Night On Earth Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Five Taxis. Five Cities. One Night.
A collection of five stories involving cab drivers in five different cities. Los Angeles - A talent agent for the movies discovers her cab driver would be perfect to cast, but the cabbie is reluctant to give up her solid cab driver's career. New York - An immigrant cab driver is continually lost in a city and culture he doesn't understand. Paris - A blind girl takes a ride with a cab driver from the Ivory Coast and they talk about life and blindness. Rome - A gregarious cabbie picks up an ailing man and virtually talks him to death. Helsinki - an industrial worker gets laid off and he and his compatriots discuss the bleakness and unfairness of love and life and death.
| Gena Rowlands | Victoria Snelling |
| Winona Ryder | Corky |
| Lisanne Falk | Rock Manager |
| Alan Randolph Scott | Rock Musician #1 |
| Anthony Portillo | Rock Musician #2 |
| Armin Mueller-Stahl | Helmut Grokenberger |
| Giancarlo Esposito | YoYo |
| Rosie Perez | Angela |
| Richard Boes | Cab Driver #1 |
| Isaach De Bankolé | Driver (Paris) |
| Béatrice Dalle | Blind Woman |
| Pascal N'Zonzi | Passenger #1 |
| Emile Abossolo M'bo | Passenger #2 |
| Stéphane Boucher | Man in Accident |
| Noel Kaufmann | Man on Motorcycle |
| Jim Jarmusch |
7.50 out of 10 (9230 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Five great shorts
posted on 11 May 2009The five locations filmed on this 'Night on Earth' are five separate shorts. The common theme of middle of the night cab drivers is what brings them together. They were all enjoyable, but my favorite was the Rome one. I would have hardly thought something in subtitles could've been so funny, but it sure was. The Helsinki one was a very good 'tragedy of human life' piece. They all did a great job commenting on the variety of human characters out there in this world.Note that three of the five segments are not in English. I hope that doesn't turn people off too badly, as they'd really be missing out then.
Jim Jarmusch at his finest
posted on 30 Mar 2009This movie is excellent. For the 41 people who did not like this movie go rent the Porky's series and lock yourself in a room. After you get through the first scene with Winona and Gena Rowlands it is all gravy. Not that the first scene is not better than most movies it is just not nearly as good as the rest. From there are on out it is a four start film. This movie gives you everything. Great acting, great writing, great directing, and Tom Waits great soundtrack. You have Roberto Bergnigni doing his thing. You have comedy and drama. This film towers above most films on its premise alone. Great charachters who are more developed in their short sequences than most cardboard hollywood cut outs are in their entire movies. If you like Jim Jarmusch then you have seen this movie. If you don't know who he is watch this film and if you like it see the rest of his work because it is excellent.
Funny as hell
posted on 14 Jan 2009It's not that this movie is non stop laughs, but just that it is so smart and such intelligent humor. It's got a clever premise about five short stories involving cab rides in different cities, but it's the specific situations that will crack you up. One after another, they are all hilarious. Roberto Benini's scene had me laughing out loud, and that never happens. The only sketch that wasnt so great was the opening one with Winona Ryder. Everything that followed it rocked and impressed the hell out of me. A smart comedy. not too many of those.
Vintage Jarmusch - careful, beautiful, and true
posted on 18 Dec 2008A charming film about five taxicabs in different cities around the world in one night. The movie captures the unique flavor of each city it touches upon, but also shows the close relation between them all - they are all characters of the night, a different breed entirely. This movie was anything but fast-paced, and yet I still left wanting to watch these people for just a bit longer. The ending note was perfect - sad and a little hopeful.
Time is the same... people are different...
posted on 06 Dec 2008"Night On Earth" is a (non)classic character study. It looks at brief moments in the lives of 5 taxis around the world, working the night shift, and of one fare apiece. Some will say it's boring, some will say it goes nowhere, some will say it has no story, or plot. I'm not an art critic, a philosopher, or academic. But I like this film - it's not pretentious, it doesn't try to impress the viewer with a particular style of moviemaking... it's a bit 'dark', but then again... it's night! Good casting compliments 'nice' short stories... Although the film ends on a sad note, I've watched it several times. OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS: "Aria" (http://us.imdb.com/Details?0092580), "Wings of Desire" (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0093191).
