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Cigarettes & Coffee ()

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In a desert diner, five people are connected through a twenty-dollar bill.
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Cast

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Douglas Walker
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Sydney (as Phillip Baker Hall)
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Bill
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Steve (as M.K. Harris)
Jennifer Kaplan
Bonnie Fidelman

Directed by

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Paul Thomas Anderson ... (as Paul Anderson)

Written by

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Paul Thomas Anderson ... (written by) (as Paul Anderson)

Produced by

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Kirk Baltz ... producer
Shane Conrad ... producer (uncredited)
Patrick Hoelck ... producer
Wendy Weidman ... producer

Cinematography by

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Vincent Baldino ... director of photography
David Phillips ... (uncredited)

Art Department

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Kevin Shanks ... property master / set dresser

Sound Department

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Jim Pettyjohn ... sound (as Jim Petty John)
Alan B. Samuels ... sound (as Al Samuels)

Camera and Electrical Department

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Frank Godwin ... assistant camera
Alex Jachno ... gaffer
David Phillips ... additional camera (as Dave Phillips)

Additional Crew

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Mike Clark ... crew
Shane Conrad ... crew
Patrick Hoelck ... crew
Alex Jachno ... crew (as Alex Jackno)
Jackson James ... crew
Robert Moy ... crew
Kevin Shanks ... crew

Thanks

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Ernie Anderson ... special thanks
Kelly Badham ... special thanks
Dan Hammond ... special thanks
Dennis Ho ... special thanks
Judith James ... special thanks
Bill Layos ... special thanks
John Mhyers ... special thanks
Karen Moy ... special thanks
Steve Van Anda ... special thanks

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Special Effects

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Storyline

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Plot Summary

The basis for the feature film "Hard Eight". The short begins with an older man (Hall) giving a younger man (Baltz) advice over cigarettes and coffee. The younger man tells how he won around $8,000 gambling. At a nearby table, a newlywed couple argues over losing money in Vegas playing craps. The husband lights his last cigarette before rethinking his marriage. Then a hitman (Ferrer) enters to buy cigarettes and coffee before hitting the road.

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Additional Details

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Also Known As
  • Сигареты и кофе (Russia)
Runtime
  • 24 min
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Box Office

Budget $20,000 (estimated)

Did You Know?

