Themes: Fish Out of Water, Bohemian Life, Immigrant Life
Main Cast: John Lurie, Eszter Balint, Richard Edson, Cecillia Stark, Danny Rosen
Release Year: 1984
Country: US/WG
Run Time: 95 minutes
Plot
Although Jim Jarmusch made his directorial debut with Permanent Vacation (1982), Stranger than Paradise (1984) marked his breakthrough as a major American filmmaker. One of the most deadpan comedies ever committed to film, Stranger than Paradise suggests a Buster Keaton film written by Samuel Beckett and Jack Kerouac and directed by Andy Warhol. Willie (John Lurie) is a small-time gambler whose distant cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) is moving to America from Eastern Europe and informs him that she'll need to stay with him for ten days. Willie isn't happy to have Eva around, but after Willie introduces her to the joys of American cigarettes and TV dinners ("You got your meat, you got your potatoes, you got your vegetables, you got your dessert and you don't have to wash the dishes -- this is how we eat in America!"), Eva steals a frozen meal and a pack of smokes from the corner store, and Willie is both surprised and impressed. His buddy Eddie (Richard Edson) happens by, and they hang out with Eva just long enough to develop a fondness for her before she moves on to Ohio, where she'll live with her Aunt Lottie (Cecillia Stark). Months later, Willie and Eddie score $600 in a poker game and decide to visit Eva in Ohio. However, it's the dead of winter, and they have nothing to do except look at the frozen surface of the lake. The three eventually head down to the tacky paradise of Miami, where Willie and Eddie try their luck with the ponies and Eva decides what to do next. Stranger than Paradise is a film that defines the notion, "It's not what you say, but how you say it." Shot in long, static takes, its style is minimalism itself, but the post-beatnik cool of John Lurie, Richard Edson and Eszter Balint somehow betrays the fact that they care about each other, and a loopy charm and subtle but potent humor seeps through the film's stark black-and-white images. Stranger than Paradise began as a short subject which was made possible by German director Wim Wenders, who gave Jarmusch a supply of film stock left over from one of his projects, and it went on to become one of the most influential movies of the 1980s, casting a wide shadow over the new generation of independent American filmmakers to come. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
An exercise in minimalist hipster cool that entertains less because of its nothing-happens plot than its comic, avant-garde style, Stranger Than Paradise (1984) also ranks high on the list of the late twentieth century's most influential and historically important films, representing an early example of the low-budget independent wave that would dominate the cinematic marketplace a decade later. The second film from New York director Jim Jarmusch, Stranger Than Paradise was first produced as a short called The New World with stock that was donated to the filmmaker by Wim Wenders, one of his two mentors (the other was Nicholas Ray). After touring the festival circuit, the short garnered enough attention for Jarmusch to adapt it into a feature, using The New World as the first of clearly delineated thirds. At times playing like a series of pointless vignettes, Stranger Than Paradise has certain generational themes in common with later indie films like Slacker (1991) in its preoccupation with the disaffection, aimlessness and inability to communicate of its central characters. Defying the hard-working immigrant stereotype, the Hungarian-born New Yorker Willie (John Lurie) is a gambler who is selfishly does not want to put up his teenaged cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) when she arrives in America from Budapest on a brief stopover before continuing on to her new home with an aunt in Ohio. Willie grows to admire Eva, however, when she commits petty theft. Together with Willie's pal Eddie (Richard Edson), also a hustler, the three seem more preoccupied with what to avoid (a boring winter in Ohio on the shore of Lake Erie where they go to visit Eva a year later) than with where they're going (once they flee Ohio for sunnier, more exotic Miami, life doesn't really change for them: Eva can't decide what to do there and the two men lose all their hard-earning poker winnings betting at the track). Each character harbors a desire to arrive in a paradise of sorts (for Eva, it is the America that spawned the rebellious Screamin' Jay Hawkins, for Eddie it is where Eva is living in Ohio and for Willie it is Florida). In the circular world of Stranger Than Paradise, however, they each end up frustrated, confused and ultimately, back where they began. Jarmusch's use of long takes and slow fades to black punctuates the humor of his characters' boredom, ennui, and frustration; his trademark usage of parallel tracking shots makes its first appearance here. In 1984, Stranger Than Paradise was named Best Picture by the National Society of Film Critics and was awarded the prize for new filmmakers, the Camera d'Or, at Cannes. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Rammellzee - Man with Money; Richard Boes - Factory Worker; Brian J. Burchill - Poker player; Tom Docillo - Airline Agent; Harvey Perr - Poker player; Rockets Redglare - Poker Player; Sara Driver - Girl with Hat; Paul Sloane - Motel Owner
Credit
Jim Jarmusch - Director, Jim Jarmusch - Editor, Melody London - Editor, Otto Grokenberger - Executive Producer, John Lurie - Composer (Music Score), Drew Kunin - Composer (Music Score), Tom Jarmusch - Production Designer, Guido Chiesa - Production Designer, Sam Edwards - Production Designer, Tom DiCillo - Cinematographer, Sara Driver - Producer, Jim Jarmusch - Screenwriter
The film is a three-act story about self-identified "hipster" Willie (John Lurie), who lives in New York City, and his interactions with the two other main characters, Eva (Eszter Balint) and Eddie (Richard Edson). In the first act, Willie's cousin Eva comes from Hungary to stay with him for ten days because Aunt Lottie, who she will be staying with, will be in the hospital. Willie at first makes it clear that he does not want her there, but soon begins to enjoy her company. This becomes especially true when Eva steals food items from a grocery store, and gets a TV dinner for Willie. He ends up buying her a dress, which she later discards. After ten days, Eva leaves, and Willie is clearly upset to see her go. Eddie, who had met Eva previously, sees her right before she goes.
