For my money, Jarmusch is always happier working with a limited palette, maximising the recourses he has been allocated. Down by Law, Coffee and Cigarettes, of those I know, are lovely, self-contained films, which thrive on their chosen minimalism. Paterson, with its clear homages to the art of poetry, and more specifically, William Carlos Williams, is an addition to that club.
Poetry, of all the narrative art forms, is perhaps the greatest antithesis to film. Film is a team game. It requires equipment, specialisation, budget. Poetry is a one-man band, which requires nothing more than a pen and paper. (Or in this day and age a smartphone, something Paterson might reject.) Poetry thrives on formal rules: metre, scan, rhyme. Not to mention the rhetorical devices, (alliteration, onomatopoeia etc). Perhaps Jarmusch has always embraced the poetic possibilities of the cinematic form, but never more knowingly so than in Paterson. A clearly defined structure of seven stanzas, one for each day of Paterson’s working week. A recurrent use of image, character and trope. The adoption of stylistic flourishes (the composition of overlapping images to accompany the poems, as well as the use of ‘writing’ to illustrate them.) Even in the narrative construction, there would appear to be a nod to the art of the narrative, with what appears to be one significant incident per stanza.
The net result is a languid, understated film, which is rich in detail, where every marginal moment has a resonance. In that sense, weirdly, it also seems to be faithful to those scriptwriting gurus who state that every scene should reinforce your film’s theme. Perhaps, the film suggests, the connection between film and poetry is closer than one imagines: in the art of the screenplay, which seeks to contain a precision to rival poetry’s precision and economy; and also, one imagines, the storyboard, where the formal visual elements are mapped out and composed with as much rigour as a poet seeking to construct the perfect line.
No comments:
Post a Comment