If life really was meaningless and absurd it would probably look like this.
Minimalism they call it. In New York, Ohio and Florida.
It’s also a “cult favorite”. What makes a film one of those is as mysterious to me as what doesn’t make it one. I’m really at a loss to explain why I love this film myself. It blow me away when I first saw it all those years ago and everytime I see it I enjoy it all the more. Maybe it has something to do with being a nihilist. Or always having striven to fit in with the lumpen sort. Being one myself as it were.
Maybe only 5% of the population want to live like this someday. But I’m betting a much bigger chunk than that don’t want to live the way they are now.
Be prepared to do most of the work yourself in trying to assertain “what it means”. Not much apparently. But that’s the point.
As for the envelope filled with money…
IMDb
Director Jim Jarmusch was dismayed to discover all the money he paid for the rights to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” went to the record company, with nothing going to Hawkins himself. When the film earned a profit, Jarmusch took it upon himself to track down Hawkins (who was living in a trailer park, at the time) and give him some money. It was the beginning of a friendship between the two which lasted until Hawkins’ death. According to Jarmusch, Hawkins continuously promised to pay him back, despite Jamursch’s insistence that the money was a gift.
What a fucking great story.
wiki
[b]Film critic Pauline Kael gave the film a generally positive review:
The first section is set in the bare Lower East Side apartment of Willie, who is forced to take in Eva, his 16-year-old cousin from Budapest, for ten days. The joke here is the basic joke of the whole movie. It’s in what Willie doesn’t do: he doesn’t offer her food or drink, or ask her any questions about life in Hungary or her trip; he doesn’t offer to show her the city, or even supply her with sheets for her bed. Then Eddie comes in, even further down on the lumpen scale. Willie bets on the horses; Eddie bets on dog races. Eva, who never gets to see more of New York than the drab, anonymous looking area where Willie lives, goes off to Cleveland to stay with Aunt Lotte and work at a hot-dog stand. And when Willie and Eddie go to see her, all they see is an icy wasteland – slums and desolation – and Eddie says ‘You know it’s funny. You come to someplace new, and everything looks just the same.’ The film has something of the same bombed-out listlessness as Paul Morrissey’s 1970 Trash – it’s Trash without sex or transvestism. The images are so emptied out that Jarmusch makes you notice every tiny, grungy detail. And those black-outs have something of the effect of Samuel Beckett’s pauses: they make us look more intently, as Beckett makes us listen more intently.[/b]
trailer: youtu.be/ToCSOp7FGT0
STRANGER THAN PARADISE [1984]
Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch
[b]Willie: You’re sure you don’t want a TV dinner?
Eva: Yes. I’m not hungry. Why is it called TV dinner?
Willie: Um…You’re supposed to eat it while you watch TV. Television.
Eva: I know what a TV is. Where does that meat come from?
Willie: What do you mean?
Eva: What does that meat come from?
Willie: I guess it comes from a cow.
Eva: From a cow? It doesn’t even look like meat.
Willie: Eva, stop bugging me, will you? You know, this is the way we eat in America. I got my meat, I got my potatoes, I got my vegetables, I got my dessert, and I don’t even have to wash the dishes.
…
Eva: I’m choking the alligator.
…
Eva [to Willie]: It’s Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and he’s a wild man, so bug off.
…
Willie: I got something for you.
Eva: What is it?
Willie: It’s a present.
Eva: Thanks. What is it? It’s a dress?
Willie: Yeah.
Eva: Oh. Thank you.
[she looks at the dress]
Eva: I think it’s kind of ugly. Don’t you?
Willie: No. I bought it. Why don’t you try it on?
Eva: I don’t really wear this style.
Willie: You know, when you come here, you should dress like people dress here.
Eva [tossing it aside]: I’ll try it on…later.
…
Willie: Hey, leave me some Chesterfields.
Eva: Can I get them in Cleveland?
Willie: Yeah, yeah, you can get 'em in Cleveland.
Eva: They taste good there, like here?
Willie: It’s the same Chesterfields.
Eva: Yeah?
Willie: All over America. Yeah.
…
Eddie: You know, last year before I met your cousin, I never know you were from Hungary or Budapest or any of those places.
Willie: So what?
Eddie: I thought you were an American.
Willie: Hey, I’m as American as you are.
[Silence. They begin driving into Cleveland]
Eddie: Does Cleveland look a little like, uh, Budapest?
Willie: Eddie, shut up.
…
Eddie [in Cleveland]: You know, it’s funny… you come to someplace new, an’… and everything looks just the same.
Willie: No kiddin’, Eddie
…
Willie [to Eva]: Here, let me tell you a joke, all right? There’s three guys, and they’re walking down the street. One guy says to the other one, “Hey, your shoe’s untied.” He says, “I know that.” And they walk… No… There’s two guys, they’re walking down the street, and one of them says to the other one, “Your shoe’s untied.” And the other guy says, “I know that.” And they walk a couple blocks further, and they see a third friend, and he comes up and says, “Your shoe’s untied.” "Your shoe’s un - " Aaah, I can’t remember this joke. But it’s good.
…
Eva [looking out over a frozen wasteland]: So, this is it, Lake Erie.
…
Eva: It was really nice of you to drive all the way out here to see me.
Eddie: It was nice of you to be here.
Willie: Eddie.
…
Willie: You take me to the dog races and now you tell me “you can’t win them all”.
Eva: What’s going on?
Eddie: Nothing. Nothing’s going on. We just lost all of our money.
Eva: At dog races?!
…
Eva: So what are we gonna do now?
…
Eddie: Where did she get all this money? And where did she get that hat?
…
Willie: I had to buy the ticket so I can get on the plane to take her off the plane.
…
Eddie [watches plane take off]: Aw, Willie. I had a bad feeling. Damn. What the hell you gonna do in Budapest?[/b]