Paterson (film)

Plot[edit]

The film spans one week, beginning with Monday, in the life of Paterson, a NJ Transit driver in the city of Paterson. Every day follows much the same pattern: Paterson gets up early and goes to work, where he listens to passengers talking and, during pauses, writes poetry in a notebook he carries with him. After work he walks Marvin, his wife's dog, and stops for a beer at Shades Bar, where he interacts with the other patrons and the owner, Doc.


Paterson's wife, Laura, loves his poems and is apparently their only audience. She has long urged him to publish them or at least make copies. He finally promises to go to the copy shop on the weekend. But when Paterson and Laura come home from a movie on Saturday night, they find that Marvin has shredded his notebook, destroying his poems.


The next day, a dejected Paterson goes for a walk and sits down at his favorite site, the Great Falls of the Passaic River. There, a Japanese man takes a seat beside him and begins a conversation about poetry after Paterson notices that the man is reading the book-length poem Paterson by William Carlos Williams. The man seems to know that Paterson himself is a poet even though he denies it and hands him a gift, an empty notebook. The film ends with Paterson writing a poem in his new notebook.