Night on Earth (1991)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Jim Jarmusch

Writer:

Jim Jarmusch (written by)

Release Date:

12 December 1991 (Germany)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Five Taxis. Five Cities. One Night.

Plot:

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

Plot Keywords:

Cab | Cab Driver | Paris | Anthology | Funny Hat

Awards:

1 win

Cast

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 (as Pascal Nzonzi)
Emile Abossolo M'bo	...	Passenger #2 (as Émile Abossolo-M'bo)
Stéphane Boucher	...	Man in Accident (as Stephane Boucher)
Noel Kaufmann	...	Man on Motorcycle

Also Known As:

LANewYorkParisRomeHelsinki (USA) (working title)
Une nuit sur terre (France)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, language, and some drug use.

Runtime:

129 min

Country:

France | UK | Germany | USA | Japan

Language:

English | French | Finnish | Italian | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:L | Singapore:M18 | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:S | France:U | Germany:16 | Portugal:M/12 | Spain:18 | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Victor Company of Japan (JVC)

Trivia:

The Roman taxi driver (Roberto Benigni) has an 8-ball as a gearstick knob. In Down by Law (1986), Benigni played a character who killed a man using an 8-ball.

Goofs:

Continuity: Winona Rider's character opens up a trunk through the missing rear window, but then in the next shot the window is there again.

Quotes:

Paris Driver: Don't blind people usually wear dark glasses?
Blind Woman: Do they? I've never seen a blind person.

Movie Connections:

References "Popeye the Sailor" (1960)

Soundtrack:

Back in the Good Old World

5 little stories, 5 cities, 4 languages - surprising

A fantastic piece of entertainment: five little stories, five cities, four languages. That's all. This movie has no message but it portrays five regions of the world most sensitively.

The L.A. episode is the weakest. It is not bad but it has one big problem: it is the first one. People start watching the movie and expect something sensational. This first episode cannot present anything spectacular, only first class character acting. There are no big surprises or twists, the episode is not particularly funny or anything. Honestly, when I saw the first minutes of this movie I thought: `O dear, I'm going to fall asleep!'

Then, the N.Y. story came. This one made me laugh real hard, and it made Armin Mueller Stahl one of my favourite actors. I started to love this movie, and I was well prepared for the Paris episode, which is, in my opinion the best, the most satisfying of them.

I found the story of the Roberto Benigni episode rather stupid, but his talent in exaggerating (so he did this even seven years before 1999's Oscar ceremony!) made up for it.

Then, the huge contrast: The liveliest episode is followed by the dreariest. Finnish workers tell each other stories from their lives, each trying to tell the saddest.

`Night on Earth' is not a movie for everybody but I think it is, in any case, the ideal movie to watch on television at two o'clock in the morning.