Trailer Review - Coffee & Cigarettees
Coffee and Cigarettes is a 2004 anthology film by Jim Jarmusch that is a series of shorts centered around people sharing coffee and cigarettes. I've never seen the film, but I really like its trailer.
This is another trailer that goes against convention of being driven primarily by music. I've talked a bunch about how music that just sits there and doesn't interact with the visuals or editing tends to make for uninteresting trailers. This is generally true, unless there's something else that is driving the momentum of the trailer. In this trailer the dialogue and humor provide the momentum and anticipation.
This trailer has a music track, but it's used mostly as a bed. The music first gets us out of the cold open and into the studio logos, then it sits behind the dialogue until 1:26 when it cuts out to punctuate a joke. Then it resumes for the cast lineup and carries us through to the end.
The cold open is the GZA and RZA fanboying over Bill Murray, who then curiously says: "...just don't tell anybody." This is an amusing lead in, because it seems like Bill Murray is somehow in hiding and other people around haven't realized who he is.
Unless the point of a trailer is to have long drawn out moments, breaking up the sections with something this simple makes it more fun to watch.
After the logo we see them toasting with cups and a pot of coffee. This little action is repeated throughout the trailer, and nicely illustrates how small bits of punctuation like this help to keep the trailer engaging throughout. A lot of indie film trailers feel like one line of dialogue after another with no punctuation; this can feel tiring or monotonous. Just a quick cut of something like people clinking cups of coffee is like a welcome little breath.
The structure of the trailer is pretty much just comedic little segments that cut away as soon as they reach the punchline, like when Iggy Pop gets defensive about being labeled as someone who likes Taco Bell.
This structure is broken after Steven Wright's comment about dreaming fast, because the editor made a connection with The GZA's hand motions and comment about dreams. This adds a touch of flourish before Cate Blanchett's segment that goes back to the dialogue/toast structure.
The Twins segment with Cinqué Lee, Steve Buscemi and Joie Lee gives a change of pace with a joke that takes longer to get to the punchline. Varying the length of these segments keeps the audience on their toes by keeping things unpredictable. We then come back to Iggy Pop and Tom Waits with a reversal of roles from the previous cut.
Cate Blanchett acting with herself? Yes, please.
After Steve Buscemi's "Are you two twins?" comes the fastest cuts in the trailer of the cups touching, the Twins comment, Cate Blanchett saying: "Cheers!" and then a stopdown moment between Alfre Molina and Steve Coogan. Even in this small section, the fast cuts and a drawn out joke provide nice contrast; this makes the trailer more interesting to watch.
Finally we end with Iggy Pop essentially saying the title of the film, and we bookend with the RZA and Bill Murray.
It's a simple trailer that isn't very fancy in its editing, but I still enjoy watching it. It's also a nice lesson in cutting jokes into a trailer. While it doesn't follow the convention of music building towards a climax, it still snappily edits moments, and punctuates them to keep things moving. It also illustrates how variety is still the modus operandi of a good trailer. This editor knew that there was only so long they make an audience watch a trailer about a film with this premise, so they got in and got out as quickly as possible.
