Iggy Pop and Tom Waits (who also happens to be a doctor in this short) meet up in some sort of diner where they end up discussing how better their lives are since they quit smoking. In celebration of their triumph over this filthy habit, they decide to light one up; because that’s the beauty of quitting… you can always just have one. Their discussion quickly takes a side route as they begin to praise the genius combination of coffee and cigarettes. Iggy then mentions to Waits how he met this great drummer that he should check out. Waits takes this as a personal attack against his music and asks Iggy if he is insinuating that his records suck and that he is in need of a professional drummer. The already practically tangible awkwardness of the situation just escalates from then on. Coffee and Cigarettes is the kind of film you either love or hate (a bit like coffee and cigarettes themselves). I loved it, but great lighting/shadow play and interesting frames are key aspects that always win me over. I am also a sucker for black and while film. The dialogue is often very minimal; what really speaks is the body language and those somewhat intense awkward silences. Jim Jarmush illustrates the absorption we sometimes have with life’s addictons, joys and obsessions while keeping everything extremely down to earth and doing so in a comical, perhaps slightly ironic fashion. He really hit the nail on the head with this one; after all it was shot over a 17 year period so it had to be good!
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