March 11, 2008
Indie film prince Jim Jarmusch’s trademark is that his films are always weird and always naturally so.
Jarmusch soaks his films with strangeness, it is true, but he never makes any of the obvious and desperate efforts at the bizarre so often used by less-talented filmmakers; Jarmusch’s weirdness is never forced, but rather a natural part of his films, as though his characters inhabited an alternate universe where the odd is, in fact, completely normal.
Jarmusch’s 2003 film "Coffee and Cigarettes" is a prime example of his naturally weird filmmaking style. The black-and-white film is composed of 11 vignettes, all of which feature two or three actors enjoying — or not quite enjoying — the bread-and-butter vices of caffeine and nicotine.
There’s weirdness to be found merely in the cast of actors: Cate Blanchett playing a dual role as herself and her cousin, rockers Iggy Pop and Tom Waits conversing in a diner, Bill Murray waiting on two members of the Wu-Tang Clan, and Jack and Meg White putting on their sibling charade (given that the Whites are actually ex-spouses, this is also a little creepy).
Jarmusch brings out the oddball qualities in each actor, never forcing the point, but also never suppressing any individual quirks.
"Coffee and Cigarettes" is at heart a collection of conversations, and each conversation is a convergence of the real and surreal, melding the mundanity of coffee and cigarettes with more extraordinary Tesla coils and long-lost cousins.
The conversations are always funny, but tensely so; hell always seems to be on the verge of breaking loose. This is especially true of Tom Waits’ conversation with Iggy Pop, who becomes more and more bewildered as Waits accuses his fellow rocker of insinuating that his music "sucks."
Much more benign, but still nervy, is the film’s first vignette, featuring Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright. The two men display none of the antagonism apparent in Waits and Pop’s segment, but they are nonetheless still jacked up on caffeine, talking rapidly and anxiously.
Anxiety is not the only theme running through "Coffee and Cigarettes." Repeated motifs include cousins, the dangers of smoking, black-and-white table patterns, and the work of inventor Nikola Tesla, who is said to have "perceived the earth to be a conductor of acoustical resonance" (this line is spoken twice in the film, first by Jack White and then by William Rice).
These common threads make the film cohesive, instead of a choppy bundle of random scenes.
The only vignette not underscored by the jitters is the final one, in which the aging William Rice and Taylor Mead wax nostalgic in a dimly lit setting, quietly sipping coffee. Their conversation has none of the on-edge quality present in the other vignettes, but still carries a spooky melancholy — at one point, Janet Baker’s voice drifts out into the soundscape from seemingly nowhere, leading us to wonder if Tesla’s theory is indeed correct, and if the similarities between the various conversations are all remnants of "acoustical resonance."
"Coffee and Cigarettes" is not exactly a piece of casual entertainment: One must listen closely to the conversations in order to fully appreciate the film.
But if one manages to do so, the resulting experience is a funny, edgy, entertaining work of art.