Night on earth
posted on 12 Nov 2008Movies, which are made of different stories, are often having one problem; that stories are quite different to each other by the quality. But not in this case: Jim Jarmuschs most famous work Night on earth is a perfect example of the movie, made of stories, where every story is great. The movie shows five different taxi cab drivers in one night all over the world: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki.LOS ANGELES: Maybe my least favorite but Winona Ryder is fantastic and very cute in this clip. But the whole story was nothing special, maybe some cute dialog in the middle, but overall quite average.NEW YORK: Very funny clip, despite the fact I hate Rosie Perez (well, her voice), but the other two characters, the German ex-clown who is now very unsuccessful taxi driver, and Jojo, very funny guy who is just complaining all the time and laughing very loud, are really convincing. Funny episode.Paris: Great clip, Beatrice Dalle is beautiful in this clip, very convincing and the story is also very great with good message.ROME: The best clip of the movie. Benigni, describing his sexual relationships with sheep and pumpkin, is funny as hell. He's really a master of comedy and without a doubt this is the most funniest part of the movie.HELSINKI: After very humorous clip, Helsinki are quite depressing part of the movie. Three drunk workers and a depressed taxi driver with a tragic life is really too sad and sometimes I doesn't fell like this part belongs in the whole movie. But there are some funny moments (Taxi driver is asking a drunk man: "Do you know where you are?" and the drunk man says: "Yeah... Helsinki.").Overall, this movie is great and a cute masterpiece. Jim Jarmusch really is a king of independent movies.
A great piece of artwork
posted on 10 Oct 2008Well, I suspect I am a little prejudiced about this movie. Although the ending part, which was situated in Helsinki (quite south, I'd say,like the first parts of the film. Or west.), was the saddest one, I liked it the most. This film is both funny and sad at the same time. There are no funny parts or sad parts - just parts of life, all of them both. The result is not only a great piece of movie, but a great piece of artwork - paintings, short stories, stageplays, musical scores - everything.And by the way - four of the five parts were subtitled. :P I'll give a nine to this, since there are no number 10 movies, and you can not give partial numbers.
"At least I can still smoke in my own cab."
posted on 14 Aug 2008No, this is not a posted sign in the film. The tobacco companies tried to include it, but Director Jim Jarmusch had too much integrity to allow it.But what could be a more natural setting for sucking on the killer weed than the inside of a taxi cab? Here we've got five of them. The tobacco companies saw the script and fronted mass bucks, or actually in this case, for a small Indie episodic venture by a director without a commercial hit to his credit, they fronted small bucks and sent an accountant.Anyway, this is a collection of five short stories filmed at night in five cities, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. In the first, Winona Ryder is an L.A. cabby looking like a ninth-grade grunge girl with her own sweet dreams who picks up Hollywood casting director Gena Rowlands at LAX and takes her to Beverly Hills. It's a cute idea, their bonding, but Ryder is without subtlety and clichéd to the hilt in dark glasses, bubble gum, baseball cap on backwards, and the endless puffing, talking sarcastically out of the side of her mouth: "All right, MOM." I actually expected some Joan Jett and the Blackhearts in the background. Rowland is very good however and overcomes a cloying script. In New York, veteran German character actor Armin Mueller-Stahl, looking for all the world like a dead ringer for Albert Einstein, is the cabby, Helmut, and Giancarlo Esposito is Yoyo, his fare. Problem is Helmut drives with one foot on the gas pedal and the other on the brake so that the cab starts and stops every two seconds. So they switch positions. Meanwhile Rosie Perez arrives for a cameo.In Paris, Isaach De Bankolé is the cabby and blind Béatrice Dalle, in white zombie contact lenses, is his fare. This is perhaps the best piece.
Bankolé, who is a black dude from the Ivory Coast, asks her kindly, "Don't blind people usually wear dark glasses?" She has the great rejoinder, "Do they? I've never seen a blind person."Roberto Benigni is the cabby in Rome. He picks up a priest and to the priest's great discomfort confesses in vivid detail his rather revolting sexual experiences.Finally in Helsinki we have Matti Pellonpää as the "taksi" driver. The stark lighting on the snow and the empty streets captures well the cold northern night. Incidentally, the European stories are done in the local language with subtitles.This is obviously an art film and requires a relatively sophisticated audience. The editing isn't sharp (some of that's deliberate) and the dialogue is uneven, but some of the camera work is excellent. See it for the acting, which is mostly very good.
