(Jim Jarmusch, US 1984, 90 min., 35mm)
Developed from one of his early short films, Jarmusch’s deadpan comedy classic introduces us to Eva, Willie, and Eddie, and follows their bleak but humorous cultural landscape in 1980s America. Garnering prizes at Cannes and from the National Society of Film Critics, this low-budget gem helped establish Jarmusch as one of the premier voices in what was then a fresh and subversive “independent” American cinema.
Program Notes
Stranger Than Paradise is Jim Jarmusch’s breakout film. His second feature, it won the prestigious Camera d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1984. It’s a story of alienation and assimilation, themes which become common in Jarmusch’s developing oeuvre. He states, “I’ve always felt like an outsider in a lot of ways, but in the same way I’m drawn to humor, miscommunication and the things that arise out of misunderstanding.” In this film he explores a sense of place and the relationship to America by an assimilated Hungarian immigrant and his newly arrived sixteen year old cousin.
Stranger Than Paradise began life in 1982 as a thirty minute short film entitled The New World. Filmed over the course of one weekend, The New World was shot on surplus film donated by Wim Wenders left over from his production, The State of Things (1982). Remarking upon the importance of this gift, Jarmusch once said, “I wrote the first part of Stranger Than Paradise because I had that film material available to me.” Ironically, Wenders’ The State of Things depicts a movie stalled mid-shoot because the supply of film stock was exhausted prematurely.
While Jim Jarmusch was making The New World, he wrote a longer script that would ultimately become an extension of the short film. After screening The New World to critical praise at several film festivals in Europe and then receiving a much needed loan and finally, securing backing funds from German TV, he completed the last two parts of Stranger Than Paradise, bringing the film in for a total budget of $110,000. This was a remarkable feat as budgets for most film productions at that time averaged fifteen million dollars or more.
An interviewer once asked Jarmusch if the actors in Stranger Than Paradise were real actors or if they were just playing themselves. He answered, “Well, they were not really actors. Well, they’re actors of varying degrees, but they worked hard rehearsing the film and developing a character. I don’t think they’re playing themselves.” He said in a later interview, “If you can work with the actor to get to a place where they are confident in their character, then you let their character react to the scene that you’re filming.”
Shot on location in New York City, Cleveland and Florida, Stranger Than Paradise is an elegantly composed film. It is characterized by sparse interiors and a vast terrain covered in snow and littered with hulking remnants of the Industrial Age. Its stark beauty, set in minimalist black and white still yields a story with multiple layers of meaning. On the surface the characters seem to be cold and uncaring, mirroring the landscape, but just underneath, just behind the eyes lies a tender vulnerability and almost painful sensitivity to the world around them.
~Jennifer Miko, Selznick School, Student
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