*** (out of ****)
Starring Cate Blanchett, Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Bill Murray, Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, The RZA, The GZA, Joie Lee, Cinque Lee, Joe Rigano, Vinny Vella, Alex Descas, Isaach De Bankole, Alfred Molina, Steve Coogan, Renée French, E.J. Rodriguez, and Taylor Mead
Directed & written by Jim Jarmusch
2004
108 min R
Oh, to be free of the tyranny of needing a reason to do things. I can imagine it now: a dozen filmmakers all over the world, all having the same idea at the same time. “Let’s make a movie where actors pair off, play themselves, and each have essentially the same conversation, with variations, one right after another!” Next to each filmmaker is a friend, who sincerely asks “What would be the point of that?” And all the filmmakers say “I don’t know,” and that’s the end of that idea. All the filmmakers, except Jim Jarmusch, who says “It doesn’t matter, let’s do it anyway!” I don’t know to what, if anything, the mysteriously identical vignettes of “Coffee and Cigarettes” add up. But the result, thanks in no small part to that unforced ambiguity, is so very…charming.
The common thread among the eleven black-and-white conversations is not a topic but an intent. In (pretty much) every instance, two people are meeting for coffee and cigarettes. Each sincerely, but lazily, wants to express to the other how much he or she values and cares for the other, but something goes a little wrong, things turn awkward, and they politely end the conversation by lying about being in a hurry. It’s not that they become enemies, in fact we detect a sincere, unspoken tenderness between most of the pairs that wants desperately to be articulated. It’s just that there’s a mysterious social distance that we only have one chance per conversation of breaching. In all the instances of “Coffee and Cigarettes,” some one goofs and there’s nothing to do but call the conversation off and hope for a better chance the next time. The movie picks its foible—its failing of the human animal—and showcases it affectionately.
Here are a few examples. One vignette shows Iggy Pop continually putting his foot in his mouth, while fellow rocker Tom Waits’s patience begins to run out. Another features a dual performance by Cate Blanchett as a big movie star and her paycheck-to-paycheck cousin, both trying to bridge the gaps of celebrity and wealth. Two old friends (played by Alex Descas abd Isaach De Bankole) meet for the first time in a long time and one cannot be dissuaded that the other has not brought them together to reveal some terrible secret, crisis, or heartbreak, despite the other’s numerous and unconvincing protestations. Two actors discover they are distantly related, but the young up-and-comer (Steve Coogan) couldn’t care less and the older, established character actor (Alfred Molina) won’t let it go. This includes a painfully funny variation on this theme, because the older actor just doesn’t pick up on the failure of the conversation. He keeps soldiering on, asking for a cell phone number, a home number, and an address, grinning and cheerful.
Not all the vignettes follow this pattern, but the same comments and topics (“Nothing for lunch but coffee and cigarettes? That’s not healthy!”) seem to mysteriously crop up again and again. The Tesla Coil is mentioned a few times, as is the practice of drinking coffee just before going to sleep so that your dreams go by faster. Some episodes are quietly absurdist. A waiter refills a woman’s cup after she gets it the perfect temperature and color, and then he refuses to stop apologizing. Italian actor Roberto Benigni drinks coffee until he shakes and rattles his china, then sits down with sleepy and low-talking comedian Steven Wright for a conversation he’s too caffeinated to possibly understand. Rappers GZA and RZA look up from their tea to find that their waiter is a delirious and confused Bill Murray, who doesn’t understand why he’s undercover as a waiter in a coffeeshop. And in perhaps the oddest segment, a young man uses his little red wagon to roll his homemade Tesla Coil into a coffeeshop to demonstrate it to his sister.
What’s the meaning of the symmetry? Is it merely an artist’s conceit to show us how socially awkward we are? Are we peeking into the mind of just one character, who is trying to think of a way out of the awkwardness but keeps hitting the same dead ends? Are the acoustical whatchamacallits that Tesla wrote about causing the same ideas to leak out into various conversations all over the world? The movie has too light a touch to say for certain what’s going on, and it’s precisely that light touch that left me smiling.
Finished November 30th, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
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