Tragicomical and entertaining
posted on 24 Jun 2008Night on Earth... Just another picture that you didn't plan to see, but you just couldn't stop watching when you got to see on your TV set. It's not one great story, but several, and the comical about the driver who doesn't understand the gear box, but lets his passenger drive his car, and the tragical about the Finnish driver whose 14-year-old daughter has got pregnant, is a great mix. Next time it's showing on TV, be sure not to miss it!
Frederick Elmes best work
posted on 07 May 2008Even allowing for Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, this film probably features the best work of Frederick Elmes' life (Cinematography). The transitions from location to location are beautifully constructed; a series of intimate painterly portraits, introducing you to the vulnerable underbelly of each city. This also applies to the cut scenes between dialogue ... at times I was drooling! The characters are generally so well drawn that we can even forgive Winona Ryder's unconvincing tom-boy mechanic. Each twenty minute story is just long enough to engross and short enough to leave you happy that you didn't waste your time and you're ready for the next. And there's real comedy too ... farce, circus buffoonery and even belly laughs. I must admit, by the last story I did begin to tire a little of the format. It all finishes with not so subtle pathos (which I resisted) which highlights the unrelenting pain of life. Absolutely beautiful. Highly recommended.
A Romantic movie...
posted on 19 Apr 2008The idea of showing people move into somebody's life - even if it's just for a few minutes - having some sort of impact, however mundane or profound, and then leaving, never to be seen again via a taxi cab ride is a slightly romantic notion for me. Sounds silly, but it is (romantic, not silly)."Night on Earth" is a nearly perfect movie for me. The first L.A. segment is uninteresting. But your reward for getting through it is the rest of a wonderful film. The New York and Paris segments are at the same time amusing and bittersweet (Helmut and Yo-Yo make a great duo, the Blind Woman and the Paris driver make a great couple, even if they don't realize it). The Rome segment is out-and-out hilarious and may be the best portion of the movie. The first few minutes where Roberto Begnini is driving around Rome by himself almost seem improvised. The Helsinki portion is sad, but at the same time I don't think it leaves the movie on a down note. It's hard to explain why, but the ending almost seems hopeful to me.The nighttime atmosphere of the last 4 cities is perfectly portrayed and the music by Tom Waits is wonderful. All the performances are strong - especially Roberto Begnini, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Giancarlo Esposito, and Matti Pellonpaa. Do yourself a favor. See this film.
I wonder....
posted on 13 Apr 2008You ever wonder what could be happening to someone like you, thousands of miles away? The cab rides in this film take place at approximately the same time, but the stories couldn't be more different. Shame on Bravo for muting out the two words that dare not be spake on this review (the crude terms for sexual intercourse and natural fertilizer)--especially since they left them in the subtitles in the foreign-language sections. What, we can hear but we can't read?The cast turns in uniformly good performances, and the film first exposed me to Armin Mueller-Stahl and Roberto Benigni--if you don't laugh yourself silly at Benigni's confession you must be legally dead.
The World According to Jim Jarmusch: Life is a taxi cab ride
posted on 08 Mar 2008NIGHT ON EARTH (1991) *** Winona Ryder, Roberto Benigini, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Gena Rowlands, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez. Indie filmmaker guru Jim Jarmusch's gimmicky yet originally witty 24 hour look at one international theme: taxi drivers and their fares in Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Rome and Helsinki. All equally surreal and memorable with the universal theme of humanity transcending its globetrotting pastiche.
