It almost seems as if Jim Jarmusch threw a bunch of names in a hat, then pulled them out randomly and combined them for the 11 vignettes that constitute “Coffee and Cigarettes.”
There’s Steven Wright and Robert Benigni; Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan; and the strangest and possibly greatest of all, Bill Murray with GZA and RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan.
The result is hit and miss, as you’d imagine from any production with this sort of structure. Some segments crackle while others drag. But viewed together, they have a hypnotic quality, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Shot in black and white, “Coffee and Cigarettes” features actors and musicians playing versions of themselves as they sit down together for coffee, cigarettes and seemingly insignificant banter.
Jarmusch, as writer and director, ties the vignettes together with a few visual motifs and repeated words and phrases. Each has a high shot of the table as its occupants clink their coffee cups together. Some of players discuss the possibility of making caffeine Popsicles, or the inventions of Nikola Tesla.
It sounds as if their dialogues are improvised, but they were tightly scripted with a few minor tweakings. What they’re saying, though, isn’t as intriguing as who they are — or who they’re playing.
Odd pairings that work
Wright and Benigni, both comedians, couldn’t be more different in terms of temperament. In their vignette, which Jarmusch originally shot as a short film for “Saturday Night Live” in 1986, the caffeine and nicotine enhance Benigni’s notoriously hyperactive tendencies, while having no effect on Wright, whose standup routine consists of monotone, deadpan observations. Teaming them up is wonderfully absurd.
The beauty of a scene between Iggy Pop and Tom Waits, both friends of Jarmusch, is that these bold, groundbreaking musicians are so nervous and awkward around each other, it’s as if they’re on a first date.
Cate Blanchett provides one of the more subtly poignant segments: She plays herself, staying at an upscale hotel for a movie junket, and she also plays a cousin who arrives for a quick hello and reveals herself to be bitterly jealous of Blanchett’s success. Each character is fully realized and distinct from the other, yet the melding of both performances is seamless.
Subtlety also is the key to the scene between Molina and Coogan. Molina, co-star of “Frida” who’s currently playing Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway, is giddy with the news that he’s discovered, through dogged genealogical research, that he and Coogan are distant cousins.
Coogan, who’s best known to British audiences for his Alan Partridge character, is coolly dismissive. He’s just meeting Molina for the first time and couldn’t care less — until Molina receives a call on his cell phone that completely changes the dynamic of their discussion.
The creativity of Jack and Meg White of the White Stripes is wasted, though; they barely speak to each other in their segment, and when they do, they spew dull technical mumbo-jumbo. A scene featuring the sexy, mysterious Renee French, who sits alone and leafs through magazines while trying to fend off an overzealous waiter, also goes nowhere.
But the second-to-last vignette, starring Murray, GZA and RZA, has a fabulously weird energy about it and is worth waiting for.
The Wu-Tang guys aren’t drinking coffee, instead favoring herbal tea. Murray is their waiter at the restaurant, and while he insists he doesn’t want to be recognized, they’re star-struck and rejoice in saying his name over and over.
He is, as they put it, “‘Groundhog Day,’ ghostbustin’-ass Bill Murray.” He’s also a marvelous comic foil, straining to be incognito as he joins them in a booth and gulps coffee straight from the pot.
Jarmusch should have ended the film with this segment — he would have sent audiences out buzzing. Instead, the last vignette, featuring the lesser-known Bill Rice and Taylor Mead, is quiet and contemplative — a real buzzkill.