Coffee and Cigarettes Analysis

Coffee and Cigarettes

Written & Directed by: Jim Jarmusch

This is an anthology of 11 shorts, where people talk over coffee and cigarettes. This started when Jim Jarmusch made a short with Roberto Beningni in 1986 and he eventually made more shorts and released it as a feature film after 18 years in 2004. My favorite among the shorts is 'Cousins?' which is a nuanced conversation, there is a lot to learn about writing conversations from this short. This short is about two actors who meet, one of whose career is happening and the other actor is trying to know him more, work with him and collaborate. The actor whose career is happening is hesitant and he looks down upon this person, until he gets to know that this person knows Spike Jonze. This happens a lot of times where one fact about another person, changes our whole view on them and we rethink the way we've been talking to them and we wish we could undo all of that. This shows how we as humans don't value people for who they are, and this makes sense too. You don't have a lot of time to spend with everyone, unless you think you'd learn something from them. It's a masterfully written and performed short.

The other shorts were quirky, slice of life and fun. One thing this anthology does well is, it captures the socio-cultural milieu well. It shows us how people talk, how people see things, how their lives are it mostly deals with artists talking over coffee and cigarettes. This is an experimental format, because having even 6 shorts like in Wild Tales will give you the length of 10-12 mins per short and you can have arcs, plot but some of these shorts are 5 mins and they are just a foray into their world and before we get to know more, it ends. I was wondering if Starbucks or some cafe should make a movie like this with anthology of shorts of just people talking in a cafe like how BMW did with The Hire, I'm yet to watch that movie though.