Skip to main content

Coffee and Cigarettes (2004) - how do YOU watch an anthology?

 


“Coffee and Cigarettes” is an anthology. Anthology is a fancy word for assortment or album or compilation. My favorite synonym is miscellany which means ‘a mixture of things’. That is probably the most appropriate way to describe this film.


So how do you consume a mixture of things that are related in style, but otherwise can be chewed on as separate pieces. Same way you used to listen to a new album, I think. Does anyone listen to albums anymore? I watched it straight through, but I think watching each of the 11 scenes in increments of 7 or 8 minutes probably works as well. If I go back to it, that is what I will do. There are elements of the sets and cinematography tying them together. There are lines of dialog that are unrelated to each other from one scene to the next, but they make a loose repeating pattern as well.


This movie is a compilation of 11 scenes with two or three characters each having a conversation while they smoke and drink coffee. It is black and white. That is it.


I watched it for a several reasons - 

  • Roberto Benigni & Steven Wright do a scene which is straight out of Abbott and Costello. Very fun to watch these craftsmen work.

  • Spike Lee’s siblings Joie and Cinqué are in it. Cinqué is the only actor that shows up in two different scenes, although he is not playing the same character. I like Spike and his family's acting work.

  • Iggy Pop and Tom Waits do a scene together which won an award in Cannes in 1993. I don’t normally think much of film festival awards, but in this case, they knew what they were judging. I will watch just about anything with Iggy Pop or Tom Waits*, but to get them together was a cool thing.


On top of that, I found a younger Cate Blanchette. I guess she appeared ‘twice’ as different characters also, but in her case it was the same scene as she played herself and her cousin. Bill Murray shows up with the Wu Tang Clan; I am not sure how many other times you will get to say that.


The takeaway for me from these pieces of work is the sense that people can hang out and be civil and conversational, even if in cases that didn’t happen for any noble purpose. In some cases, they are thrust upon one another, in some they are making each other squirm, some they are looking out for each other or just sharing 6 minutes of their lives. In all cases, they are being social and communal in a way that people yearn for** and doesn’t happen so much anymore. I should stop watching movies and go talk to people.



* I will also watch just about anything with Henry Rollins. I need to think of a fourth to carve into my Mount Rushmore of people really known as musicians but that show up as compelling actors.

** It is certainly an attractive trope of LOTS of movie and TV - I am looking at you “Friends” and “Cheers” and a jillion other movie or TV set pieces.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Midnight Run (1988)

 I need to add one more to my [perfect movie] list: "Midnight Run" (1988). I don't think I had seen it before until now. It holds up well, it is very quotable, shot and edited really well. You can understand how this guy made "Beverly Hills Cop" four years earlier. I do think the secret of this (and BHC) is character. These characters are really well written and played. Charles Grodin is giving a master class in playing down beat against DeNiro's comedic version of "Taxi Driver". Yaphet Kotto looks like he is going to have an aneurysm - and Dennis Farina is truly a scary Chicago mobster. Added bonus - Danny Elfman soundtrack.
Post a Comment
Read more

Aniara (2018) - Space is full of our fears

"Aniara" (2018) is ostensibly a scifi film about a passenger ship en route to Mars that goes off course. Think "Avenue 5" (2020) but with less Hugh Laurie wit, Josh Gad mania and no comedic electricity from Jessica St Clair or Zach Woods. "Aniara" is based on an epic poem - and it explores how humanity, set adrift in the cosmos, struggles to find a path to purpose.  The narrative is centered on a woman who operates an AI Virtual Reality machine which provides an immersion therapy for people who are trapped on the ship - it fills them with a sense of paradise that they ultimately have to be unplugged from to face the existential dread reality of the sarcophagus they are on. The woman, Mimarobe, is earnest trying to make the best of what she is given. She is flawed - she is treated unfairly - she finds love - she faces grievous loss. All the while, she perseveres. I see her as a Job like character. Not exactly: she never gets angry at God and she doesn't...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sinners (2025) - who are your people?

A Southern Gothic tale - with all the symbolism you care to find from that genre. What does it mean to belong? How does a community treat its undesirables? What role does religion play in defining good and clean? What do you have to give up to be part of the clan? This movie probes some very deep stuff.  If you just want the top-level show without all the questions this flick evokes - you get gangsters, vampires, and blues music. It is all the magic I found in a Pizza Hut Supreme when I was a kid. Wonderfully grotesque metaphors. Moving scores. Impact through sound design, camera focus, tracking, color palette and lighting. This movie is brilliantly made.  I am trying to put my finger on a performance that is stand out, but I can't really. It is quite an ensemble. I think if there is one series I loved it is when Stack goes to get supplies for the party: that negotiation with the girl by the truck, the greeting at the 'black' grocery, the shooting, the '1-shot' wher...
Post a Comment
Read more