With purpose and determination, Jarmusch/Murray take Coffee and Cigarettes on the road. It's stunning. Murray alongside Johanssen was great, but Murray alone is something really special. It's even better than his Lost in Translation performance. The scene with the champagne glass is a masterpiece. Maybe he'd sat for 24 hours watching the bubbles go flat with the camera rolling. Bill's face tells the story. He's the greatest. But Jarmusch has the telling detail too: the real estate, the derelict American porch, the smashed typewriter, the talking cat, the plane full of people all turned to the camera, and at one point one of the tiny faces turns to the camera briefly, knowingly, the small kindness of a stranger, the ignorance of one man, all important. It's unsettling, and it's purpose crept up: "If I keep going down this road will I reach the graveyard". Genius doubled.
Ian

The opening sequence gives a foretaste of what's to come, as we watch a pink envelope collected, mechanically sorted and delivered, against a sound-track of slow, vaguely melancholic pop lyrics. This prepares us for the slow, vaguely melancholic tale that follows, when his neighbour hands Don (Juan, geddit?) a CD to take with him on the road to search out his conquests of ten years back. The music hardly compensates for lack of dialogue and action. We find out, surprise, surprise, it was the women's fault all along, and the ditsy broads are still at it, taking their clothes off and dragging him to dinner or bed depending on whether husbands/Lesbian girlfriends intervene, for all his grizzled hair and fagged-out air.(Assorted track-suits for a life apparently bound to the sofa - about the only good joke in the film) The underbelly of America has been better done by the likes of Michael Moore and the middle classes more amusingly satirised by the likes of Woody Allen. The worst bits were the intelligence-insulting dream sequences; the best bit was where Don got smacked in the eye.

We find out, surprise, surprise, it was the women's fault all along, and the ditsy broads are still at it

But there's only one 'ditsy broad'. Surprise, surprise, they're all different. The thing is it's Don's fault all along. He's an absolute loser in every respect. Incapable of loving anyone but himself. He's every dysfunctional father rolled into one lump of self-pity. Men of a certain age, watch out.
Ian

I didn't mean the ditsy broads are all his ex girl friends, although they are strange enough: Sharon Stone with airhead job who just sleeps with him after his twenty year absence then waves a smiling goodbye (like she's short of attention?)and whose maternal skills are questionable, to say the least,the one with the false facade of Real-Estate 'normalcy' and the Tilda Swinson biker chick who throws hysterics come to mind, not forgetting Jessica Lange communing with the animals. I'm wondering which 'one' you picked out. For the hero the only acceptable ex (are we supposed to cry too?) is a dead one. Among the 'ditsies' I also number the Lolita (geddit? a step tto far in the direction of the obvious?) character who sheds her clothes, and the 'lady' in the airport with the ankle chain, although arguably she is just a 'normal' prostitute. The florist assistant could be seen as merely kind-hearted in other company, i.e. not a galaxy of apparently sex-obsessed females intent on seducing the hero. It is common enough for men to construct models of female behaviour and motivation according to fantasy transference - as in the almost universal male belief that prostitutes enjoy their 'profession.', but this film really hits us over the head.

I can see why the females need to be shown as predatory, because the hero himself is so inert that it is hard to imagine him doing the chasing. However, in resorting to the device of making middle-aged Bill Murray provoke these extreme, and unlikely incidents, the director strains credulity in another direction. George Clooney, yes, Clint Eastwood maybe, but Bill Murray? He could never get the girls at the peak of his prime. His best role was sparring with Richard Drefuss as manic psychiatrist in 'What about Henry?'

The best explanation for this film is that it's a cash-in on 'Lost in Translation', which did a good job convincing menopausal men that Scarlett Johannsen might have the hots for them. That at least had some kind of contextual rationale, as well as a director with a sense of mise-en-scene. I suspect Jarmusch would make even Tokyo seem boring.

Sheila


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too far; Dreyfuss

It is common enough for men to construct models of female behaviour and motivation according to fantasy transference

It is, but if Don had stayed with Sharon Stone (plus godawful but preferable family), the film would have been over. He didn't stay because he wasn't looking for a wife or daughter, at least not ones like that. Don's fantasy transference manifests itself in the son he tries to create out of nothing at the end.

I can see why the females need to be shown as predatory, because the hero himself is so inert that it is hard to imagine him doing the chasing.

Inert yes, but he does the running away. Maybe Sophie Copolla will do the Clooney/Eastwood version where the heroine saws legs off to make them stay. Damn. It's been done.

which did a good job convincing menopausal men that Scarlett Johannsen might have the hots for them.

Sorry no, Johannsen was creepy. Like having your 12 year old niece jump on your duvet in the morning. Omigod.

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...Sofia C.

Yes, I see what you mean about the son.

You mean Scarlett Johanssen isn't meant to be attractive in 'Lost in Translation'?

Sheila

Sorry guy and gal but I can'tlet some of these comments go without some contribution.

LIT: Your average middle-aged guy looking for a bit of autumnal sex on the side wouldn't get much satisfaction from Murray's Bob Harris in LIT as he didn't bed Scarlett even though she made it clear he could. A rarity in Hollywood - a film about love that does not equate it with sex. The world's awash with old guys who bed young women, Nicholson and Rod Stewart e.g. do it for a living. Harris is a grown-up male character for whome the hardest decision he ever had to make I guess was not[/i} to take what was on offer because of the value of his feelings for Scarlett. even though she was willing to forget his age - he wasn't. An almost unique moment in modern, especially Hollywood movies. When a woman director portrays a non-stereotypical male figure lets celebrate it folks. It ain't only women who get trivialised in movies.

As for Jarmusch and Broken Flowers - well I do think J could have encouraged Murray to open up a bit more but the sadness (both the traditional and my kids' sense of 'sad' of Johnston's character surely is his inability to connect. Don's feelings for himself are for me, quite the opposite of self-love. Don seems to me a guy who has become almost bored with himself and his failure to connect with the several woman in his life. He doesn't just think he's an emotional failure - he knows he is. But there is something trying to get out - e.g. don't you get the impression that if Winston got into real trouble Don would be there for him come what may?

So the emotional drive of the film is the idea, genuinely full of pathos, that while Don would never have shown enough commitment to intenionally father a child, the possibility that fate might be throwing him one, eventually gets through to him. And aren't his misunderstood efforts finally to express this to the ambiguous figure of the kid at the end genuinely sad? All his life he's been unable to connect and then the first time he really goes for it - he's mistaken for a pervert. Lack of practice I guess.

Anyway we all pays our money and makes our choice. So in the immortal words of Superted - "that's what I think about it anyway".

Happy movie-going you two. Keep the reviews a-coming.

regards

Zttel