Cigarettes & Coffee (1993)

Five people's lives that are curiously intertwined happen to all be at a diner at the same time. An old man (Hall) gives advice to a young man (Baltz) about his cheating wife and best ... See full summary »

Director:

Paul Thomas Anderson

Writer:

Paul Thomas Anderson

Stars:

Kirk Baltz, Scott Coffey, Miguel Ferrer

Cast

Credited cast:
Kirk Baltz
Scott Coffey
Miguel Ferrer	...	Bill
Bonnie Fidelman
Kim Gillingham
Philip Baker Hall
Michael Harris	...	(as M.K. Harris)
Jennifer Kaplan

Storyline

Five people's lives that are curiously intertwined happen to all be at a diner at the same time. An old man (Hall) gives advice to a young man (Baltz) about his cheating wife and best friend. A newlywed couple argues over the wife loosing money in Vegas playing craps. And a hit man buys some coffee and cigarettes and greets the man in his trunk.

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Genres:

Drama | Short

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

24 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Bill: [talking on a payphone] Yeah, is he there? This is Bill, who the fuck is this? Alright... asshole... Yeah. Yeah, I told you last week. Last Thursday. Yeah. No no - Look, I told him, alright? I told him. Well that's the way it is, right? What? Yes. When the moon was full. When the moon was full and the dogs were barking! No no no no no - what? I don't think so. It's a matter of opinion, isn't it? They were what? They used that, are you serious? A nickel and a dime, no shit. No fuckin' shit. ...

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Connections

Remade as Hard Eight (1996)

User Reviews

p.t. Anderson's first is typical of his work so far

A major portion of "Cigarettes and Coffee" was later adapted, expanded and basically re-made into p.t. Anderson's first feature film, "Hard Eight". The most interesting part of "Cigarettes" was later used as the first scene for "Hard Eight"--in both Phillip Baker Hall's character interrogates a young drifter in a roadside diner and explains a few things about life and the art of conversation to him. In "Hard Eight" the two then go on to have a father-son type relationship in a fairly straightforward narrative (the most straightforward of any of p.t.'s later films). Here in the seminal "Cigarettes and Coffee", however, Baker Hall's conversation with the young man is only one of three happening simultaneously in the diner. P.T. cuts between the three, and we soon learn that the lives of the three seemingly-unrelated sets of characters do actually intersect in unexpectd ways. In this way, the short film is much more like the director's recent Altman-inspired "Magnolia" than it it either "Hard Eight" or "Boogie Nights." "Cigarettes and Coffee" has played on The Sundance Channel (or was it The Independent Film Channel?) quite frequently.