Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)


There is a famous quote by Alfred Hitchcock that posits, “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” In a way, Paterson acts as both a reinforcement and a challenge to this idea. It is a film that demands to be considered in its totality, a strange but endearing feeling that combines an ever-so-slightly abstract approach with the mood of a hangout movie. But it is neither of these, nor is it a simple valorization of the artist. Rather, Paterson is a film about both the constant and the ever-changing natures of life, that emphasizes the similarities and differences in equal nature.

Taking place over the course of a week in the life of Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver and burgeoning poet working in Paterson, New Jersey, Paterson very quickly establishes a sense of routine to its central character’s life. He wakes up, walks to work and drives while thinking of new poems, then goes home and walks his dog Marvin to the bar. Rinse and repeat. But Jarmusch uses this loose but reliable structure in fascinating ways, not to evoke monotony but to allow for significant jumping off points, not just in the mood (which mixes the hypnotic with the comic) but in fairly interesting subplots, some of which take place over the course of the whole film and some of which are only present in one scene.

Continue reading Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)”

VIFF 2016: Notes on Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)


“…I dreamt that we would have twins..”

I didn’t catch these opening lines until my second viewing of the film, & as elegant and moving as the initial one was, the film opens up considerably once these added dimensions are openly defined. The film is frequently introducing us to twins or doubles, not within dreams but in reality, culminating with Paterson being given ‘new’ pages by what is in essence, a spiritual twin. Does the ‘real’ then, become influenced by our own subjective impressions, rather than our impressions be designed by the real? Or is there a kind of middle ground whereupon these are arbitrary forces? Paterson only writes in isolation, almost in secret – yet this writing manifests as both compression/paring down of the outside world to abstract essentials, and amplification/elaboration of romantic feelings into romantic gestures.

Continue reading “VIFF 2016: Notes on Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)”

Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)


Now that Tom Hiddleston is (thank you, Jesus!) single again, it’s as good a time as any to gaze at him, the thinking cinephile’s dreamboat, in Jim Jarmusch’s excellent 2013 vampire dramedy. Hiddleston emotes broodily as a depressed Detroit musician named Adam, opposite the always-brilliant Tilda Swinton as Eve, his beloved who lives across the globe from him yet is still profoundly connected to him. When Adam plunges into suicidal despair in the film’s early scenes, Eve rushes to his rescue. The two lovers are a gorgeous, if possibly doomed, pair who complement one another in virtually every way. Though the film leaves much unspoken about the exact nature of their relationship (how did they meet? why were they living separately? are they even the same sort of creature?), it nevertheless makes us feel the intensity of their bond and the inevitability of their mutual entanglement in every shot. This is partly due to the deft performances of the leads, and partly due to Jarmusch’s famous attentiveness to evocative detail. Low on incident but high on atmospherics, the film creates a slyly seductive mood with exactly the right music, the right images, and the right words.

Continue reading Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)”