It’s natural as a viewer to bring expectations into a story, but Paterson is not the audience’s story, and the film’s refusal to allow humanity to be moulded by expectations of drama functions as a louder statement than portraying any catastrophe that could strike these lives.
Paterson himself is a character who would not consider himself worthy of any great narrative. He bears the name of his hometown, the birthplace of so many great artists and cultural icons, and if anything is clear about him, he does not think himself worthy of any of this legacy. It seems like a great weight is carried behind this name, dozens of names on the wall boasting the spiritual, creative power behind the town of Paterson. Paterson, meanwhile, doesn’t claim this power for himself, choosing to just be a bus driver, and taking the mantle of observer, experiencing the stories of this place without willingly being seen as a part of them.
It’s certainly valid that the audience might be frustrated at his lack of public communication. We hear his poetry throughout, see him contrasted with his artistic influences and contemporaries, and wonder why he refuses to take ownership of his own creativity. The audience sees someone personable, talented, and kind, but who frustratingly lacks any forward momentum. In other words, it seems like Paterson is in a rut. Something is blocking his way to changing his life, and we want to diagnose the problem in his life.
The movie’s simple thesis is acceptance that Paterson is not in this hole. He isn’t standing on the precipice of greatness awaiting a rise or fall, but instead is grateful for exactly what he has, content to keep climbing the hill into the unknown. A cynical viewer observes a barrier in communication between Paterson and Laura, him struggling with words and holding back criticism, or might even see her flighty eccentricity and Paterson’s nightly bar trips as a death knell for their marriage. The film flatly laughs at any assumption that their relationship is in danger, and shows us instead that no amount of trite drama can grow roots here deep enough to break them.
The audience’s perspective mirrors Paterson’s own when it comes to his work - his poetry is expressed to us as awkwardly delivered, rambling words on a page. This is a feeling that anyone who has ever written original words on a page knows, but Paterson knows something we don’t, that what Laura sees is far greater. For all that the camera sees, it can’t begin to capture what has been built between these two, more precious to Paterson than anything else in his life. Despite establishing this, it does feel almost cataclysmic when Paterson’s book of poems is destroyed. He calls them “just words on a page”, and it feels like a lie, but it is ultimately the truth. Laura might not have heard the words he used to describe them, but she knew exactly what feelings he wrote for her, and sees in the world the same beauty that he tried to express in that book. To me, there’s no fantasy more enticing than the notion of this kind of communication, and the peace it carries. Even the destruction of his work can’t prevent the new day from dawning, and it only takes a small push from this incredible town for him to open up a new, blank page.
