Stranger Than Paradise: Meaningful Minimalism
$2.95
3 word format
document in English
film studies
school essay
published 19/11/2007
review : Completed
level : Advanced
requested 3 times
SummaryThe term “independent film” is extremely malleable in the realm of American cinema. A film may be considered “independent” if it is financed and/or distributed outside of a Hollywood studio, or if it bends and/or breaks the conventions of mainstream American movies. There are numerous, if not infinite, ways to categorize and classify films as independent, and any attempt to do so is nearly impossible. That said, there are certain films that inarguably deserve the controversial classification, and certain filmmakers that approach American cinema in a manner that undeniably independent. One such film is Stranger Than Paradise (1984), and one such filmmaker is Jim Jarmusch. The film, Jarmusch’s second feature as writer/director, was financed with a shoestring budget (around $110,000), and became an archetype of what American independent cinema would strive to be in the following two decades. The narrative style of Stranger Than Paradise bends nearly all the “rules” of mainstream cinema. Everything about the film is minimalist, to put it lightly. In the early 1980’s, when films with grand narratives—such as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Ghostbusters (1984)—dominated the box office, Jarmusch’s film served as a daring, wholly original way to approach American cinema. Stranger Than Paradise’s sparse visual and narrative qualities frame its subject, American identity, in a way that few movies had ever attempted. His emphasis on the small, mediocre, and often-unexamined qualities of everyday life, made for a truly independent film.
Table of Contents
- While independent cinema is, by and large, a debatable categorization, the stylistic differences between independent films and mainstream Hollywood features'perhaps particularly in movies from the 1980's'are quite clear
- The narrative style of the film, in many regards, is the story. Jarmusch breaks the film into three parts, entitled ‘The New World', ‘One Year Later', and ‘Paradise?.
- Like the film itself, the characters' meaning is revealed through the most minimal of actions.
- American identity, which Willie has desperately been chasing since he emigrated from Hungary, is the heart of Stranger Than Paradise.
- One of the funniest scenes in Stranger Than Paradise involves Willie, Eddie, and Eva, in Cleveland, making a trip to Lake Eerie.
- Stranger Than Paradise is a film that derives great meaning from the parts of life that usually go unobserved in mainstream Hollywood films.
Most downloaded documents over 30 days in film studies Latest in the category film studies From the same author
knowledge network