9. Tom Waits in Down By Law (1986)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afCgmbs6Ljg Of all the artists on this list, Tom Waits makes music that resonates in the most cinematic way. From pirate-style tales of perilous sea journeys to destitute portraits of gas station purgatory, his songs easily craft mental landscapes with his knack for unconventional instrumentation and his famously tattered singing voice. One of the best visual accompaniments to Waits music is the opening shots of Jim Jarmuschs Down By Law, tracking along paint chipped neighborhoods to the driving rhythm of Jockey Full of Bourbon. Generally speaking, Jarmusch evokes the same sense of curiosity in people as Waits, with existential projects like Night On Earth, Coffee and Cigarettes or The Limits of Control. Down By Law finds Tom Waits as an apathetic radio DJ landing in a prison cell with a shady street dealer, played by John Lurie, and a gullible Italian traveler, the great Roberto Benigni. The film follows their paths into the cell and eventually out. Beautifully shot in black in white, Down By Law captures the overwhelming indifference each character has with society, in many different ways, and plays out like one of the classics. Waits has popped up in a wide variety of films, such as Coppolas Dracula, Altmans Short Cuts and maybe most fittingly as the devil in Terry Gilliams The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. In Down By Law, he is playing a character that fits so well, he could be pulled straight from many of Tom Waits own songs. Jarmusch has a skill for writing in a voice that feels most natural from the singers scratched voice. Because of this, he really leads the trio of characters and effectively brings out their best contrasts.