beutifully made film expressing ones self to life and love
posted on 09 Dec 2007i absolutely loved this movie!!!! it was so wonderful to see how this film was divided up into 5 different locations, Los angelas, paris, Rome, finland, and new york city. i loved and enjoyed the performances of all of the actors, and actresses in this film. i started to hear about this movie from listening to the films soundtrack score, recorded by talented musician tom waits. i loved the score so much, i was desperate to see this movie. so, when i watched it, i loved it from the beginning to end. this film starts off, with winona ryders character, who is a cab driver who wants to be a mechanic. driving around la, who meets up with a snobby like agent played by gena rowlands. who have a pleasant conversation about there boyfriends, and there jobs. i wasn't impressed with gena's performance. her acting has never appealed to me! winona did a wonderful job, playing a 20 year old cab driver, who is just wonderful, and indeed funny in her performance!! hey, she may be in trouble for shoplifting, but, she will redeem herself. i feel for you winona!! then, it turns to new york, i love both the actors, guy who played Helmut Grokenberger, as a confused, kind german cab driver, who meets up with the crude sounding, yet hysterical giancarlo esposito as the cool yoyo, it was hysterical seeing him make a silly joke about helmut's name, like himseklf referring to his name like a helmet. mentions, if he had a son, he could call him lampshade. the talk between yoyo's sister in law played by the talented rosie perez was crude, but yet enjoyable seeing them fight like liittle children, brother and sister like fighting. in rome, yet don't get me wrong the movie was wonderful, but this story witch features the wonderul roberto benini who was in life is beutiful, and the 1986 film "Down by Law" was kind of funny at first but then when he was driving the priest around, his stories get very vulger, and hard to listen to. then one of my ultimate favorites in this movie was the paris story witch featured french actor isaach- de-bankole, as a wonderful and meaningful cab driver who talks with a lovely blind women played by one of my favorite french actresses beatrice dalle, who was in the refreshing horror film "Trouble every day", was indeed riveting, and yet remarkable as playing a blind women. she is a very wonderful actress, i reccommend, that you rent one of her movies someday. you will love her! then finally, in the story witch finishes in helsinki finland, witch stars matti pallopaa as mika, a truthful cab driver, with alot to say about himself, like the cab drivers, and is wonderful in his performances. this movie was one of the best films everymade!! see this movie!! i hope that they release this movie on DVD one of these days! jim jarmusch is a masterpiece filmaker! this never slows when you are in touch with the stories.
Breathtaking --- images, voices, music ... one of the best
posted on 25 Oct 2007How did he manage to make such a trivial topic a worldwide overview of real individual characters ??? He made me discover Benigni/Roma, the Finn language so close to the Hungarian, .... I wonder about anyone who gives this movie less than a 10
Jarmusch's best so far??
posted on 19 Sep 2007A director like Jarmusch who has such a consistant and strong visual and thematic style will necessarily tend to draw either strongly positive or strongly negative responses. You either think he's the greatest or you think it's a bunch of junk. For my money he's one of the best. Always visually very fine, serious in his look at the modern world, and so often funny at the same time. In fact maybe it's just the combination of aesthetic and philosophical high seriousness with humor that makes much of his work so satisfying, and of course links him with his main, to my mind, counterparts the Coen brothers. Of course in saying this I immediately place myself as more a fan of Down By LAw, Mystery Train, and Night on EArth, than his other less comic films. Anyway, if I had to choose I'd take Night on Earth as the one I most enjoy. Like his other films it really repays viewing many times. When are they going to release the thing on DVD??
The most under-rated film in history!
posted on 22 Apr 2007No one I ever mention this film to has heard of it, let alone seen it! I actually tried to see Thelma and Louise at the cinema when Night on Earth came out, but as it was sold out, I saw this instead - what a lucky break! The film is actually 5 short films of around twenty minutes, each one a taxi journey, taking place at the exact same moment in 5 cities across the world, from LA to Helsinki, via New York, Paris and Rome.Without ruining the surprises contained (its unexpectedness is one of its delights) the film covers numerous emotions. At times it is utterly hilarious, at others it's sad and moving. It is pacy and yet considered, the characters are well painted, both by the writing and the acting, and the story lines engrossing yet punchy. There are some sub-titles, by the way, but please don't let that put you off. It's not one of those intellectual "aren't I clever" films.If you like your films classy, well written, well acted, intelligent, thought provoking yet accessible, and with a great soundtrack (Tom Waits), then Night on Earth is for you! Share it!
At night by day
posted on 04 Apr 2007Jim Jarmusch's "Night on Earth" is what one could call an international American movie - and therefore almost a contradiction. When normally Americans come to Paris, to Madrid or to Rome, the movies in which they act look like these cities would lie in the US. Not only there is exclusively English spoken, but the actors do not behave as if they were in Europe. Sadly enough, this is even true for Soderberg's "The Good German". The worst that can happen, then, is that Americans try to film European history. I do not watch such movies anymore until Unviersal will have agreed to contract Fredy Murer as director of a new American Western.Very different are the movies of the world-versatile Jarmusch, a real Odysseus for whom the Greek attribute "polytropos" could not better fit - also what the choice of his movies concerns. Although the situations in the different taxi-drives are acted, they are so good as in real life. In order not to spoil the real pleasure that everybody has who has traveled to the cities in which Jarmusch leads us, I give here only a few hints. Masterfully Armin Müller-Stahl as taxi-driver and clown who looks as if an UFO had abandoned him amidst New York city. His film-name Grokenberger is a nice allusion to Grock, the greatest clown of all times. Jarmusch's humor gets a bit cynic if he chooses exactly Paolo Bonacelli for the role of the priest who dies in the taxi under the "confession" of Roberto Benigni: the same Bonacelli who was in one of the three leading roles in Pasolini's "Salo", a movie that is so full with nausea that people can hardly survive it. To a nice allusion Jarmusch also succeeded in the last episode which shows a cab drive of three drunks in Helsinki. Helsinki is the cinematic seat of whom? Right, of Aki and Mika Kaurismäki. So, the awaken watcher is not too astonished, when the sober taxi driver is called Mika and the deathly drunk passenger Aki. Also a form of reverence of Jarmusch who is a real Global citizen.
