Gimme Danger: Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop’s thoughts at the press conference

Rock icon Iggy Pop and cinema legend Jim Jarmusch paired up for a spectacular press conference following the screening of Gimme Danger, a documentary about unforgettable punk band The Stooges.

More a love letter to his own idols than a mere documentary, Jarmusch elaborated on the pre-production work on the film and his collaboration with chief editor Alfonso Goncalves. The available footage being very limited and the existing videos already well-known, it took over a year to collect the material and obtain the rights. The director claimed his intention was to create a sort of “collage” and to “make something close to The Stooges’s music, let it be wild and messy, funny, heartfelt, emotional, strong”. Iggy Pop, addressed to as “Mr Pop”, the nickname journalists came up with during the presser, declared to have only his memories to contribute, at which point Jarmusch jumped in to state that those memories were the guide for the film’s structure.

The evolution of Jim Osterberg and the creation of his alter ego Iggy Pop are one of the main topics of the documentary, and the Stooges lead man described how he deals with the distance between the “calm, sensible guy” that speaks in the film and the “wild guy” on stage: even at the press conference “Iggy is here, but Jim is in control”.

Gimme Danger is an homage to the 1960s and 1970s, and when watching himself, Iggy Pop exclaimed: “Oh Christ! I am product of this era!”. He and Jarmusch went over specific moments that marked their youths, as well as listing their shared musical icons: MC5, The Velvet Underground, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Nam June Paik, Link Ray – just to name a few. On the other hand, technology and contemporary electronic music underwent strong criticism from both cornerstones of underground culture. Iggy Pop was challenged by an uproarious question on what are the issues of humanity today: apparently, “the greatest challenges of humanity according to Iggy Pop” have to do with the digital age: we must focus on “maintaining the proper level of disconnect”, we must “calm the fuck down a little”.

With many references to Pop’s drug experiences, several jokes, and the unstoppable defiant punk spirit of The Stooges, the creative duo put on a show in pure rock’n’roll style.

Jasmin Valjas
Photos: Laurent Emmanuel/Getty Images

Check back soon for our review of Gimme Danger.

Read more of our reviews and interviews from the festival here.

For further information about Cannes Film Festival 2016 visit here.

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