Jarmusch in Tucson

Tonight, the Loft Cinema in Tucson, Arizona, will kick off a monthlong Jim Jarmusch retrospective with the director’s 1984 sophomore feature, Stranger Than Paradise. Told in a series of meandering vignettes, this masterful portrait of hipster ennui follows hapless Hungarian émigré Willie (John Lurie), his sixteen-year-old cousin Eva (Eszter Balint), and his friend Eddie (Richard Edson) as they drift aimlessly from a gloomy apartment in downtown New York to the frozen streets of Cleveland and desolate beaches of Florida. Described by its director as a “a neorealistic black comedy in the style of an imaginary East European director obsessed with Ozu and The Honeymooners,” Jarmusch’s Cannes prize-winning breakthrough introduced audiences to his singularly deadpan sense of humor and paved the way for the new wave of American independent cinema that emerged in the 1980s.

Those in Tucson can see the film this evening on 35 mm. In the meantime, read the liner notes for our release, written by J. Hoberman and Geoff Andrew.