美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Paterson': A Love Poem To Poetry, From Director Jim Jarmusch

'Paterson': A Love Poem To Poetry, From Director Jim Jarmusch

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: 

Director Jim Jarmusch treats cities like characters in his films. He did that with New Orleans in "Down By Law" and Memphis in "Mystery Train." Jarmusch's latest film, "Paterson," takes that idea a step further. It's set in Paterson, N.J. Paterson is also the name of the main character, and the film celebrates poetry. As NPR's Joel Rose reports, the director drew inspiration from a particular poem named "Paterson."

JOEL ROSE, BYLINE¹: "Paterson" unfolds like the stanzas² of a poem. Every morning, Paterson, played by Adam Driver, wakes up and goes to work. He drives a bus around the New Jersey³ town that shares his name and writes in his notebook on his lunch break. Then he comes home to his wife, Laura, played by Golshifteh Farahani.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PATERSON")

GOLSHIFTEH FARAHANI: (As Laura) How was your day?

ADAM DRIVER: (As Paterson) The usual.

FARAHANI: (As Laura) Get any writing done?

DRIVER: (As Paterson) I did a little, yeah - working on a poem for you.

FARAHANI: (As Laura) A love poem?

DRIVER: (As Paterson) Yeah. I guess if it's for you, it's a love poem.

ROSE: Then Paterson heads out to walk the dog and stops by the local bar for a beer. He does the same thing every day.

JIM JARMUSCH: Routine is very liberating⁴ and nurturing⁵ for him to be a poet and to drift around and observe small things, overhear conversations, you know, whatever strikes him.

ROSE: Writer and director Jim Jarmusch says he got the idea for the script more than 20 years ago when he took a trip to Paterson, where one of his favorite poets set one of his most famous poems. William Carlos Williams worked as a pediatrician in nearby Rutherford, N.J. Much of his work draws on the lives of his working-class patients. Here's Williams reading from his 1927 poem.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: "Paterson" - (reading) Paterson lies in the valley under the Passaic Falls, its spent waters forming the outline of his back. He lies on his right side, head near the thunder of the waters filling his dreams.

JARMUSCH: The beginning of the poem "Paterson" has a metaphor⁶ of a man being the town and the town being a man, you know? And I took something from that, a small idea of, maybe someday I'd make up film about a man named Paterson who's in - lives in Paterson who's a poet and, like, a working-class guy.

ROSE: There are other ways that William Carlos Williams is woven into the film. One of his business cards is tacked⁷ up behind the bar that the main character frequents, and there's a line from one of Williams' poems - no ideas but in things.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

WILLIAMS: (Reading) Say it - no ideas but in things.

ROSE: That same line turns up in the movie spoken by a rapper practicing his craft in a laundromat. He's played by real-life rapper Clifford Smith, also known as Method Man.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PATERSON")

CLIFFORD SMITH: (As Himself) No ideas but in things, no ideas but in things. (Rapping) They call me Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a paradox⁸ of straight shots and gun bars. I shoot to give, no gun charge. I run yard.

ROSE: That phrase, no ideas but in things, became a sort of mantra for some 20th century poets who focus less on big abstractions and more on specific objects and images.

RON PADGETT: That dictum has always kind of been in the back of my head when it comes to writing.

ROSE: Ron Padgett's poems are featured in "Paterson," though initially⁹ he says Jim Jarmusch just asked him to be an adviser¹⁰ on the film.

PADGETT: He said, well, I just want to make sure I get things right from the point of view of a poet.

JARMUSCH: It was a sneaky way to get him to read...

PADGETT: Yeah.

JARMUSCH: ...The script.

PADGETT: It was a very slow seduction. He said, you know, if you - you don't have to do this, but if you want to write anything special for the movie - I said, no, no, no - too much pressure. I can't handle it (laughter). And as soon as we hung up, I started thinking, why not take the challenge, you know?

ROSE: Padgett wrote original poems for the film. It also includes one of his older works, "Love Poem," read by the main character, Paterson.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PATERSON")

DRIVER: (As Paterson) Here is the most beautiful match in the world, so sober and furious and stubbornly ready to burst into flame, lighting¹¹ perhaps the cigarette of the woman you love for the first time. And it was never really the same after that.

ROSE: Poetry has turned up in Jarmusch's films before. There's the character named William Blake in "Dead Man" and a joke about Robert Frost in "Down By Law." Jarmusch himself wrote a poem for "Paterson" read by a young girl the character meets on his walk home from work.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PATERSON")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Water falls. Water falls from the bright air. It falls like hair, falling across a young girl's shoulders. Water falls, making pools in the asphalt, dirty mirrors with clouds and buildings inside.

ROSE: Jarmusch says he's been an avid¹² reader of poetry since high school.

JARMUSCH: And I saw these people are like innovators and rebels. They deal with changing your consciousness. Their form is not a commercial one. Show me a poet that does it for the money, you know? I still think poets are like - for me, like rock stars. They're kind of magical people. They should just be given whatever they want.

ROSE: Maybe Jim Jarmusch can't give poets everything they want, but he has delivered his own love poem to their work. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 stanzas   

节，段( stanza的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The poem has six stanzas. 这首诗有六小节。
• Stanzas are different from each other in one poem. 诗中节与节差异颇大。

3 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

4 liberating   

解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Revolution means liberating the productive forces. 革命就是为了解放生产力。
• They had already taken on their shoulders the burden of reforming society and liberating mankind. 甚至在这些集会聚谈中，他们就已经夸大地把改革社会、解放人群的责任放在自己的肩头了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

5 nurturing   

养育( nurture的现在分词 )； 培育； 滋长； 助长

参考例句：

• These delicate plants need careful nurturing. 这些幼嫩的植物需要精心培育。
• The modern conservatory is not an environment for nurturing plants. 这个现代化温室的环境不适合培育植物。

6 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

7 tacked   

用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝

参考例句：

• He tacked the sheets of paper on as carefully as possible. 他尽量小心地把纸张钉上去。
• The seamstress tacked the two pieces of cloth. 女裁缝把那两块布粗缝了起来。

8 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

9 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

10 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

11 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

12 avid   

adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的

参考例句：

• He is rich,but he is still avid of more money.他很富有,但他还想贪图更多的钱。
• She was avid for praise from her coach.那女孩渴望得到教练的称赞。