Coffee and Noir: CIGARETTES & COFFEE

every instance of coffee in noir: 033

You learn a lot about a noir character by their coffee: sugar? cream? more whiskey than caffeine?

I’m cataloging every noir scene where coffee plays a role — rote and ritual, soul-dark or cream and sugar, served from dingy diners to shiny penthouses.

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Paul Thomas Anderson’s somewhat famous[ly low res] short mayn’t feel fully noir steeped, but it shows its dark, bitter soul when fleshed out to feature length in Hard Eight.

Why did PTA set his noirish short in a diner? A casino would have been too costly (the producer scrounged to find this cafe which would say ‘yes’ for cheap), but a hotel room would have been cheaper, a nighttime restaurant perhaps easier to light, and wouldn’t people with — ah, the sort of encumbrances some here have — want somewhere more private? Everyone here feels quite exposed!

Beside that fact a hotel or dive bar may have inhibited the magical-realism-flow, a diner is the perfect place for coffee and cigarettes, and together all three have noir atmosphere, my dear!

Detour uses a dive cafe as place on a long drive where you can wake yourself up and fall into daydreams; Desert Fury contrasts coffee served in domestic setting to coffee poured in a roadside diner; Shaft choses a local espresso spot to set up a meet; Heat finds a large busy diner is perfect neutral territory for obsessed cop and cagey thief; Person of Interest has a digital interaction in this most human of public spaces.

Cigarettes and Coffee doesn’t just use the name and setting for atmosphere, it gives us plenty of loving shots of the titular elements.

The short is worth a watch, ideally side-by-side with Hard Eight

I love how it leans into the concept of nicotine and caffeine, quintessential diner in bright sunshine, floral dresses and dark conversations, which altogether are so very neo-noir, well setting up the feature which would come down the track.

Drink your coffee. Smoke your cigarette.

Because that alone will make everything right.