With this breakout film, Jim Jarmusch established himself as one of the most exciting voices in the burgeoning independent-film scene, a road-movie poet with an affinity for Americana at its most offbeat. Jarmusch follows rootless Hungarian Ć©migrĆ© Willie (John Lurie), his pal Eddie (Richard Edson), and his visiting sixteen-year-old cousin, Eva (Eszter Balint), as they drift from New Yorkās Lower East Side to the snowy expanses of Lake Erie and the drab beaches of Florida, always managing to make the least of wherever they end up. Structured as a series of master-shot vignettes etched in black and white by cinematographer Tom DiCillo,Ā Stranger Than ParadiseĀ is a nonchalant masterpiece of deadpan comedy and perfectly calibrated minimalism.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- High-definition digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Jim Jarmusch, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Audio commentary from 1996 featuring Jarmusch and actor Richard Edson
- Permanent VacationĀ (1980), Jarmuschās seventy-five-minute, color feature debut, presented in a high-definition digital restoration supervised by the director
- Kino ā84: Jim Jarmusch,Ā a 1984 German television program Āfeaturing interviews with cast and crew members fromĀ Stranger Than ParadiseĀ andĀ Permanent Vacation
- Some Days in January 1984,Ā a behind-the-scenes Super 8 film by Tom Jarmusch
- U.S. and Japanese trailers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: Jarmuschās 1984 āSome Notes onĀ StrangerĀ Than Paradise,ā critics Geoff Andrew and J. Hoberman onĀ Stranger Than Paradise,Ā and author and critic Luc Sante onĀ Permanent Vacation
Cover by Eric Skillman
