Night on Earth
Short description
Night on Earth is a comedy drama made up of five separate stories, each set in a different city during the same night. In Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki, a taxi driver picks up a passenger, and the ride becomes a small, self-contained encounter. The conversations vary in tone from humorous to melancholy, touching on work and ambition, the meeting of cultures, blindness and sight, life and death, and loneliness. Jim Jarmusch wrote, directed and produced the film.
The cast includes Winona Ryder as a driver in Los Angeles, Gena Rowlands as a casting director, Giancarlo Esposito and Armin Mueller-Stahl as a driver and his passenger in New York, Rosie Perez, and Isaach De Bankolé as a driver in Paris. The film runs 129 minutes and was released in December 1991. It was made for about 4 million dollars and took roughly 2 million dollars at the box office, a modest return on its production cost.
Night on Earth was Jarmusch's fifth feature as director, following Mystery Train in 1989 and preceding Dead Man in 1995. On IMDb it holds 7.7 out of 10 from around 71,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 7.5 out of 10 from over a thousand votes. A critics' rating of 6.5 out of 10 from 26 reviews places it somewhat below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Jarmusch wrote the screenplay for “Night on Earth” in eight days. His previous screenplay had not been realized by the studio, and he decided to quickly create something new to distract himself and work with his favorite actors. The choice of cities was determined by the casting of the actors. Ultimately, it didn’t work out to make the project quickly, as it required significant time and budgetary costs.
- Two taxis were required for filming in each city. One was needed for exterior shots and was a standard vehicle. The second had lights mounted on the roof to illuminate the actors inside, and the engine had been removed to make room for the camera operator. This vehicle was towed on a cable behind a van containing the director, sound operator, lighting technician, and script supervisor.
- Some of what is depicted in the “Rome” episode actually happened: Roberto Benigni often drove Jim Jarmusch around night-time Rome, driving down streets with “senso unico” (one-way traffic), risking being crushed at every intersection.
- The filmmakers found a stunt driver to operate the tiny "Fiat" on a sharp turn during location shooting in Rome. The turn was so sharp that the driver couldn’t manage it even after several takes. Roberto Benigni (who played the driver) asked for permission to try, and he succeeded on the first attempt.
- Two street sweepers who shouted after a taxi in Paris were genuine Parisian street sweepers. When filming had to be interrupted to reload the camera, they approached the film crew because they recognized director and screenwriter Jim Jarmusch. He was so touched by this that he gave them small roles.
- When Giancarlo Esposito's character hailed a taxi in New York, the crew worried that a real taxi might stop in front of him and ruin the take. Fortunately, as written in the script, all the taxis passed by without reacting to Esposito.
- In the “Rome” episode, Roberto Benigni’s character has a gear shift lever stylized as a black billiard ball number 8. In another film by Jim Jarmusch – “Down by Law” – Roberto Benigni’s character says that he killed a man by throwing a billiard ball number 8 at him.
- Several Soviet-made cars (VAZ-2109, VAZ-2104, and VAZ-2102) can be spotted on the streets of Helsinki in the fifth story.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
