The most important thing about Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise really has nothing to do with the litany of “Thank Yous” that come after the proper credits at the film’s end. It’s really interesting to take in, though. Jarmusch was a part of the generation of filmmakers just after Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda figured out how to make quality movies on the cheap. Of course Fonda’s familial pull didn’t hurt. But Easy Rider and all of the New York films with Italian guys in ‘em revolutionized what movies did and how each went about accomplishing it all.

Jarmusch, though, doesn’t thank any of those folks. Instead, Paul Bartell gets a nod just before the heavy list is unloosed on viewers who stuck around long enough to see it. That name might not be the most familiar to folks even if they’re Jarmusch fans. But Bartell, after working with Roger Corman a bit, went on to write and direct a number of well thought of, if not skewed works – Eating Raoul (1982) perhaps being his most notorious effort. All of this doesn’t impact the film or how it’s understood, but being beholden to such a bizarre filmic figure is important in understand where Jarmusch came from. Just don’t try to track down any recordings from his band.

Moving from Akron, Ohio to New York during the tail end of the initial punk era found the nascent filmmaker surrounded by the creative types that seemed to be fleeing Midwestern towns at the time. It’s pretty likely that Jarmusch was able to run into more than a few Ohioans in diaspora. Either way, with his interest in film, and there being a shortage of funds in perpetuity for creative endeavors, Jarmusch took it upon himself to apply the DIY spirit of punk to the realm of film.

The opening scenes of Stranger than Paradise, which find the story’s protagonist, John Lurie as Willie, on the phone with his Hungarian aunt, appear to have been filmed in someone’s one room apartment. The scene counts as one of just four interiors over the course of the entire film.

With Willie’s Hungarian cousin coming to stay with him for a few days before moving on to Cleveland, the apartment becomes the setting for any manner of claustrophobic, roommate problems that could possibly crop up. Of course, the fact that Willie’s friend, Eddie finds himself taken with this exotic cousin creates an odd layer of interpersonal interactions.

Eventually, though, the cousin moves on while Willie and Eddie appear to coast along without too much desire for anything other than enough money to get by. And after the pair rips off a card game they high tail it to Cleveland – in part as an escape, but Eddie doesn’t seem to bummed out about seeing the estranged cousin again. The remaineder of the feature is basically a reconstituted road film. And while it seems that most of how Jarmusch would work with and understand narratives is already in place here, the pacing is a bit slow making Stranger than Paradise one of the longest eighty minutes you’ll encounter.