Director Jim Jarmusch attended a special advance screening of 'Paterson' in Rutherford, home to William Carlos Williams, a poet referenced often in the film Watch video
This Is Just To Say
Jim Jarmusch visited
Rutherford
to screen his film
"Paterson"
the one
that pays homage to
Famous son
of Rutherford and
father of
"Paterson"
Jarmusch ("Broken Flowers," "Coffee and Cigarettes"), director of "Paterson," was in Rutherford Monday night at the Williams Center for the Arts -- so named for Williams the poet -- with his trademark shock of silver-white hair. His New Jersey-inspired movie opens on Dec. 28, but locals got to see the film early thanks to the efforts of the board of the Williams Center. The movie not only cites Williams' work, but also sees the main character embody his poetry and habit of practicing the craft while holding down a regular job.
"Paterson," written and directed by Jarmusch, references Williams, author of the epic poem "Paterson," almost as much as the city Paterson, which is also the name of the movie's lead character, played by Adam Driver, a Paterson bus driver who uses spare moments to jot down poems in his "secret notebook."
Those who attended the screening were given little black notebooks printed with the movie's title.
"I hope you like the film," Jarmusch told the audience at the start of the movie, shown in a small, narrow theater. "But even if you don't, there's nothing I can do about it."
The director's introduction was brief, but clearly intended to relay the idea that this story would not conjure any shade of Adam Driver in his 2015 "Star Wars" role. No, this would be a film with more silence than most.
"That was our intention," said Jarmusch, 63. "To make a quiet film." One with not a whole lot of action, he said, and just enough conflict to keep things moving. Its jokes aren't gags so much as well-timed repetition.
Wayne Narucki, a member of the Williams Center board, said all it took was a call to Jarmusch's production company to get him on board for the early screening of the film set in and dedicated to the Passaic County city.
"I felt it was a perfect fit," said Narucki, a Rutherford pediatrician whose own practice -- Red Wheelbarrow Pediatrics -- is named for Williams' 1923 poem "The Red Wheelbarrow," a kind of double reference given the fact that the celebrated imagist poet was also a Rutherford pediatrician and doctor of general medicine. He hopes the screening can draw attention to the Williams Center, a county building that has been the subject of local debate over renovations but whose Center Cinemas movie theater reopened this past summer to screen first-run movies. A main performance space that has been shuttered for three years is in need of repair.
Also in attendance were Ron Padgett, the poet who crafted Paterson's notebook verses in the movie, and Carter Logan, who scored and produced the film.
"Paterson," a film from Amazon Studios distributed by Bleecker Street, premiered at Cannes in May where it was nominated for the film festival's Palme d'Or prize. The movie also stars Golshifteh Farahani as Paterson's artsy, free-spirited wife Laura. Nellie the bulldog, who plays Marvin, the couple's bulldog, posthumously received the festival's Palme Dog award for her performance. Barry Shabaka Henley plays a Paterson bar owner and rapper-actor Method Man briefly appears in one scene as an aspiring rapper practicing his rhymes in a Silk City laundromat.
Paterson the bus driver keeps a framed photo of Williams at his workspace at home, where he writes in his notebook, next to volumes of his and other writers' poetry. In case you weren't sold on the connection between poet and character, he also recites Williams' 1934 poem "This is Just to Say" for Laura and converses with a visitor from Japan who comes to the Great Falls just to see the city that inspired Williams' epic poem.
While Williams extracted poetry from dealings with his patients, Driver's Paterson character seizes on inspiration from the conversations of passengers in his bus or experiences with his wife, a process aided by the fact that he does not own a smartphone (the world seemed to work fine before they existed, he supposes, before he actually finds a use for one).
Paterson sites dotted throughout the film, like the meaningfully positioned words of an epic poem, include the Great Falls -- where the main character likes to sit and pen his verses at lunchtime -- as well as Main and Market streets.
At times the film seems to be a living Wikipedia entry for the city, name-checking its famous sons, like Lou Costello and his statue at Lou Costello Memorial Park.
"Hell, even Fetty Wap don't have no park," says Doc, the bar owner played by Henley, who maintains a tribute wall to all things Paterson.
Other locals who get a shoutout include anarchist and Paterson weaver Gaetano Bresci, who assassinated the king of Italy in 1900; beat poet Allen Ginsberg; and local TV legend "Uncle Floyd" Vivino and his brother, Jimmy Vivino, leader of the house band for "Conan."
'Paterson' notebooks were handed out to members of the audience at the Rutherford screening. (Teresa Pyskaty | OMJ.com)