Paterson (2016)

A quiet observation of the triumphs and defeats of daily life, along with the poetry evident in its smallest details.

Director:

Jim Jarmusch

Writers:

Jim Jarmusch, William Carlos Williams (poem)

Stars:

Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Nellie

10 wins & 43 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Adam Driver	...	Paterson
Golshifteh Farahani	...	Laura
Nellie	...	Marvin
Rizwan Manji	...	Donny
Dominic Liriano	...	Boy on Bus 1
Jaden Michael	...	Boy on Bus 2
Barry Shabaka Henley	...	Doc
Trev Parham	...	Sam (as Trevor Parham)
Troy T. Parham	...	Dave (as Troy Parham)
Brian McCarthy	...	Jimmy
Frank Harts	...	Luis
Luis Da Silva Jr.	...	Blood in Convertible
Chasten Harmon	...	Marie
William Jackson Harper	...	Everett
Method Man	...	Method Man (as Cliff Smith)

Storyline

Exactly one week in the life of a young man named Paterson of Paterson, New Jersey is presented. He lives an extremely regimented and routinized life, that routine perhaps most vividly displayed by the fact that he is able to wake up at exactly the same time every day without an alarm. That life includes eating Cheerios for breakfast, walking to work carrying his brown bag lunch packed in his lunch pail by his wife Laura, having a casual chat with his colleague Donny before he begins his shift driving the #23 Paterson bus for the local public transit company, walking home where he straightens out the exterior mailbox which somehow during the day gets knocked crooked, eating dinner with Laura and listening to her goings-on of the day, taking Laura's English bulldog Marvin - who he would admit to himself he doesn't much like - out for a walk to his neighborhood bar where he has one and only one beer before walking home with Marvin. There are day to day variations which are often the ...

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Plot Keywords:

poetry | bus driver | twin | cupcake | walking a dog | 

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Taglines:

If you ever left me I'd tear my heart out and never put it back

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some language

Did You Know?

Trivia

Some of the books visible in Paterson's basement are "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau, "Lunch Poems" by Frank O'Hara, "Paterson" and "The Collected Earlier Poems" by William Carlos Williams, "The Fall" by Albert Camus, "The Walk" by Robert Walser, "Double Indemnity" by James M. Cain, "Bambi" by Felix Salten, "Alone and Not Alone" and "Great Balls of Fire" by Ron Padgett, "The Collected Poems" by Wallace Stevens, "On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988" by Kenneth Koch, "The Call of the Wild/White Fang" by Jack London, "Collected Poems, 1956-1987" by John Ashbery, "The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness" by Sy Montgomery, "In the Palm of Your Hand: A Poet's Portable Workshop" by Steve Kowit, "Selected Prose and Poetry" by Edgar Allan Poe, "Save the Last Dance for Satan" by Nick Tosches, "The New York Trilogy" by Paul Auster, "I Fought the Law: The Life and Strange Death of Bobby Fuller" by Miriam Linna & Randell Fuller, "Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005" by Luc Sante, "Gone Man Squared" by Royston Ellis, "This Planet is Doomed: The Science Fiction Poetry of Sun Ra" and "Prophetika Book One" by Sun Ra, "The Baltimore Atrocities" by John Dermot Woods, "Sweets and Other Stories" by Andre Williams, "Benzedrine Highway" by Charles Plymell, "I Remember" and "The Nancy Book" by Joe Brainard, "Monk" by Laurent de Wilde, "Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East" by Scott Anderson, "Consider the Lobster and Other Essays" and "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace, "The Flowers of Evil" by Charles Baudelaire, "Up Above the World" by Paul Bowles, and "Amerika" by Franz Kafka.

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Goofs

In "Glow", Paterson writes about 'going downstairs to put the coffee on' but he lives in a one story house. That could be seen as an error, however even if he lives in a one story house, it has a basement. "Going downstairs" means going to the basement where Paterson has the small room where we see him writing and reading.

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Quotes

Paterson: I don't like you, Marvin.

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Connections

References The Hurricane (1999)

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Soundtracks

Lonely Street
Written by Carl Belew, Kenny Sowder and W.S. Stevenson
Performed by Gary Carter
Courtesy of Gary Carter Music

User Reviews

Poetry

I owe Jarmusch a debt of gratitude for being a formative figure in shaping my cinematic tastes. I shall never forget watching Stranger Than Paradise (1984) in NY in the early 1980s: the novelty, joy, patient camera movement, the fantastic way of playing Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'I Put a Spell on You' throughout the soundtrack. I have seen most of Jarmusch's movies ever since and more than three decades later, Paterson did not disappoint. Jarmusch is as creative as ever, gifting us with a wonderful film. The set is Paterson N.J., the protagonists are a bus driver also named Patterson and his artistically creative spouse. Paterson writes poetry, reads poetry, and encounters poetry wherever he goes and whoever he meets. This is it. And it is as engaging, uplifting, funny, and as insightful as a film can be. Patterson may be watched as a homage. It delicately portrays a particular place, Paterson New Jersey, reminding us that a place, any place, is always a product of the way its present mixes up with its past, of the way people both walk it and remember it. But the film is not only a homage to a place, it is also a homage to daily life, to the mundanity of just going to work and having a drink after a day's work. One striking feature of this film is that there are no bad characters here, no evil spirits, no mean intentions. In fact the only mean character in the film is the protagonists' dog, but even the dog is not too bad, just a drag. And miraculously, in spite of this, the film is totality innocent of naiveté. As if at the hands of a gifted anthropologist, the camera curiously follows and watches, and the film never falls into anything resembling judgment and condescension. It is truly genius in its ability to draw us into the perspective of the protagonists, to embrace their feelings and movements, to empathize with them and to fall in love with their numerous small encounters. Remarkably, one of the achievements here is that the film feels and looks timeless. It could be shot in the 1950s, or the 1970s, and yet it makes no attempt to hide the fact that it has been shot only recently. Incidentally, Paterson makes a point about not having a mobile phone. It does wonders to the film and its ability to give homage. A truly uplifting film.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Page Official site [Japan]

Country:

France Germany USA

Language:

English Italian

Release Date:

28 December 2016 (USA)

Also Known As:

Paterson

Filming Locations:

Paterson, New Jersey, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$5,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$69,335, 1 January 2017

Gross USA:

$2,152,738

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$9,588,282

Company Credits

Production Co:

K5 International, Amazon Studios, Inkjet Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

118 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1