Under the Spotlight: the timely relevance of Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Paterson’

Posted On January 8, 2025January 8, 2025

Within a fast-moving world, there are few things that encourage us to slow down, with the rhythms of social media and the pace of our working lives leading us to live at double speed in an attempt to keep up.

Quick thrills have become preferable when visiting the cinema, with mass audiences understandably preferring the safety of a superhero film instead of being challenged by something that encourages them to think inwards. As a lover of slow cinema, I find this to be one of the greatest tragedies of the current creative movement, with people becoming increasingly uninterested in spending time in another person’s shoes or perhaps becoming so burdened by the trials and tribulations of everyday life that they are in dire need of distraction, which now comes in the form of spandex costumes and middle-aged celebrities who are roped into blowing up planes. And in times like these, where everyone is hurtling through each day and living by the skin of their teeth, we are in desperate need of slowness, and when in need of such stillness, I find myself returning to one film in particular.

A certain kind of intimacy can only be found when watching people do nothing. There’s an age-old saying that you can only truly know someone after living with them, becoming privy to the strange rituals that mark their day, their bathroom habits or how they do the dishes. I feel that slow cinema is the equivalent of this saying, with filmmakers allowing us into a personal echo chamber as we observe the understated moments that make up a life. Witnessing these usually private moments brings us into the very bones of a person and deeper into their inner world, creating an entirely unique viewing experience that transcends those that just dip into an exterior world.

Paterson is one of the few films that truly immerses us in the rhythms of an ordinary life, with Jim Jarmusch taking us through seven days of Paterson’s life and immersing us in the regularity of his habits. Every day he wakes up, walks his dog, goes to work as a bus driver, drives through his town and shares dinner with his wife. Occasionally, they’ll go to the cinema, or sometimes, he’ll go to the bar in the evening and have a quiet drink alone, listening to the hums of the people around him and bumping into a surprising number of twins. He also adds meaning to his life through his love of poetry, writing about the things he observes on his bus route or the people in his life.

But Paterson does not display an aimless slowness; it is a deliberate stillness that connects us to a life more similar to our own. Paterson is a working-class man, and working-class stories have not typically been a priority within Hollywood. But when watching his week unfold, we’re hit with a wave of familiarity as we reckon with a life that more closely resembles our own, something that is stripped back and authentic in its simplicity. There is nothing glamorous or extravagant about Paterson’s life, yet this is what makes it so beautiful.

After a few days of observing his routine, we slowly started to live the same life: the tenderness of his kissing his wife’s neck in the morning, the sunlight that reflected in the trees on his morning walk and how his creative passions allowed him to slow down and detach himself from his work. It highlights the wonderful, unpredictable nature of things we cannot control. John Lennon once said that “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”, and the moments that lie outside of Paterson’s routine mark this life that is so precious and fleeting.

Paterson encourages us to find meaning and joy within the slowness of everyday life and says that the unpredictable moments that add meaning and nuance to our lives can only arise through these moments of stillness. While there are moments of small-scale chaos that disrupt Paterson’s routines, these occurrences go on to shape a bigger picture and define a fully lived life.

We could all take a page from Paterson’s book: open ourselves to the sounds in the air around us, listen to spatters of conversation on the street, and be touched by it all. By truly relishing the still humanity that lies in the cracks of a fast-moving world, we can flesh out our own experience of being and live a life most full.

Related Topics