Sometimes films have ambiguous or misleading titles. but “Coffee and Cigarettes” definitely has an honest one. The characters drink coffee and smoke cigarettes prodigiously.
Give credit to director Jarmusch for having the guts of a hardened general. At certain times in “Cigarettes,” you question the point of the film. Yet Jarmusch lets the camera and the actors do the work, a remarkable demonstration of restrained direction.
This amalgam of 11 short films dealing with everyday interactions over-surprise-coffee and cigarettes is both captivating and tedious. Strain your ears as you try to understand the dense accent of Roberto Benigni and the weird comments of Steven Wright as they chat about caffeine-induced dreams and hatred for dentists. With quaint mannerisms and delivery, Cate Blanchett plays the only two roles in the short vignette “Cousins.” One role is a beautiful and successful actress while the other is a jealous cousin. Blanchett talks to herself throughout this vignette, and you never realize it until the credits. In “Cousins,” Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan play themselves and converse about their discovered relation and acting portfolios. In a witty stroke of screenwriting, Molina suggests to Coogan the two should star in a movie together: “We can play ourselves! We can be cousins in the movie!”
Additionally, this segment beautifully contrasts the hot new star (Coogan) and the reliable veteran (Molina). When an attractive young woman approaches their table for Coogan’s autograph, Coogan informs the fan that Molina is also an actor. The girl utters a surprised mutter and walks off.
Unfortunately, Jack and Meg White of The White Stripes are stuck in an uninspired and boring talk concerning the inventor Nikola Tesla and Jack’s own Tesla Coil. Jim Jarmusch displays his worst trait in this section-the unwillingness to clip a lifelike yet lethargic scene.
Flat humor roams in “Renee” as a snobby woman looking at a gun catalogue becomes irate when a prying waiter will not leave her alone. Your finger will inch toward the skip button on your remote during this unoriginal, overused and witless idea.
Unendingly, “Cigarettes” will tease you with close-up camera shots of spoons stirring coffee and hands lighting cigarettes. Equally annoying at times are the endless toasts between characters. But perhaps these recurring ideas can be explained in the best skit, “Somewhere in California.” Musicians Iggy Pop and Tom Waits chat about the greatness of giving up cigarettes.
Waits flashes a pensive grimace and explains, “Y’know, the beauty of quitting is that now that I’ve quit, I can have one ’cause I’ve quit.” Waits lights a cigarette he found and says, “I don’t even inhale.” Scenes like this somewhat give Jarmusch’s years-in-the-making experiment a message. As Waits suggests, “We’re really like the coffee and cigarettes generation when you think about it;” our world is talkative and neurotic. And what better place to find such eccentric characters than in a caffeine-and-nicotine infested environment.
Or maybe Jarmusch is a sick director and makes pointless movies for confused audiences. Either way, this film mocks conformity and conventionality with interesting and wearisome results.
Extras are relatively slim but worth watching. “Tabletops” is a music video featuring all the close table shots of the film in quick succession. An outtake features Bill Murray make a hilarious comment after his skit ends.
Finally, the interview with Taylor Mead, the old man musing about life with Bill Rice in the final piece of “Cigarettes,” is quite intriguing as Mead talks about the unorthodox Jarmusch, the significance of his role and the other actors in the movie.