Paterson: Awesome!    (Jim Jarmusch)
The world is full of basement poets, and also writers, and artists, and musicians. There is an army of these creative people. You may never see or read their work, and yet their art sustains them, and reflects the world they see and experience. Jim Jarmusch’s latest film Paterson covers a week in the life of such a basement poet, a bus driver named Paterson, played by Adam Driver, who lives in Paterson New Jersey.

Paterson is a low-key film structured around the rhythms of everyday life. In this way, Jarmusch is able to focus his film on the key human relationships in Paterson’s life: a mutually supportive often comical relationship with his wife (Laura), the people who ride his bus and with whom he works, and the denizens of a local bar where he stops each night while he walks his dog. A dog, Norman, that is as much Paterson’s nemesis as he is his friend. There is no complicated or contrived plot. Nothing feels fabricated. Rather Paterson is the story of a creative man living each day as it comes. He is a close observer of the world around him; and what he sees and hears as he drives his bus, or as he walks to and from work, big things and very small things, inspire him to write poetry.

Adam Driver’s wonderful performance brings to life this quiet, kind and creative man.

But you might ask isn’t such a story rather boring? Not in the least. Jarmusch has sprinkled through out Paterson a number of warm, heartfelt, and even dramatic moments that keep the story alive. I’ve seen the film twice, and when I think about these moments, one in particular comes to mind.

In that scene, Paterson is walking home from work through a warehouse area when he comes upon a girl seemingly alone writing in a journal. He asks her if she is all right, and she tells him that she is waiting for her mom and sister. They talk and he notices that she has been writing a poem. She asks him if he likes poetry. He says he does. She reads him her poem, but frets a bit that it doesn’t exactly rhyme. He says he likes the poem, and mentions that poems don’t always need to rhyme. She smiles, a wonderful smile. Then her mother and sister appear, and she gets up to leave. But as she does, she asks Paterson if he likes Emily Dickinson. He says she is one of his favorite poets. “Awesome,” she responds, and then is gone.

What a lovely and heartfelt scene. Two poets meet, the older encourages the younger by listening and praising her work, while the younger reminds the older about how magical the act of writing can be. Later the audience will discover that this scene mirrors a pivotal scene at the end of the movie.

To me Paterson is Jarmusch’s best film, rich with character, full of comic touches, and a clear testament to a creative life well lived. It resonated with me more than any other film I saw in 2017.