Paterson

Watched Paterson today.  Man I'm on a roll with these movies lately.  Probably because I'm bored.  But anyways.  

So I've watched this movie before, probably like 2, 3 years ago, I'd like to say.  I remembered there being more to the movie when I saw it before.  I swore the dog must've gotten kidnapped in a minor way, that I'd see some characters like the young poet girl and the laundromat rapper multiple times in the movie, when in fact no, we just see them once each.  So that was, a little weird for me.  It was like oh, guess the movie was a lot simpler than I thought it was.  

The person I was watching a movie with wanted to watch a synopsis/ video-essay ish thing of the movie, and I was like no wait I need to try and think of what was going on, like try to process it myself before diving into anything like that.  So here I am.  

The first thing that struck me rewatching this film, and probably something that strikes a lot of other viewers, is how little happens.  It actually reminds me of this thing Kurt Vonnegut said in his famous "Shape of Stories" speech, where he basically said that Shakespeare was a real genius at writing plot, because he knew how to make a story where nothing happens.  And that's what I saw here.  I mean to be honest there were so many points during the movie where I was like, oh this must be the turning point where things go real south.  Like maybe Paterson confronts his girlfriend about the guitar she's buying, or how pushy she is to get his poems out in the public, or how disgusting the Brussels sprouts pie she made for dinner was.  Or maybe the dog really goes missing.  Or maybe one of Laura's artistic endeavors fails miserably, especially her cupcakes, I mean how did they make it safely to the farmer's market when they weren't even covered in the back of the truck??  Maybe my sense of suspense was more sensitive since I just watched Romeo and Juliet yesterday.  Makes sense.  But I guess my point here is how I found myself looking for things to happen in a movie where almost nothing really happened.  

But I love this movie.  I think I love it because it was asking a question I've been asking myself.  And that is, what's a successful artist?  Lately I've been wanting to be more creative, try to get ideas out to the public.  I suppose this blog is one of those initiatives too.  But sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be considered a real creative talent, or like recognized for my thoughts and stuff like this that I dabble in, unless I make a conscious effort to market myself as an artist.  Kind of like what Laura's doing.  And now that I look back at it, I love how the movie doesn't pick sides, Paterson or Laura.  Because I remember thinking during my first watch all those years ago, that Laura was going to fuck up by like, not making as much money as she wanted to at the farmer's market, or not playing the guitar well enough and being discouraged.  And then the story can be like, don't be result oriented like Laura, be a human being like Paterson!  Modesty and anti-capitalistic tendencies for the world!!  But it wasn't like that.  Maybe because the debate didn't really need to be centered around that.  

What was clear though, was the difference between Paterson and Laura by which they determine their worth.  That sounds more complicated then it needs to be... what I'm saying is, I saw a big difference in how the two reacted to the loss of artwork.  And by "loss of artwork", I mean the part where Marvin the dog shredded up Paterson's poem book.  I couldn't help but notice Laura seemed a lot more bummed out about the loss than Paterson.  I mean obviously he was bummed out too, but.  

So then Paterson goes to the same old waterfall view where he likes to write poetry, and meets a Japanese man.  The man hands him a blank book and said something like, "sometimes the empty page presents the most possibilities" (I rewatched the scene because I forgot what he said lol, so yeah that's exactly what he said).  And then Paterson writes his last poem, "The Line", where he reflects on a question in some song that stood out to him: "or would you rather be a fish?".  

What does it mean to be human?  Maybe the thing to be appreciated was not the torn up poems, but the person capable of forming the words.  Something about that feels really important.  But then of course the irony is that you can't really celebrate a person you don't know if you can't access their thoughts in some sort of tangible way, e.g. writing.  But of course maybe none of that matters if you're Paterson.  Through my art I'm happy to know that I'm a conscious man capable of seeing beauty in the simplest of things.  Then maybe my identity doesn't matter.  I can be a bus driver.  I can clean shit off of streets or serve drinks at a bar or be an actor.  I am observant and fully conscious and that's what makes me an artist.  That's what makes me a human being.  

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Okay I thought I wrapped up my thoughts pretty well up there, but I also wanted to take the time to talk about Laura, because she's an insanely interesting character.  Obviously her preference for black and white seems to go beyond just a stylistic one (can you really be an artist if you don't form an identity around it).  But the twin thing was also interesting too, when she mentioned she saw twins in her first dream, and Paterson seemed to be with twins almost every other scene.  My interpretation was that, the twins would've probably been there anyways, if you know what I'm saying.  Like the only reason why twins were special in the context was because Laura mentioned that they were in her dream.  And that's the thing about communicating ideas to others: people will start seeing it as well.  It's like a well told "relatable" joke like something Louis CK would say, and then I'll be like haha he was right, I can't feel my face when I'm high.  Shitty example but you get my point; you can bring your conscious thoughts to others by communicating them.  And that's a power that Laura has.  

The problem I felt though was that, maybe Laura was so engrossed in her own thoughts and artistic identity, that it was hard for her to see outside of that box.  One poignant moment that shows this is when Paterson and Laura come back from the movies, and her remark about the movie was that she "liked that it was in black and white".  Like really?  That's the thing you liked most about it?  

But again I want to reiterate why this movie is so special, and it's that it never felt like it was pushing for either side.  There were pros and cons for each way of being an artist.  Personally I'd feel more comfortable being a Paterson sort of artist, but after watching Laura succeed, it makes me feel more confident that maybe things could go well financially as well if I put myself out there.  Art means a lot of different things for a lot of different people, and I thought the movie really beautifully described those different values without being overly pedantic about one true form of art.  And that was awesome.  

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All right, that was pretty much all I wanted to write about the movie.  But it does make me want to read some poetry.  Was looking into some ee cummings poetry I liked before, might do that again.  Going somewhere quiet and writing poetry sounds really nice too, once quarantine's over...