''Stranger Than Paradise'' is a 1984 American black-and-white
absurdist deadpan comedy film directed, co-written and co-edited by
Jim Jarmusch, and starring jazz musician
John Lurie, former
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth were an American rock band formed in New York City in 1981. Founding members Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar), Thurston Moore (lead guitar, vocals) and Lee Ranaldo (rhythm guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of ...
drummer-turned-actor
Richard Edson, and Hungarian-born actress and violinist
Eszter Balint. It features a minimalist plot in which the main character, Willie, is visited by Eva, his cousin from
Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
. Eva stays with him for ten days before going to
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
. Willie and his friend Eddie go to Cleveland to visit her, and the three then take a trip to Florida. The film is shot entirely in single long takes with no standard
coverage.
Plot
The film is a three-act story about Willie, who lives in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, and his interactions with the two other main characters, his cousin Eva and friend Eddie.
In the first act, Willie, a surly small-time gambler and hustler of Hungarian origin, receives a phone call from his Aunt Lotte in Cleveland informing him that his expected visit by his cousin Eva, who is coming from
Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
to live with Lotte, will have to be extended to ten days because Lotte is unexpectedly in the hospital. Willie makes it clear that he does not want Eva there. When Eva arrives, he orders her to speak English rather than Hungarian, as Willie strongly identifies as "American." He grudgingly begins to enjoy her company. He becomes protective, discouraging her from going out alone, or beyond certain streets. At one point, Eva takes the initiative to clean the apartment, which is fairly dirty. When she finds his vacuum cleaner, Willie playfully tries to persuade her that an American expression for vacuuming is "choking the alligator", but Eva doesn't believe him.
Despite his growing fondness for Eva, Willie refuses to take her on his trips to the racetrack with Eddie, his good-natured friend and hustling accomplice. Eddie fruitlessly tries to persuade him to bring Eva along. Willie and Eva watch football in the afternoon and late-night sci-fi movies. His esteem for her increases when she returns from an excursion with a few canned food items, a TV dinner "especially" for him, and, to his astonishment, a carton of cigarettes, all obtained without money. He smiles and shakes her hand, telling her "I think you're alright, kid."
Eva, smart, pretty, and low-key, likes to play her favorite song,
Screamin' Jay Hawkins's "
I Put a Spell on You", which Willie dislikes. He buys her a dress, which she dislikes. At this point it becomes evident that Willie has grown attached to Eva. When the ten days have passed, Eva leaves, and Willie is clearly upset to see her go. Eddie, on his way to visit Willie, sees her discard the dress on the street, but doesn't tell Willie.
The second act starts a year later and opens with Willie and Eddie winning a large amount of money by cheating at poker. Willie asks Eddie about borrowing his brother-in-law's car, telling him "I just wanna get out'a here, see sump'in different, ya know?". He actually wants to go to Cleveland to see Eva.
It is the middle of winter. When they arrive in Cleveland, they stop at Lotte's house, then go to surprise Eva at her job at a local fast-food restaurant, where she is excited and pleased to see them. However, they are soon just as bored as they were in New York. They pass the time by playing cards with Lotte and tagging along with Eva and her would-be boyfriend to the movies. They go to the pier on the frozen snow-covered lakefront to take in the view. Pressed by Eddie, Willie eventually decides to return to New York. When they say their goodbyes, Eva jokingly suggests that if they win big at the racetrack, they should "kidnap" her. Willie responds that they would take her someplace warm, because "this place is awful."
The final act begins with Willie suggesting to Eddie, on the road back to New York, that they should go to
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
instead. He then suggests they turn around and pick up Eva—which they do, to Lotte's obvious consternation. The three arrive in Florida and get a motel room. The next morning, the men leave Eva asleep in the room. Eva, awakening alone and with no food or cash, wanders outside in the windy bleak overcast afternoon to the beach, which appears not much more appealing than the windy bleak snowy Lake Erie scene in Cleveland from which they fled. When Willie and Eddie return, Eva's annoyance turns to dismay when the distraught pair reveal they have lost most of their money on dog races. They go for a walk on the beach to figure out what to do. Willie is clearly annoyed with Eddie, as the dog races were his idea.
Willie and Eddie decide to go out and bet the last of their money on horse races. Willie still refuses to let Eva come along, so she goes out on the beach for a walk, wearing a flamboyant wide-brimmed straw hat she has just gotten from a gift shop. A drug dealer mistakes her for a courier he has been waiting for and gives her an envelope with a large sum of money, while berating her and her presumed boss. She returns to the motel, leaves some of the money for Willie and Eddie, and writes them a note explaining that she is going to the airport. Willie and Eddie, having won big at the horse races and gone through the better part of a bottle of whisky, return to the motel to find Eva gone. Willie reads her note and they go to the airport to stop her. Eva discusses with an airline ticket agent her options for flying to Europe, and the agent mentions that a plane leaves in 44 minutes for her home city of
Budapest
Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
. Eva is indecisive.
When Willie and Eddie reach the airport, Willie, believing Eva has boarded the Budapest flight, buys a ticket, planning to board the plane and convince Eva to stay. In the next-to-last shot, Eddie stands outside, watching the plane fly overhead, lamenting that Willie was apparently not able to get off the plane, and that both Willie and Eva are headed to Budapest. In the final shot, we see Eva returning to the empty motel room, looking tired and perplexed, toying with the straw hat.
