Jim Jarmusch

Stranger Than Paradise

Night On Earth

This week was all about the writer, director, musician, and magician of mumblecore Jim Jarmusch—known best for his deadpan comedies and Rick Sanchez haircut. Telling stories through every day nothings and mundane meanderings can seem effortless when done right, and pretentious when done incorrectly. There can be solace found in everyday things, and wonder found in everyday people, but there is also the potential for boredom. Jim Jarmusch’s 2013 film Only Lovers Left Alive is one of my favorite vampire movies—in its slice of modern day vampire life are so many significant and funny moments, that just make sense when it comes to what contemporary vampires would be like. (It just makes sense that they’d listen to Jack White and ethically-source their blood.) I needed to explore more of this remarkably unremarkable world that feels both familiar and uncanny. Night On Earth was much more than just a slice of life, it was at least five servings of stories and intrigue, told through vignettes of five different taxi drivers and their customers. Like a long episode of High Maintenance, Night On Earth only gave us a glimpse into these people’s lives, who you become very quickly invested in, and yet there’s so much to observe. Winona Ryder plays an LA taxi driver, alongside the incomparable Gena Rowlands, who fittingly played a refined but not uptight Hollywood casting agent. Making phone calls to important people in Hollywood, who for some reason are always named Marty, Gena Rowlands was the antithesis to Winona’s scrappy, grease monkey of a character, Corky (the second hot girl named Corky that’s made an appearance in Double Feature Thursday). They briefly touch on many topics: careers, men, children, and the potential for Corky to become a movie star, only lingering on these conversations long enough to keep us perplexed. With its believable dialogue and a brief cameo from Winona’s previous Heathers costar Lisanne Falk, the LA scenes were some of my favorites. The next vignette took us to New York, wherein two Do The Right Thing stars make memorable appearances: Giancarlo Esposito (aka Buggin Out) and Miss Rosie Perez, who spend their ride with an East German immigrant circus clown turned cab driver named Helmut—who can barely drive. This brings Giancarlo, or YoYo, to the driver’s seat, navigating and teaching his cabbie how to drive as they talk about the city, the English language, and their families. Cue Rosie Perez, YoYo’s sister-in-law, Angela, and overall troublemaker, who gets picked up against her will while storming down the street. A symphony of “fuck you”s cascade in the taxi between YoYo and Angela, while Helmut just smiles and observes. Rosie Perez, who really should teach a Master Class in profanity, is essentially just playing her character in Do The Right Thing, but that didn’t bother me at all. These characters had a natural chemistry between them that could be heard through every uttering of “go fuck yourself”. The next three vignettes take place in Paris, Rome, and Helsinki, carrying humor, heartbreak, and suspense within each one of them. I hesitate to mention every detail of every conversation, because like many mumblecore masterpieces, describing and summarizing them diminishes some of the magic. You just kinda had to be there. That’s why I highly recommend Night On Earth, and why I really do not recommend Stranger Than Paradise: Jarmusch’s first major motion picture. What’s important about Stranger Than Paradise is not the content of the movie itself, which is mostly nothing, but what this movie opened the door for. This low budget, low stakes, low energy film about mostly nothing inspired so many auteurs of the mostly nothing modern era like Kevin Smith, Greta Gerwig, the Duplass Brothers, Lynn Shelton, and Lena Dunham. For what it’s worth, Stranger Than Paradise introduced a different kind of filmmaking and a different kind of storytelling, that dared to mess with the format of both the silver and the small screen, and that is incredible. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for captivating conversations between interesting characters, I’m not sure if Stranger Than Paradise is for you. Truly the only thing that unites this film with the genuinely fascinating Night On Earth, other than its director, are some instances of completely unnecessary xenophobia. Other than that, these films could not differ more. Stranger Than Paradise is one of those movies that seeks to say more in moments of silence than in moments of action, and I found excitement in neither of those instances. Instead of tension or fear or exhilaration, all that was found in those quiet moments was… boredom. And I really hate to say this because I believe in the beauty of a nothing movie, but this nothing movie really went to new depths of nothing—so much so that I spent most of the hour and thirty minute run time searching for an Airbnb for an upcoming trip I’m taking. The best part of this film was the moment that I did, in fact, find the perfect Airbnb. I doubt I missed much as I glanced at my phone, for each line of dialogue either came from the quiet Hungarian who didn’t have much to say, or the rude, oafish New Yorker who didn’t have much to say. This film reminded me so much of Frances Ha that I truthfully think Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach plagiarized their script, but this is not a compliment. To watch three semi disconnected people semi get to know each other through a black and white filter is of little interest to me. This usage of black and white in modern day films can cause this audience member to detach from a film, and I mean that with no disrespect to Jim Jarmusch, but with full disrespect to Noah Baumbach and David Lynch. At least the awkwardness of the characters in Stranger Than Paradise came to them naturally, unlike the contrived quirkiness of Frances Ha. Stranger Than Paradise is a movie that I really wanted to like, but it appeared, with very little effort, to try to make me hate it at every turn. It doesn’t make me hate Jim Jarmusch, nor the style of cinema he gave birth to, but it does serve as a reminder that this route of storytelling can be riddled with mistakes and monotony, and mostly, nothing. I guess I just prefer it when vampires go about their day-to-days, sue me.

“Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent.”

—Jim Jarmusch