Paterson by Jim Jarmusch

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=18930&date=2017-05-14&pageid=1

Goodbye cafes and bohemia, Hello downtown quotidian poetry!

The film ‘Paterson’, inspired by the epic eponymous poem by William Carlos Williams, introduces viewers to down town Paterson, NJ. Against this backdrop we listen to the poetry of Ron Badgett (of the New York School of poets) enunciated by the protagonist who’s also called Paterson. Writing before his shift on the bus as the driver, in the lunch break beside the Passaic Falls, or in his basement room at home, Paterson takes us through a solitude that is one with the world. It’s not poetry in a cafe or a watering hole amidst booze and brawl but in the solitariness of a man’s heart, singing a quiet song rooted in its rich dailiness.

The film is a paean to poetry, portrayed in the form of a poem that stays with us long after it is over. In the original poem, WCW imagines metaphorically speaking, the man to be the city, “Paterson lies in a valley under the Passaic Falls/its spent waters forming the outline of his back. He/lies on his right side, head under the thunder of the waters filling his dreams! Eternally asleep /his dreams walk about the city where he persists/incognito......the subtleties of his machinations drawing their substance from the noise of the pouring river.”

The film continues to grow in our thoughts long after its over. At the heart of the movie lies a rare commodity – a beautiful marriage with his wife Laura that is held together by polarity and cords of understanding like a blue porcelain piece of beautiful china.

The director Jim Jarmusch says, “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Select only things to steal that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”

Jim takes his beloved poetry and philosophy to brush coat an industrial town of mixed ethnicity, similar to Walt Whitman or Allen Ginsberg. He celebrates town life, its sheer predictability, the everydayness of activity and small talk. The view of the town from a bus seat is theatrical; we are looking down into down town shops, back roads, bus depots and the intersections of lights. We pass through lanes and by lanes of small time America and its hub hub of life. The camera veers to the grand Passaic waterfalls, many a times through the film, etching poems on the cascading falls.

Jim coalesces lines of poetry from poets who lived in Paterson such as WCW, Allen Ginsberg or others whom he has admired and read widely.  Markedly most of the poets enumerated in the film led conventional lives interspersed with bursts of poetry inspired by their everyday experiences. The famous ‘Lunch Poems’ by Frank O’Hara is an example. There is a subtle hint at Emily Dickinson too, with her reclusiveness and disinclination to publish her poems, just like Paterson, a poet writing for himself to fulfil his own desire completely detached from things.

On the other hand, Paterson’s better half, Laura, harbours ambitions of becoming a country singer or owning a successful cupcake business. She is artistic and spends her time engaged in creative endeavours of cooking baking dress designing and painting. In the process her home has mushroomed into an artistic haven of color, design and gourmet recipes. She brings spice, distraction and disorder into her husband’s life that is otherwise a disciplined order of events each day. The recitation of WCW’s poem by Paterson in the film ‘This is just to say’ imparts that touch of domestic bliss, here, and completes the gilded frame.

The film is made up seven episodes or poetic stanzas starting Monday morning until the next week. The slow even pace sets in right at the beginning. Paterson wakes up with the morning sun rays streaming into their room, bathing their marital bed in a dappled light.  He kisses his wife, who shares her dream of having twins on one instance (this visual rhyme of twins repeats like a refrain through the film with Paterson encountering twins all over town), has his porridge and walks to the bus depot. He drives the bus the whole day through the town. People get in and off the bus and he listens in to their conversations. At the end of his shift he again walks home, shares a meal with Laura, talking about their day. Later he goes to his basement room and writes and reads poems before walking his dog Marvin, an English bulldog to a bar where he meets the bar owner - Doc and a couple of other regulars such as Marie and Everret. The entire sequence is repeated everyday with few variations.

The interlude of Paterson with the same characters lends gravitas to his persona. He is laconic, contained, peaceful and detached. Laura is verbose, dreamy, ebullient and a people’s person. His co-worker Donny is a constant complaint box and the bar owner is a traditionalist whose bar has a wall of fame where he celebrates the famous people of Paterson- providing a historical context to the place. The other couple in the bar – Marie and Everret bring in the drama – a relationship which is effervescent and dramatic.   Everret’s panache for histrionics and drama is a contrast to Paterson’s practicality and reserve.

Laura envisions a great poet in her husband and keeps cajoling him to print his poems and share them with the world. When finally she extracts a promise from the very reluctant and reserved Paterson to xerox his secret notebook at the end of the week , the director folds in a Freudian slip which makes Paterson leave his notebook on the living room sofa. Marvin plays truant and shreds Paterson’s secret poetry notebook when the couple go out to watch a film.

Paterson ends with, “Poems are just words on water” – it’s the magic and sheer delight of writing poems that’s important, what happens to them later is of no consequence. He meets a Japanese poet on a bench under the Passaic Falls, who gifts him a notebook to begin writing poems again and so the love affair with life and poetry begins anew!