On Silence in Coffee and Cigarettes

I really enjoyed Coffee and Cigarettes, the recently released film of black-and-white vignettes featuring mismatches of musicians and actors. There's enough change in style between segments that each sketch is fresh in its cute-and-awkwardness.

But one thing I found tiring was director/writer Jim Jarmusch's absolutist treatment of silence in dialogue as a rift in communication. Whenever characters are quiet they appear to be at odds with their counterparts, realizing their train is somewhere in Albuquerque they are plainly contemplating catching a ride back to Buffalo. Iggy Pop contemplates leaving Tom Waits, whom he has inadvertently offended. Cate Blanchett restrategizes her conversation with a black sheep cousin (Cate Blanchett). Pauses are never comfortable. In real dialogue, though, the pause can imply an exact understanding: a way for conversers to think the same thought without speaking over each other, to conversely observe an event or item, to actually communicate via body language or simply through the lack of speech. We don't find such silence in Coffee and Cigarettes; a pause is a certain sign of a derailed conversation.

True, the movie is largely about uncomfortable combinations (why else pair Bill Murray with RZA and GZA). But there are mutual moments in the positive spaces, so why not the negative space? In a movie so intimately focussed on unpaced, diner conversation, heavily one-sided use of momentary pauses is a definite weakness. Moments of silence are tense because of it. A tempo has been set; breaks feel unnatural and can leave the audience feeling as awkward as the characters on the screen.

Of course, maybe that's the point.