Coffee and Noir: SHAFT
every instance of coffee in noir: 030
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.
People tend to insult with "style over substance”, but when your style is that Isaac Hayes score, plenty of well-lit glass, Richard Roundtree's booming laugh, and whatever magic the wardrobe department is working?
Then it's a heavy compliment, baby.
And that’s Shaft.
Shaft brings coffee into his noir (the film is other genres first, but it’s also, definitely noir) when he sets up a meet at Caffe Reggio.
The cafe scene opens as a manual espresso is pulled, partially rind-ed lemons nearby. The espresso is set on a tray, which is carried past the door, drawing the camera to it as Shaft enters; small details draw the eye and motivate camera movement.
(Whether because of the particular film reel being ‘off,’ or a misjudgement of lighting and processing, the interior cafe is much grainier than most scenes; that it’s only certain shots makes me think it was one length of film.)
Shaft’s coffee order reveals the only real crack in his ultra-cool: how he pronounces ‘espresso’.
When the waitress brings the coffee she mentions ‘always forgetting’ the lemon peel — thus the lemons we saw earlier. Twisting freshly trimmed citrus peel over your espresso to release a small mist of oils is a superb trick, though I prefer orange peel to lemon.
A low-level mobster errand boy comes in and opens with a slur meant to shake Shaft, who coolly claps back with an Italian insult, topped with a joke about getting garlic with his espresso instead of the lemon.
Noir insults via coffee, that’s the ticket.
When they exit, they pass the sign for Caffe Reggio, then several other cafes; the neighbourhood (a heavily Italian one) is soaked in coffee.
There’s a few other passing coffees, such as when a mobster asks a [presumed] porter for two coffees and a coke for just him —suppose goons do need plenty of caffeine to stay awake on all-night lookout gigs.
But mostly, coffee in Shaft is about Shaft drinking an espresso to settle his nerves while slinging words with a guy who’s about to lead him to a trap Shaft wants to walk into.
Now that’s a hardboiled detective.