Jim Jarmusch films are a strange thing. The style he brings to his films is so laid back and seeped in his own interests that if you know the actors who are in the film or the artists featured on the soundtrack you more or less feel like you've already seen his films before they even start. Because of this it took me a long time to finally get around to watching Night on Earth.
Instead of being one story, Night on Earth is a series of vignettes set around the idea of a night spent riding in taxicabs the world over. Some of the pieces are amusing, others veer into melodramatic sadness, and all of them feel intentionally artificial. After the funny adventure of taking his passengers YoYo [Giancarlo Esposito] and Angela [Rosie Perez] to Brooklyn, Helmut Grokenberger [Armin Mueller-Stahl] uncertainly makes his way back into the night. You are left with a feeling of fear for Helmut at the end of what had been a comedy piece while simultaneously trying to figure out how the hell an elderly clown from East Germany ended up working the night shift for a New York taxi service. A majority of Night on Earth is built on trying to pull real emotions out of unrealistic characters. Every story ever written does this but the slight sense of ironic detachment that Jarmusch brings to Night on Earth makes it that much more obvious. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. The film could have been utterly full of itself otherwise and it certainly wouldn't have been a Jarmusch film without it.
While the film is fine in and of itself, what really interested me was two of it's stars: Roberto Benigni and Winnona Ryder. Benigni plays a Roman taxi driver who obliviously blares his way through the night no matter what is going on around him. Whether you find the idea of someone being trapped in a taxicab being driven by Roberto Benigni to be frighteningly funny or just plain frightening, Benigni delivers on both counts.
Former actress Ryder plays Corky, the gum and grit chewing taxi driver who swears her way through the Los Angeles night while wearing a baseball cap and large sunglasses. She looked so cool. While riding from the airport to Beverly Hills, casting agent Victoria Snelling [Gena Rowlands] realizes that Corky could be the fresh face that she's looking for. Thing is, Corky is probably the only person in LA not interested in a film career. She declines Victoria's offer, saying she is perfectly happy driving a taxi while she works on becoming a mechanic.
Of the five stories presented in Night on Earth, the story of Corky is the one with the most noticeable punch line. Ryder is decked out to look like the classic "before" image of a movie girl who is waiting -whether she knows it or not- to be swept out of her hum-drum existence. All she needs is a Henry Higgins, Fairy Godmother, or Richard Gere to step in and flip her world upside down. Night on Earth, however, recognizes that the initial version of the heroine is often just as appealing if not more so than the "improved" version. Mind you, I've always had a thing for Ms. Ryder so my judgment may be swayed a little, plus any character that drives around all night while Tom Waits supplies the soundtrack to her life can't help but look cool but Corky also seems to be in the rare position of being happy with her life. She may miss out on some opportunities because she didn't take up the offer to become a movie star but she most certainly would have lost everything that she currently liked in the attempt. Night on Earth doesn't state whether Corky made the right choice or not, instead it simply presents her decision.
While Night on Earth is a fine movie in and of itself, I also found it interesting for what it said about the actors in the film when contrasted with their current lot in life. As of the time I'm writing this, Roberto Benigni's latest film -a live action version of Pinocchio is failing in US theaters. I don't know what drove Benigni to make a film in which a wooden boy is played by a middle aged man who's distinctive voice is erased in poor English dubbing but it's a far cry from the edgy fun he was having in Night on Earth. At least he's doing better than Ryder who is now known for her brush with the law more than the string of lousy movies she's recently been in. Honestly, they both looked a lot happier driving taxicabs than they do in their current circumstances. I'm not saying something silly like that Benigni and Ryder should have thought about taking Corky's route or that success is bad or any other silly platitude. Instead, just as you don't know how each taxi-enclosed story in Night on Earth is going to play out, I find it interesting how in the space of several years two actors can go from starring together in an indie movie to having the worst time of their careers. Instead of trying to make a statement or present a fully thought out argument, I'm simply presenting something I found interesting and am letting the reader draw their own conclusions... sort of like a Jim Jarmusch film.
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