Cast
*
John Lurie as Willie
*
Eszter Balint as Eva
*
Richard Edson as Eddie
* Cecillia Stark as Aunt Lotte
* Danny Rosen as Billy
*
Rammellzee as Man With Money
*
Tom DiCillo as Airline Agent
* Richard Boes as Factory Worker
*
Rockets Redglare, Harvey Perr and Brian J. Burchill as Poker Players
*
Sara Driver as Girl With Hat
* Paul Sloane as Motel Owner
Background and production
Writer and director
Jim Jarmusch shot his first feature, ''
Permanent Vacation'' (1980) as his final thesis at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
's film school and spent the next four years making ''Stranger than Paradise''. At NYU he studied under director
Nicholas Ray, who had brought him along as his personal assistant for the production of ''
Lightning over Water'', a portrait of Ray being filmed by
Wim Wenders.
Wenders gave Jarmusch the remaining film stock from his subsequent film, ''
Der Stand der Dinge'' (1982), enabling the young director to shoot the 30-minute short that became ''Stranger Than Paradise''. It was released as a standalone film in 1982,
and shown as "Stranger Than Paradise" at the 1983
International Film Festival Rotterdam
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...
. When it was later expanded into a
three-act feature, the name was appropriated for the feature itself, and the initial segment was renamed "The New World".
Release and reception
The film was shown at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world.
Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...
, where it won the
Caméra d'Or award for debut films (1984). It also won the
Golden Leopard and the
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury – Special Mention at the 1984
Locarno International Film Festival, the
Grand Prix of the
Belgian Film Critics Association, the Special Jury Prize at the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023.
The festival has acted ...
in 1985 and
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture of 1984.
It went on to win the
Kinema Junpo Award for best foreign-language film in 1987, and the award for National Film Registry at the National Film Preservation Board, USA in 2002.
[
The film earned $2,436,000,] significantly more than its budget of around $100,000.
Critics
Film critic Pauline Kael gave the film a generally positive review:
Home media
''Stranger Than Paradise'' has been released on DVD by The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...
as its 400th title. The DVD contains a second disc which includes Jarmusch's first film, '' Permanent Vacation'' (1980). Both films were restored for the DVD release using high-definition digital transfers overseen and sanctioned by the director. Supplementary footage on the second disc includes ''Kino '84: Jim Jarmusch'', a series of interviews with the cast and crew from both films by a German television program, as well as ''Some Days in January'' (1984), a behind-the-scenes Super-8 film by the director's brother. An accompanying booklet features Jarmusch's 1984 essay "Some Notes on ''Stranger Than Paradise''" as well as critical commentary by Geoff Andrew and J. Hoberman on ''Stranger Than Paradise'' and by Lucy Sante
Lucy Sante (pronounced ''Sahnt''; formerly Luc Sante; born May 25, 1954) is a Belgian-born American writer, critic, and artist. She is a frequent contributor to '' The New York Review of Books''. Her books include ''Low Life: Lures and Snares of ...
on ''Permanent Vacation''.[
]
Legacy
''Stranger Than Paradise'' broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood filmmaking and became a landmark in modern independent film. According to allmovie, it is "one of the most influential movies of the 1980s", and cast "a wide shadow over the new generation of independent American filmmakers to come.[ It is cited for giving "an early example of the low-budget independent wave that would dominate the cinematic marketplace a decade later".][ Its success accorded Jarmusch a certain iconic status within arthouse cinema as an idiosyncratic and uncompromising '' auteur'' exuding the aura of urban cool embodied by downtown Manhattan.][ In a 2005 profile of Jarmusch for '']The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', critic Lynn Hirschberg declared the film had "permanently upended the idea of independent film as an intrinsically inaccessible avant-garde form".
In 2002, ''Stranger Than Paradise'' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...
by the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It was included in Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for '' The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has contributed to ...
's Alternate 100, a response to the American Film Institute
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the History of cinema in the United States, motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private fu ...
's 100 Years...100 Movies list.[ In 2003, '']Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
'' ranked it #26 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films". ''Empire
An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
'' ranked it #14 on its list of 50 Greatest Independent Films of All Time.
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese filmmaker who List of works by Akira Kurosawa, directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the History of film, history of cinema ...
cited ''Stranger Than Paradise'' as one of his favorite films.
Soundtrack
The film features an original soundtrack
A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...
written by John Lurie, who also stars in the film. It is performed by The Paradise Quartet, consisting of Jill B. Jaffe (viola), Mary L. Rowell (violin), Kay Stern (violin), and Eugene Moye (cello). The recording engineer was Ollie Cotton. The original song " I Put a Spell on You" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins is featured in the soundtrack.
Track listing
References
External links
*
*
*
*
''Stranger Than Paradise: Enter Jarmusch''
an essay by Geoff Andrew at the Criterion Collection
{{Authority control
1980s buddy comedy films
1984 films
West German films
American black-and-white films
American buddy comedy films
Films directed by Jim Jarmusch
Films set in New York City
Films set in Cleveland
Films shot in Cleveland
Golden Leopard winners
American comedy road movies
1980s comedy road movies
United States National Film Registry films
1980s English-language films
English-language German films
1980s Hungarian-language films
Caméra d'Or winners
1984 comedy films
1984 independent films
The Samuel Goldwyn Company films
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film winners
1980s American films
1984 multilingual films
German multilingual films
American multilingual films
Sundance Film Festival award–winning films
English-language independent films
English-language buddy comedy films