In Jim Jarmusch's outstanding film Paterson, a poet named Paterson who drives a New Jersey Transit bus in Paterson, New Jersey, spends his days in the same stationery rhythm of work and home. But he observes things, and so do we: the water, the beer, the photos on his home's wall, the people in the bar next to him, the matches, the water, and the discussions of the bus passengers.
He spends his free time writing poems about them, whether it is before setting out on his daily route, while eating lunch beside Passaic Falls, or by himself in the basement.
Paterson appears to be a relatively simple tale that spans only one week. Every morning, Paterson (Adam Driver) gets out of bed early and spends a few minutes with his beloved Laura (Golshifteh Farahani). He sips coffee, eats a bowl of Cheerios, and touches the box of matches on the counter. He picks up his tin lunchbox, which has a photo of Laura hidden inside and heads to work while writing poems in a notebook while driving the bus.
Through Paterson’s eyes, we see the world in a quiet, almost slowed-down motion resulting in a gentle, philosophical fable filled with quiet emotion and beautiful scenery around the town of Paterson. The film also captures the rare balance of work and art that so many artists, especially poets, struggle with.
But Paterson does not lead a dual life, and he’s not unhappy with both of his lives. He doesn’t feel the need to romanticize his work life or ostracize it. He lives his work and his life in poetry, and everything in his life is a part of his poetry, and thus, no part is unimportant. Full of little joys, and defeats, it’s a good and content life for him.
Paterson’s poetry is unrhymed and almost childlike at first glance, but then entirely profound in its essence and filled with the bits of his life and his love towards people and life. When his wife Laura asks him to photocopy the notebook he writes in or share it with the world, he flinches. He doesn’t like the idea. His poetry is not for the world. His poetry is for no one. It serves no purpose. But it’s important. For him, in his life. The poetry in Paterson is the poetry of the mundane. The world, his world as we know it is the stage for his words. His poems are simple, and everyday, and the spoken words of everyday life are the poem. The words in his poems flow like a conversation depicting the acceptance of the flow in his life, characteristic of Paterson. He is at peace with the life he leads.
The movie is about a man who writes poetry. And somewhere between the man and the narration of his poetry, the movie becomes poetry. The movie is based on a week in his life, and every day of the week is a stanza of a poem. And just like Paterson’s poetry, Paterson is also about the trivial and the mundanity of his life, embodying his character in the movie. The movie is a poem in itself.
There is also a certain silence in the movie as it moves ever so slightly across the film in Paterson’s life. A lot of the scenes in the movie are just there, where Paterson says nothing but just takes the world around him in. He wakes up in his house and eats his breakfast when his wife is usually still sleeping. His job is also a job of extended silence, which requires almost no attention, or interaction and allows Paterson to just fade away and for his intellectual and writing abilities to not stick out. He comes home to his wife, eats dinner, goes to the same bar every day for a beer, and then goes back to sleep.
Usually, a life like that would be the embodiment of a living gray hell, but that’s not the case for Paterson. Paterson’s life is slow, and straightforward in his working-class reality, without rebellion or decadence, loud noise, and an air of familiarity and isolation that just sort of hangs in the air during the entire movie. The solitary pursuit of art, as well as the comfort of familiar life, is what defines his life. His saintly and feeble yet almost inspiring and empowering presence as a character is what embodies the movie’s gentle vision of art. Everything in the movie is so beautifully brief, the tragedy and the beauty alike. Every tiny moment is transcendental.
Paterson is a man of endurance and strength. He does his everyday job without complaining and finds charm and enlightenment in the conversations of passengers and delight in repeated viewing of the cityscape of his route. His poetry is filled with the modest substance of his life. His hero William Carlos Williams was a doctor, who plunged up to the elbows in blood and struggled daily against death; his friends included Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Marcel Duchamp. His lunchtime hero, Frank O’Hara, was active in the New York, a friend of Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, John Ashbery, and many other artists. One could see a lot of familiar works of these authors being pushed into this movie if we were to realize the director’s vision and how he made the movie.
The mention of Emily Dickinson in the movie in his interaction with a little girl is a very delightful one to watch. Emily Dickinson too didn’t want to publish her poems like him. And in another scene, he reads a poem from Willam Carlos Williams to his wife. The simplicity of the prose stuns you really, the straightforwardness. I believe that this is one of the reasons this poet was a favorite of Paterson. Because that’s how he wrote too, and William Carlos William told him that poetry can be written anyway and every way you want. So Paterson wrote. And when he lost his first notebook, after his dog chewed it to pieces, he got another notebook from a Japanese man at the waterfalls. So is fate. And so he continued writing.
The movie ends as it begins. Slowly. Quietly. Taking a quite something from you away.