'Night on Earth': Was Filming Inside a Cab A Deadly Trap?

By ELLEN PALL;
Published: June 7, 1992

All right, so there were a few glitches. Like the night the cinematographer almost got dumped into the East River. Or the time four actors trapped in a taxi got stranded on trolley tracks in Finland, with trains coming from both directions. And yes, instead of shooting on five of the tiniest sets in film history, Jim Jarmusch could have made his new movie, "Night on Earth," on a nice, big sound stage. But then it wouldn't have been a Jim Jarmusch movie. ...

A version of this article appeared in print on June 7, 1992, on page 213 of the New York edition.

The online version omits a photograph from Fine Line Features captioned, "Winona Ryder, right, and Gena Rowlands inside one of the cabs in Jim Jarmusch's "Night on Earth" -- Filmed on five of the tiniest sets in movie history." The photo depicts Ms. Ryder, cigarette in mouth, at the wheel of a cab, looking in the rear-view mirror; Ms. Rowlands, out-of-focus, is in the cab's backseat.

The online version of the article states, "Ellen Pall, a novelist, has written about politics and the arts for The New Yorker and The Village Voice." The print version states, "Ellen Pall, a novelist, teaches a course in writing about the arts at Fordham/The College at Lincoln Center."

A Vincent Canby review of the movie is here.