Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)

COFFEE AND CIGARETTES

Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten

Grade: C+

United Artists

Directed by: Jim Jarmusch

Written by: Jim Jarmusch

Cast: Roberto Benigni, Cate Blanchett, Steve Buscemi, Steve

Coogan,, Alfred Molina, Bill Murray, Iggy Pop

Screened at: MGM, NYC, 3/24/04

Jim Jarmusch may see himself as the American Anton

Chekhov. Though the Russian playwright once said that when

a gun is shown in the first act, it will be used by act three,

Chekhov's plays rely not on moments of high drama and crisis

but on family desolation, loneliness, the feeling of time wasted.

Jarmusch, like Chekhov, appears to believe that explosions,

sudden crises, moments of lightning-like epiphanies have no

place on the screen, at least on the screen designed by this

most private of American film-makers. Though he sees a

through-line, a spine to the film that reveals the whole to be

greater than the sum of its parts, "Coffee and Cigarettes" is for

the most part a series of vignettes unified only by the fact that

the residents of its ten, separate skits relate to one another over

java and joe or, in one case over properly brewed tea.

Celebrities make their appearances, joined by others who are

well known by film buffs. Given the disparities in temperaments,

you don't expect much real communication to take place and, in

most of the vignettes, there is a failure to connect. While this

may be the writer-director's intention, some dialogue appears

too hastily improvised, the wit found readily in a film like Louis

Malle's "My Dinner with Andre" close to non-existent. While

Malle's film allows two people of opposite temperaments played

by Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn to talk for a most

enjoyable two hours, Jarmusch fails to sustain interest in all but

the pieces that feature an unobstructed flow of language.

As an example of the better pieces, we find an absurdist

situation featuring two rappers, GZA and RZA of the group Wu-

Tang Chan. Seated in a restaurant, they talk about the

pernicious effects of cigarettes and coffee (as do the fellows in

various other skits) but are interrupted by a waiter, Bill Murray,

whom they assume is either slumming or hiding out. Murray

drinks coffee directly from the pot as he joins the duo,

interrupting their discussion of RZA's interest in alternative

medicine. As a practitioner, RZA believes that coffee can cause

delirium, which does not faze Mr. Murray, who bottoms-up the

entire pot. The piece concludes with Murray's taking his new

friends' advice to get rid of a cold.

A conversation with a twist involves Alfred Molina's attempt to

prove to Steve Coogan that the two are genealogically cousins

and that perhaps they could get together quite a bit more to

discuss acting opportunities that the seemingly desperate Alfred

appears to lack. Though Steve refuses to give out his number,

he sees reason to regret his choice as Alfred receives an

important call on his cell phone.

Technologically, the most involving action features Cate

Blanchett talking to herself, the well-coiffed, celebrity Cate, in

the lounge of a fine hotel taking a break between press junkets,

evoking the jealousy of her "cousin Shelly."

Other sonatas in Jarmusch's orchestral piece range from the

soporific to the deliberately redundant, ultimately allowing the

writer-director, who has always marched to a different drummer, to

prove that the mundane is really the mundane.

Rated R. 96 minutes.(c) 2004 by Harvey Karten at

Harveycritic@cs.com

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X-RT-ReviewID: 1279908
X-RT-TitleID: 1132523
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X-RT-RatingText: C+