What it Says on the Tin

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) is an odd movie, but since it was directed by Jim Jarmusch, that’s normal. It’s about a dozen short vignettes, with two or three characters, filmed in black and white, about coffee and cigarettes.

These little films were shot over a period of several years. The first one, shot in 1983, has Steven Wright meet Roberto Benigni. They have a pointless conversion and Benigni even says he doesn’t understand anything Wright is saying. Then Benigni offers to go to Wright’s dentist appointment for him, and they leave.

Several of these little meetings are somewhat uncomfortable. Iggy Pop meets Tom Waits in a dive. Pop is ingratiating and Waits is obnoxious to him. In another number, Alfred Molina invites Steve Coogan for coffee to tell him that they are distant cousins and should consider doing a project together. Coogan can hardly bring himself to care and tries to blow him off with minimal politeness. I sort of doubt that Iggy Pop is so much of a little puppy dog (although Waits may be a belligerent asshole), or that Coogan is really so stuck-up (at least, not around Alfred Molina). But they make interesting little stories.

We also see Jack and Meg White with a Tesla coil, Cate Blanchett talking with her not-famous cousin (played by Blanchett), and RZA and GZA drinking herbal tea and talking with Bill Murray, who plays himself, but a waiter in the diner. And many more.

I am sure that the “scripts” for these was no more than a few suggestions: “Iggy Pop is sweet, Waits in obnoxious, they meet for coffee”. The rest is all improvised. They are mostly funny, some sad, often uncomfortable. But they all revolve around coffee and cigarettes. Truth in labeling.