"Wow, a bus driver who likes Emily Dickinson!"
Spoken by a precocious seventh grader, a twin, these words, maybe not quoted exactly, are the premise of Jim Jarmusch's latest film, "Paterson," which we saw a few evenings ago.
Paterson, the bus driver, whose first name we never learn, turns his very ordinary life into very understated poems, in the idiom of William Carlos Williams, and the viewer can't tell whether Jarmusch thinks (or we are meant to think) that they are good poems, or just prosaic meanderings by an extremely introverted and unambitious man, of whom we know little or nothing beyond what we see in the movie.
And obviously the same goes for the film itself, in which almost nothing happens, in the usual sense of things happening in a movie. You might call Jarmusch's style "deadpan," never quite telling us what he thinks, so that we have to figure out what to think by ourselves.
Another striking thing about the movie is its subtlety. Laura, Paterson's wife, begins the movie by telling Paterson about her dream, in which she had twins, and the movie is full of twins. Perhaps Paterson, who drives a bus in Paterson, is a kind of twin of his home city, as Lou Costello, the short Italian-American, born in Paterson, was the twin of Bud Abbott, the tall, White Anglo-Saxon.
At one of the high points in the film, Paterson quotes a famous short poem by Williams. Taking words that could have been simply a note dashed off by someone unknown to someone else unknown, Williams arranged them to make them pregnant with meaning.
I think Jarmusch has done the same thing in his film.
Spoken by a precocious seventh grader, a twin, these words, maybe not quoted exactly, are the premise of Jim Jarmusch's latest film, "Paterson," which we saw a few evenings ago.
Paterson, the bus driver, whose first name we never learn, turns his very ordinary life into very understated poems, in the idiom of William Carlos Williams, and the viewer can't tell whether Jarmusch thinks (or we are meant to think) that they are good poems, or just prosaic meanderings by an extremely introverted and unambitious man, of whom we know little or nothing beyond what we see in the movie.
And obviously the same goes for the film itself, in which almost nothing happens, in the usual sense of things happening in a movie. You might call Jarmusch's style "deadpan," never quite telling us what he thinks, so that we have to figure out what to think by ourselves.
The movie is full of little jokes on itself, so it manages to be, simultaneously, a comment on the emptiness of modern American life in a depleted city like Paterson, NJ, and a celebration of life, lived by ordinary people, who care about each other and express their concern for one another in conversation and action.
One striking thing about the movie was the natural way that people of all kinds related to each other, African-Americans, Hispanics, white people, and Asian immigrants. Indeed, one of the film's jokes on itself is the tale of woe, constantly told by an Indian immigrant, "Donny," the bus dispatcher - he has serious troubles, and more of them every day, but his litany is also funny, in the cruel way that humor sometimes is.Another striking thing about the movie is its subtlety. Laura, Paterson's wife, begins the movie by telling Paterson about her dream, in which she had twins, and the movie is full of twins. Perhaps Paterson, who drives a bus in Paterson, is a kind of twin of his home city, as Lou Costello, the short Italian-American, born in Paterson, was the twin of Bud Abbott, the tall, White Anglo-Saxon.
At one of the high points in the film, Paterson quotes a famous short poem by Williams. Taking words that could have been simply a note dashed off by someone unknown to someone else unknown, Williams arranged them to make them pregnant with meaning.
I think Jarmusch has done the same thing in his film.
This Is Just To Say
Related Poem Content Details
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
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