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From: Mystery Train, a photo collection by Masayoshi Sukita.
Publisher: Shin Yamamoto
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MYSTERY TRAIN was filmed in Memphis, Tennessee during the (very hot) summer of 1988. This book is intended as a kind of souvenir of the film (like a home movie, or a photo album) for anyone who might be interested. It contains images from the film, as well as on-location photos of the cast and crew. It is therefore dedicated to two people without whom this book (and, in fact, the film itself) would not exist. One is Robby Müller, one of our planet's greatest lighting-cameramen, a men who I like to think of as a 17th century Dutch interior painter (à la Vermeer or Ter Borch) who, with happy surprise, finds himself living in the late 20th century. It is Robby's light that you see in Mystery Train, and therefore in many of these photos. The other person is Masayoshi Sukita. With his cat-like movements, and the eyes of some vaguely mythological animal, Sukita moved invisbly through our set and snapped the photographs that appear in the book. By the end of our shooting period the Mystery Train cast and crew felt very close to Sukita, and his ever-alert assistant, Mark Higashino. A strange, impromptu ritual developed. It consisted of singing along with the song "tequila" (by the Champs), but instead of shouting the key word "tequila", we substituted, in homage, the name "Sukita!"
Jim Jarmusch
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