Night on Earth

1992 "Five taxis. Five cities. One night."
7.7| 2h8m| R| en| More Info
Released: 02 May 1992 Released
Producted By: Canal+
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

An anthology of 5 different cab drivers in 5 American and European cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.

Genre

Drama, Comedy

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Director

Jim Jarmusch

Production Companies

Canal+

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Night on Earth Audience Reviews

Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!
SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
classicsoncall If you go in expecting a coherent story line or some connecting thread among the five vignettes presented, you'll probably be disappointed. What I got out of the picture was the sense that throughout the world, people of different backgrounds and nationalities are all subject to similar kinds of human frailties and foibles, no matter if one lives in Los Angeles, Paris or Helsinki. The other two cities rounding out this peek around-the-world at a particular point in time are Rome and New York City. Some of the situations are rather bizarre, but to my mind, the most hilarious character in the picture was portrayed by Roberto Benigni as the cab driver in Rome. In a moment of reflection, he decides he must tell his confession to a priest who becomes his fare, and proceeds to drive the man into an unintended heart attack when he loses control of his medication. Perhaps the most poignant story is the last one in which a cabbie takes on three inebriated passengers and winds up relating a personal story that adds an unexpected perspective to their own unfortunate circumstances. All five of the unrelated tales have a way of making one think about how it would feel to walk in someone else's shoes, and perhaps, just how fortunate one is compared to the problems of the next person.
Dusan Petrovic The world is round so no matter where you go you are always in the center of it. This is one of the best Jim Jarmush movies. Great music, great photography, great acting, it's all good. It's magic." Why would I drive if I could be driven?" This is the first thing I think about it whenever I see this movie. It always remindes me on my country, my childhood and place I belong to. For the ones who didn't know, the really story about Christopher Marlow, the Devil as himself A.K.A Men in White is from the one of Jim Jarmusch movies. On the bottom of, line I like cab driving. Sincerelly, yours Dushan Petrovic from Belgrade, Serbia
Artimidor Federkiel The nights in the big cities have their very own mysterious and incomparable aura. Only the cab drivers who are circling the blocks after midnight and pick up ever changing passengers really have a sense of such a feeling, that strange kind of reality that engulfs them when everyone else is sleeping. You get a glimpse of the dark side of the aura if you follow De Niro's Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver", and for the rest feel free to join independent film-maker Jim Jarmusch on five rides through L.A., New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki and see what the night has to offer.Writer/director Jarmusch celebrates the synchrony of events happening in various cabs all over the globe, where drama, fun and tragedy all take place at the same time while the earth takes another turn around its axis. All shot on location of the actual cities this episodic masterpiece was photographed excellently, there are some wonderful performances, lots of poignant moments and hilarious laugh-out-loud comedy. Armin Müller-Stahl for example as German ex-clown "Helmet" going to "Brookland" clashing with NY culture is side-splittingly funny right from his greeting "Hello! How are YOU?" Then of course there is Roberto Benigni's wild confessional ride through Rome with a padre on the back seat, which has become an instant classic. Incredibly touching is also the final chapter in Helsinki with some drunkards exchanging tragic stories only to arrive at sunrise to catch some sleep. Or the one with the black cabbie, who learns to respect a blind woman and makes one wonder: Who's really the blind one? OK, OK, with all those overwhelmingly brilliant snapshots there's one obvious downside - which is the first tale, starring Wyona Rider as a small, but tough cookie: "I want to become a mechanic!" But after all taxi driving wasn't for her and she did eventually become an actress, didn't she?
Ivan Veno Ivankovic Few directors enjoy the cult status that Jarmusch does. Sadly, he is praised undeservedly, this film is not ingenious. So why do people praise him so much? The answer may appear at the conclusion of this review.The film's plot revolves around five taxi rides around the world, at night. They take place in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki.The way the movie is filmed is unambitious, the camera is placed in the taxi, the driver in the front seat (to the right of the screen), the passenger in the back seat (to the left of the screen). Technically (camera placement, cinematography, lighting etc) Jarmusch doesn't offer us anything new, so people shouldn't praise him for this.The worst part about this movie is the plot. Jarmusch shows us long and boring monologues, uninteresting dialogue and a very weak plot. This is why no studio will ever finance him. Oh, but he's proud of that, isn't he? The way people talk, and what they say is very boring. Even if you have a great actor playing the part, and saying the lines in a very interesting way, this doesn't make you interested. Imagine Morgan Freeman, or David Letterman saying "We're out of milk". Even if they do say it in a way which is most accurately described as awesome, you're still not interested. The great Kurosawa said "Though a mediocre director can sometimes make a passable film out of a good script, even an excellent director can never make a good film out of a bad script". Jarmusch wrote this script in eight days. Jarmusch wrote a very bad script. You can say, "but this is how people talk in real life". If we were more entertained by real life than by movies, the movie industry would cease to exist. The reason we watch movies is to see something that we don't see everyday. Showing me something "real", something I can see everyday bores me. He isn't just showing people the way they talk in real life, he is showing us real life. He might as well have turned the camera on in a cab, and made a movie out of it. Writing a script in eight days is not impressive, it's insulting, he didn't put enough effort into it and it ends up sucking. If you are making a movie, put more effort into the script, because people watch movies. People deserve better, especially if they are paying to see the movie. Nothing happens in this movie, I'm serious, it's just people talking in a cab! That's it, nothing more! Jarmusch has said that he would rather make a movie about a man walking his dog, than a movie about the emperor of China. Does he LOVE emptiness in a movie? Does he LOVE a movie that has no story, or a very weak one? He is the biggest enemy of all fiction, he hates a good story, and he loves a bad one. He loves boring things. The most interesting thing about Jarmusch is his hair. The script is the major fault in this movie, because of the bad script the movie is terrible.The film has some good acting, I guess. Nothing memorable, though. Roberto Benigni is a great actor and director, see "A beautiful Life". Winona Rider is also respectable. The person who plays the Norwegian cab driver is very good, and his monologue, I will admit, is well written. It's not the imagery we see in Bergman's "Persona", a film which contains the single best monologue in history, but it's good. Jarmusch probably worked a whole day on it.The music in the film is not consistent with the tone. People talking in a cab at night is not Jazz. It's not The Blues. It's just people talking in a cab. Jarmusch put it in, probably because he likes Jazz, that's it.Why people like him still alludes me, but I'll give it a shot. It's because they don't want to like what everybody else likes. They want to be unique. They want to see independent film making, they probably also like Indy rock. It's OK to like something, but to wrongly preach about how great it is, when it's really just boring, and act as if you are better than people who don't like this film for a reason, that's wrong. I don't like this film for the reasons above, why you like it, I don't know. Maybe I'm just too stupid to get Jarmusch.