The Poetics of the Ordinary : William Carlos Williams and Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | William Carlos Williams’ Paterson, a poem in almost six books, could fairly be considered the tangible manifestation of the fact that there is virtually no subject unsuitable for poetry – in effect, the doctrine practiced by the author along with other Imagists. The idea of finding inspiration (and eventually beauty) in the outwardly wonted everyday objects and mundane phenomena grew to be even more palpable after having resonated with the American director and screenwriter Jim Jarmusch, who took the kernel of Williams’ work (together with its very name) and put it into the cinematic ode of his own – the drama film Paterson. The focus of this paper is laid precisely on the synergy of these two different art forms, a poem and a film, grounded in the same aim and reinforced by the same impulses – to pay homage to the ordinary. It will examine the peculiarities resulting from and intrinsic to such endeavor and the ways in which the conceptual and philosophical underpinnings of both works manifest themselves. The paper will address William Carlos Williams’ place in the film, attend to the author’s pictorially vivid verbal images and analyze how his visual language finds its echo in Jarmusch’s work. It will also discuss how poetry in general is woven into the film as well as Jarmusch’s own connection with this form of literature, and, delving into the director’s cinematic imagery, explore the facets that, in the realm of the film and through Jarmusch’s lens specifically, characterize the celebration of the quotidian as we know it. |
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