Jarmusch as humanist; one of the best films of 1991
posted on 30 Aug 2009Jim Jarmusch, a director who never neglects to find the time for the little moments, glances, exchanges in dialog, that bring out the better (or lesser) in people, puts his skills to full force in Night on Earth. Another in his several episodic-style films, this time he pushes forward his great use of pure conversational, and emotional, comedy, as well as drama. In fact, this may be one of the best from the 90's of that kind that came out (i.e. mixing comedy and drama to create some bittersweet vignettes). Inspiration of course pours out from European cinema, but even in the American segments there's a sense of genuine pathos with the characters. Sometimes one style was kept totally consistent, with all comedy in episode four or all tragedy in episode five, or the two styles went back and forth like in the first two. The third remains the more ambiguous, and maybe more uncomfortable, segment of the bunch, and even if it might be the lesser of them all it's still fascinating due to the actors.But to get back to the humanism that comes on in the film, it's not something at all uncommon to Jarmusch's work. In Ghost Dog it goes a long way to help us not be too left out of the world of Whitaker's character, or it makes every lady seem all the more odd and unique in Broken Flowers. Here since it is met with a more realistic approach, with situations that could be happening right now at night in these cities, I'm almost reminded of Renoir. Particularly in the second segment in New York, where there's the perfect divide between lightness and over-the-top- lightness being in Armin Mueller-Stahl's performance as Helmut (German ex-clown turned un-knowing cabbie) and Giancarlo Esposito's performance as Yo-yo. Maybe it's because scenes like these usually wouldn't make it into 'mainstream' fare, but a sequence like this showcases some great dialog on both sides (and when Rosie Perez comes in, all bets are off). Stahl especially makes the scenes work in-particular as he almost seems to inhabit this person of an outsider in the (taken for granted) amazing space of NYC.To say which one was my overall favorite might be a little picky, as every one of them had something to offer differently. There was the cute, and slightly awkward, scenes with Ryder and Rowlands (maybe one of Ryder's few gems in her career too, mostly based on style). The segment in Paris, again, may make one feel a little uncomfortable, but that might be the point. And I loved how Beatrice Dalle's role went effortlessly between the bizarre and the almost ironically compassionate. It's also the segment which provides a little extra bitter of a touch by way of the Ivory Coast cabbie, however it does come to pass as being about two outsiders thrust into a strange little moment in life. Roberto Benigni's segment was drop dead funny, which is surprising considering the hit or miss ways of Jarmusch's comedy. But Benigni is so outrageous in his long monologue its no wonder what becomes of his passenger. It's a terrific mix between Benigni's voracious style of fast (but not too fast) speech, and a sort of silent-film kind of comedy, likely out of Buster Keaton or something. And all of this is accentuated by a carefully controlled mis en scene of driving (which is always visually endearing), where right when you're expecting there to be a cut it waits one or two extra seconds. It's a film with a sweet rhythm that doesn't drag like in Jarmusch at his worst.The last segment, oddly enough, could be a downer for some. It was for me, until I decided to watch it a second time. This combines the frustration seen in bits in the other segments regarding a city life that bogs down on its inhabitants, and the sympathy that can come out even behind the tough veneer of lives lived with a shell protecting them from idiots. When it comes time for Matti Pellonpaa's monologue, it makes for the most touching, and a close-call for most emotionally striking, thing Jarmusch has ever written, put together by his portrayal. What's interesting even more so is how the film, despite this bleak story, doesn't seem to end too much on that note, due to the last little bit between Mika and Avi, the drunk passenger. In fact, after watching this a second time, I got to get the sense of what the film might be about- getting past that separation between a driver doing his job and a passenger with their own issues. It's also a small ruby of a communication fable, of how lives in different cities and countries may be of course different in speech and attitude and dress, but have similar plights to deal with in the dead of night.