The second act opens with a long take showing Willie and Eddie winning a large amount of money by cheating at a game of poker. Willie decides, because of all the money they now have, to leave the city. They decide to go to Cleveland to see Eva. However, when they get there they are just as bored as they were in New York. For example, they end up tagging along with Eva and a friend, Billy, to the movies. They eventually decide to go and head back to New York.
The final act begins with Willie and Eddie, on their way back to New York, deciding to go to Florida. They turn around and "rescue" Eva. The three of them get to Florida and get a room at a hotel. They end up losing all of their money on dog races. At this point, they decide to go back and bet on horse races. Willie refuses to let Eva come along, so she goes out on the beach for a walk. She ends up being mistaken by a drug dealer, and is given a large sum of money. She goes back to the hotel, leaves some of the money for Willie and Eddie and writes them a note explaining that she is going to the airport, and then goes there. When she arrives, she discovers that the only flight to Europe left that day is to Budapest, which is where she originally came from. She decides to wait until the following day, and goes back to the hotel. Willie and Eddie end up winning all of their money back at the horse races. But when they get back, Eva is gone, and Willie reads her note and they go to the airport to stop her from leaving. When they get there, Willie is forced to buy a ticket to get on the plane to find Eva. However, he gets on right before the plane takes off, and ends up going on the flight to Budapest. The second to last shot shows Eddie outside watching the plane leave, and he realizes what has happened. The final shot shows Eva back at the hotel, returning to an empty room.
Rockets Redglare, Harvey Perr and Brian J. Burchill as Poker Players
Sara Driver as Girl With Hat
Paul Sloane as Motel Owner
Themes
The style of the film is generally considered a direct statement against pop cultural values of the time, such as MTV. For example, MTV is loud and colorful, while the film is shot in black and white and with minimal dialogue. Also, MTV is very rapidly paced, while Stranger Than Paradise deliberately places black space in between each of its sixty-seven shots. Finally, MTV is based on the use of celebrities, while Jarmusch used some of his personal friends for the film, all of whom were unknown actors.
Production
Shooting initiated using leftover film stock from the production of Wim Wenders' Der Stand der Dinge in (1982). It began as a 30-minute short subject film and was later expanded into a three-act feature. This short film was shown as "Stranger Than Paradise" at the 1983 International Film Festival Rotterdam. When it was used for the three-act feature, the initial segment was renamed "The New World".
Film critic Pauline Kael gave the film a generally positive review. "The first section is set in the bare Lower East Side apartment of Willie, who is forced to take in Eva, his 16-year-old cousin from Budapest, for ten days. The joke here is the basic joke of the whole movie. It's in what Willie doesn't do: he doesn't offer her food or drink, or ask her any questions about life in Hungary or her trip; he doesn't offer to show her the city, or even supply her with sheets for her bed. Then Eddie comes in, even further down on the lumpen scale. Willie bets on the horses; Eddie bets on dog races. Eva, who never gets to see more of New York than the drab, anonymous looking area where Willie lives, goes off to Cleveland to stay with Aunt Lottie and work at a hot-dog stand. And when Willie and Eddie go to see her, all they see is an icy wasteland - slums and desolation - and Eddie says 'You know it's funny. You come to someplace new, and everything looks just the same.' The film has something of the same bombed-out listlessness as Paul Morrissey's 1970 Trash - it's Trash without sex or transvestism. The images are so emptied out that Jarmusch makes you notice every tiny, grungy detail. And those black-outs have something of the effect of Samuel Beckett's pauses: they make us look more intently, as Beckett makes us listen more intently."[1]
The film made $2,436,000, significantly more than its budget of around $100,000.[3][4]
Home media
Stranger Than Paradise has been released on DVD by The Criterion Collection.[5] The DVD also included Jarmusch's first film, Permanent Vacation, as well as an interview with the cast and crew and some other special features. The booklet that accompanies the DVD features essays by Jarmusch and some other film critics.
Legacy
In 2002, Stranger Than Paradise was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film has had a large impact on independent cinema. Allmovie claims that it is "one of the most influential movies of the 1980s," and that it cast "a wide shadow over the new generation of independent American filmmakers to come.[6] The film was included in Jonathan Rosenbaum's Alternate 100, which was meant as a response to the American Film Institute's100 Years...100 Movies list.[7]
The film features an original soundtrack written John Lurie, who also stars in the film. The music is performed by The Paradise Quartet. The song "I Put a Spell on You" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins also features prominently in the soundtrack.
