Quote:
i have a numbered list about why i like jim jarmusch films. you can always win a debate with a numbered list. numbers have that power.
1. his movies have interesting characters. like winston in broken flowers, the japanese kids in mystery train, the two guys at the start of coffee and ciagrettes ... lots more. maybe it's down to the acting, which is invariably good too.
2. there is rarely a big life changing event. things just happen in his movies. and they happen not too fast and not too slow. i like slow movies. these movies always feel well paced. just enough story to keep it moving and make sure it hangs together. no stupid plot twists. no grand metaphors.
3. a variety of interesting locations to go with the interesting characters. for example, all the different houses in broken flowers. the cities in night on earth
4. a lot of humour, arising naturally from the situation. not forced jokey lines. a slow sort of humour. i like that.
5. long rambling conversations, generally adding to the humour, also adding to the ...
6. interesting relationships between characters (winston and don in broken flowers, ice-cream man and ghost dog, most scenes in coffee and cigarettes)
7. good camera shots. especially stranger than paradise. there is a lot of beauty there.
8. some warm fuzzy bits. like the relationship between ghost dog and the little girl.
9. good music.
10. the pictures tell the story.
oh look. i quoted myself.
i've been thinking about this quite a bit. a friend of mine watched 'coffee and cigarettes' recently and we were talking about it. i realised that it's a great film to talk about. we could talk about which stories we liked the best, and which characters. a film which is good to talk about is a good film, i think.
then i thought some more, and i thought that 'coffee and cigarettes' is basically a film about conversations. more so than any other film i can think of. and i thought, what could be better than being tricked into believing you are overhearing people's conversations? plus, they are really interesting conversations to listen in on.
human interactions. facial expressions. the way we talk. it's all at the forefront in 'coffee and cigarettes'. it's all interesting stuff. i think that if an alien watched that film, he could learn a lot about the way human beings interact. a lot of the strangeness of people is there.
so, that's what i thought.
Login
FAQ
Search
