Stranger Than Paradise

"You know, it's funny. You come to someplace new and everything looks just the same." Jim Jarmusch's answer to the road movie is a droll farce so deadpan that some viewers never realized it was a comedy when it took snuck up on the nascent American indie scene in 1984. John Lurie and Richard Edson, the freshest and most authentic hangdog mugs to hit the big screen all decade with personalities to match, are Willie and Eddie, a pair of low-rent card sharps and gamblers getting by in the less charismatic neighborhoods of New York with Willie's "little cousin" Eva from Hungary (Eszter Balint as a cockeyed waif with street-smart attitude and love of Screamin' Jay Hawkins). The meandering film takes them from downtown New York to Cleveland (their visit to Lake Erie in the haze of winter is priceless) to a dive of a strip motel in Florida, for a travelogue of urban blight, industrial blah and rural nothingness lovingly photographed in soft black and white by Tom DiCillo. Jarmusch shoots the film in a series of single takes separated by stretches of black, the space where what most films would consider "drama" takes place. Jarmusch is far more interested in how those characters act when doing nothing in particular, because that's when the true essence comes out.

Criterion's "director approved transfer" is so clear that you can see the 16 millimeter film grain dance across the hazy cream-colored skies of exterior shots. The two-disc set also features Jarmusch's rarely seen debut feature "Permanent Vacation" (1980), another slice of New York subculture that has the same meandering pace as "Stranger" but lacks the stylistic or comic sensibility that defines his later films. Also features the 1984 German TV documentary "Kino '84," a 41-minute English-language portrait of Jarmusch featuring great interviews with the cast and crew of "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Permanent Vacation" (confirming that Balint chain smokes in real life as much as she does in "Stranger"); 14 minutes of silent super-8 behind-the-scenes footage shot in Cleveland by Tom Jarmusch; location scouting photos; trailers; and booklet featuring essays by Jarmusch, Geoff Andrew, J. Hoberman and Luc Sante. Criterion also releases a "director approved edition" of Jarmusch's 1990 "Night on Earth," a quintet of stories in five taxis driving through five cities across the globe, featuring commentary and other supplements.