of movement you feel more than you can diagram.