393 - Night On Earth, United States, 1991. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

393 - Night On Earth, United States, 1991.  Dir. Jim Jarmusch.

Let us visit Earth.  In one night.  Tonight.

We travel to space, approaching the globe.  We reach the globe.  It is a globe.

It rotates counter-clockwise as we caress its surface in the opposite direction.

We watch cities as they go by, so close as to not see countries, let alone continents.

Somewhere in here is our next city.

There it is. . . .

Remember the time clocks in old newsrooms?  They had one set to different world cities in different time zones.  If you watched The Mary Tyler Moore Show, then you saw them there.

Here we have five clocks representing five cities in five time zones.  They are

Los Angeles.  New York.  Paris.  Rome.  Helsinki.

The three on the right are set to around ten minutes after four.  The two on the left are set to other times, including other minutes.

They are not synchronized.  Perhaps they are set to the local time in which we join their stories.

Time to join.

We zoom in on Los Angeles.

A young Wynona Ryder is driving a taxicab.

Fun word.  It is a compound word composed of two synonyms, and it is itself synonymous with the synonyms.  Taxi.  Cab.  Taxicab.  They all mean the same.  The last one is not considered redundant.

How many other words are like that?

She is carrying members of a rock band.

Meanwhile, Gena Rowlands has gotten off a plane and is waiting for her luggage at luggage claim.  She is on her cell phone.  A flip phone.  This is 1991.  Pretty impressive, actually.  Ryder is now at a pay phone.

Rowlands--let us call her Victoria Snelling--is a Casting Director talking to a Producer.  She keeps sending him great actresses and he keeps balking.  He wants them younger.  Less experienced.  Yet strong.  In fact, make her 18.  No experience.  With the nerves of a paratrooper.

This is not going to be easy.

Ryder--we will call her Corky--is talking to her boss about her cab.  She is complaining.  She had to pull the plugs herself this afternoon.  You had better tell Gonzalez go get his act together or I will have to be your mechanic myself.

That is what she really wants.

To be a mechanic.

Corky loves cars.  And she loves what she does.  She has worked to get this job as a taxi driver, and she enjoys it.  She is good at it.  She is not shy, and she can talk to people.  She does need to sit on a phone book to make her taller, but that is a good place to keep it anyway.  In case a rider may need it.

Such as Victoria, for example.

Corky takes Victoria from the airport to her home in Beverly Hills.  Turn right on Beverly Court.  Then follow the hill up Beverly Circle.  Please.

They get along just fine.  Victoria does borrow the phone book, and she makes an important phone call to her producer.  Corky turns on some music.  Not on the car stereo but from a cassette tape in the boom box in the front passenger seat.

Could that phrase count?  Cassette.  Tape.  Cassette Tape.  All mean the same.  Cassette is an adjective modifying tape, but it has become its own noun.

(Do you suddenly feel as though you can hear Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno saying these words in The Soft Shoe Silhouette on The Electric Company?  Taxi.  Cab.  Taxicab.  /  Cassette.  Tape.  Cassette Tape.)

Victoria cannot hear her phone conversation due to the music playing from the boom box.  They work it out.  Victoria asks Corky for things or offers her advice, and Corky calls her "Mom" in jest.

The cab ride takes a route that an Angelino would not take, in order for the movie to pass certain landmarks.  For example, they pass The Great Western Forum in Inglewood.  Moving east to west across the front of it.  And though the airport is never identified, one might presume it was supposed to be LAX.  Not that it looks like it.  On the commentary, they state it was in Long Beach, as the bigger airports were unavailable due to the terror threat levels at the time.

The women bond.  Victoria has an idea.  It works out differently from expected.

Then we go to the four other cities.

Compilation films often do not do well at the box office.  In this case it is essentially a compilation of five short films all revolving around the concept of the taxi, a driver, and at least one passenger.  But the film itself is fun.  It is enjoyable to watch.  And it is enjoyable to try to imagine all these things happening in the same evening in different parts of the world.

There are also things that link them.

From Los Angeles to New York, we have the family theme.
From New York to Paris, we have the you-cannot-drive theme.
From Paris to Rome, we have the you-cannot-see theme.
From Rome to Helsinki, we have the passenger passing out in the back seat theme.

These are minor, subtle connections, and there are several others.

The film is pure Jarmusch.

Relaxed.  Offbeat.  Deadpan.  Insightful.  Clever.

Now let us travel.

Taxi!