- Title: Jarmusch celebrates poetry of daily life with 'Paterson'
- Date: 16th May 2016
- Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 16, 2016) (REUTERS) **** WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY **** ENTRANCE TO THE PALAIS DES FESTIVALS CAMERA REVEALING A MAN HOLDING UP AN IMAGINARY SIGN NOTE REQUESTING INVITATION TICKETS REQUEST FOR PATERSON SCREENING TICKETS WIDE OF MEDIA CONFERENCE ROOM, JIM JARMUSCH JIM JARMUSCH, GOLSHIFTEH FARAHANI AND UNIDENTIFIED FESTIVAL PERSONNEL GOLSHIFTEH FARAHANI, JIM JARMUSCH AND ADAM DRIVER WALK INTO SHOT ADAM DRIVER, JIM JARMUSCH, GOLSHIFTEH FARAHANI AND UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCTION MEMBER VARIOUS WIDE OF NEWS MEDIA ROOM (SOUNDBITE) (English) WRITER, DIRECTOR, JIM JARMUSCH SAYING: "I can say of the two films we are presenting here, they're very different stylistically. But they are both about the idea that you in your life can chose your path. You can chose what you do in your life and Paterson is about that. These characters that might seem on the surface cliches, a housewife, she's not a cliched housewife, she's someone very illuminated and interested and very active within just the confines of her house, she is very creative and expressive and chooses who she is. And the same with Paterson. He is a man who drives a bus every day but he chooses also to be a poet."
- Embargoed: 31st May 2016 20:35
- Keywords: Jim Jarmusch Paterson Adam Driver Golshifteh Farahani bus driver
- Location: CANNES, FRANCE AND VARIOUS UNIDENTIFIED FILM LOCATIONS
- City: CANNES, FRANCE AND VARIOUS UNIDENTIFIED FILM LOCATIONS
- Country: France
- Topics: Film
- Reuters ID: LVA0014I24PJH
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Amid the glitz and glamour of the Cannes Film Festival, American director Jim Jarmusch is once again offering an ode to quiet contemplation and domesticity with "Paterson", competing for the Palme d'Or.
Paterson, played by Adam Driver, is a bus driver who lives with his wife Laura in Paterson, New Jersey. He follows a precise, mundane daily routine but also writes poems.
The movie's "story" - if it can be called that - unfolds over seven days. Paterson drives his bus around the city, walks his dog Marvin, drinks a single beer in the bar and then returns to Laura.
"I can say of the two films we are presenting here, they're very different stylistically. But they are both about the idea that you in your life can chose your path. You can chose what you do in your life and Paterson is about that. These characters that might seem on the surface cliches, a housewife, she's not a cliched housewife, she's someone very illuminated and interested and very active within just the confines of her house, she is very creative and expressive and chooses who she is. And the same with Paterson. He is a man who drives a bus every day but he chooses also to be a poet," Jarmusch said at a news conference.
As well as "Paterson", Jarmusch's documentary "Gimme Danger", on the rock band The Stooges, will also be released in Cannes.
Laura (Iranian-French actress Golshifteh Farahani) obsessively repaints objects and furniture in their home black and white.
"The thing is I was also asking 'why did you cast me?' Like you have the choice of thousands of amazing actors and normally the movies that I have played in, they're more tragic and dramatic and, you know, very sad. Well Laura is not like that at all. Laura looks like me. And people have not cast me really for this part of me, which is full of joy and light, I'm happy, I'm a happy person normally. I have a big drama in me too and people are more interested by that drama, but now that Jim came for this part which was amazing, because there are not many movies that I am so joyful, but maybe he saw something, maybe some empathy because Laura is full of empathy and understanding," Farahani said.
A deeply private individual, Paterson spends long periods of the film taking in the sights and sounds of his New Jersey town.
"They have this thing called a one-liner, I think that's what it is called, it says all the schedule of the entire shoot and there is kind of a brief sentence underneath every day that gives you a kind of paired down version of what happens that day and almost all the scenes with Paterson said 'Paterson listens too, etc.' 'Paterson listens to girl read poem' and for me, playing a character who is just listening all the time is really kind of a fun thing to do, for me that is the most exciting thing, it is getting to listen to not only the poems but the other actors, that was his key activity, is to listen and I thought that was a beautiful thing to get to play for a couple of months," Adam Driver said.
Paterson, one of the 21 films in the main competition, premieres in Cannes on Monday.
The 63-year-old Jarmusch, one of the gurus of independent American cinema, won the Grand Prix - for the most original film - in Cannes with "Broken Flowers" in 2005, and the Camera d'Or for best first feature film for "Stranger than Paradise" in 1984. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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