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Trivia From a 2008 'Esquire' article by John H. Richardson about the early work of Paul Thomas Anderson: "....Then Anderson got another PA job on a PBS movie about an English professor who was accused of racism by his students. The star was Philip Baker Hall, the man who played Sidney in Midnight Run (1988). "He seemed about sixteen," Hall remembers. But Anderson said he loved his performance in Robert Altman's Secret Honor (1984) - a movie few humans had seen - and asked him what it was like to work with such an innovative and brave director. So they got to talking. Anderson would bring him coffee, and they'd smoke cigarettes and chat. And one day Hall asked him what he wanted to do with his life. "Write movies," Anderson told him. "Incidentally, I've written a twenty-eight-minute minidrama, and there's a good part in it for you. If you're interested, maybe I can borrow some equipment and we can shoot it." Not long after, Hall received a script called "Cigarettes and Coffee". The main plotline was about a young gambler who thinks his wife is having an affair, so he goes to an older gambler and asks for advice. It had a lot of clever twists and turns and some serendipitous crossovers that were similar to the opening of Magnolia (1999), connecting multiple story lines through a twenty-dollar bill. But the most impressive thing was the writing. It wasn't just good, Hall says, it was dazzling. The gangly little kid who delivered his coffee had written something great. "I was wondering, Who was the first actor in the 17th century to see a Shakespeare script, and did he know what he was reading? I certainly knew what I had in my hand." Shane Conrad [a friend] had some connections at Panavision, so Anderson asked him if he could borrow a Panaflex camera for one weekend - a $6,000 rental to civilians. Conrad's friend said they could borrow it if they returned it on Monday morning. "I remember going to Kodak with Paul to buy the film," Conrad says. "He had researched exactly what kind of tungsten he wanted." Then he tapped his network to fill out the cast with more professional actors - Miguel Ferrer ("Twin Peaks"), Scott Coffey ("Ferris Bueller's Day Off"), Kirk Baltz ("Reservoir Dogs") [, Philip Baker Hall ("Midnight Run")]. The legend is that he financed the shoot with his NYU tuition, but Conrad says Ernie [Anderson's father] put in a couple thousand and he put in a couple hundred and they got some more from Wendy Weidman [Anderson's girlfriend]. They slipped onto the Disney lot to hit up the mother of one of the Freshjive guys for a donation, and she cut them a $500 check on the spot. Conrad handled the money. "I'm not sure Paul even had a checking account, so I was writing checks for the film-production expenses." The father of one of Conrad's friends helped arrange a stay in Las Vegas so they could spend a day shooting on the Strip. Anderson hired a professional cinematographer and rented a Fisher dolly, and Conrad found a camera operator, and they loaded all the equipment into the back of his Bronco and drove to the cheap diner Weidman had rented in the Gorman Pass. Things were a bit chaotic at first, Hall says. The crew hadn't worked together before, there wasn't a strong producer or cinematographer running the show, and Anderson still had a lot to learn about working with real actors. "Miguel and I were not sure where we were or how we got there. We talked a couple of times, not exactly, Who is this kid?, but we weren't sure what was going on." Anderson was about twenty-three then, still very young for a director. But he was assured where it counted. He had a very clear vision of his characters. He knew what he wanted from a scene. He understood all the technical details. He knew what to expect from every member of the crew, even knew enough to challenge their expertise. He didn't even have to do a lot of takes. "He seemed to have an almost instinctive knowledge about this kind of stuff," Hall says. And he had a laser intensity with actors. "A lot of directors shoot from the monitor, or even from another room. He will get as close as he can, just out of camera range. Sometimes just inches away. At first I found it a little distracting - he's always right there, with such intensity. But if it doesn't unnerve you, it probably gives your performance a little extra buzz." That year John Cooper was booking short films for the Sundance Film Festival. He remembers Anderson showing up in New York with Cigarettes & Coffee (1993), looking like he was twelve years old. But the movie was beautifully shot, and the dialogue had a subtlety and tension that reminded him of David Mamet. "I usually would take notes and go back to my office," Cooper says. "That one I took on the spot. I remember not wanting someone else to take it." See more »
Movie Connections Remade as Hard Eight (1996). See more »
Quotes [the older man removes a cigarette from the pack, taps both ends on the table twice, then strikes a match and lights the cigarette before placing it in an ashtray]
Older Man: ...and then, then we will talk about making sense of the matter. Once the coffee is poured, and the tip of the cigarette is lit, and placed in the ashtray, then, we will address the matter. We focus our attention when the time comes. When the coffee has been poured...
Younger Man: - "poured and the cigarette has been lit" yeah, but sometimes these things, they can't wait.
Older Man: Well, that's a common mistake.
Younger Man: ...what is?
Older Man: Not to wait, until the coffee is poured, and the cigarettes are lit.
Younger Man: Look, uh, this tradition, this matter of doing things in neat little boxes, it's um, a matter of making urgency wait, is what it is. I get the feeling that following these, these guidelines, these instructions of waiting for the coffee to be poured and all that is only going to get in the way of what I'm trying to tell you.
Older Man: [Referring to his cigarette] Now I'm going to light this. And I'm going to wait for the coffee to be poured. Because that is the correct order of business. And I'm gonna make myself comfortable first and I think you oughta do the same thing. Otherwise, this thing of urgency, that you have to tell me is gonna, it's gonna be like a conversation in two passing cars on a highway. Yeah, you're right, it is a matter of tradition. And that's why we have these things. That's why we have this coffee and these cigarettes. You understand? I'm talking about our bonfires for today - look, you have something to tell me, something you wanna say?
Younger Man: Yes.
Older Man: So, we're gonna sit around our bonfire of coffee and cigarettes, and you're gonna share your story. But - we wait, until the coffee is poured.
[the younger man takes a cigarette, lights it and begins to smoke]
Older Man: Good. Now, what is it, over cigarettes and coffee, here in the middle of this desert, along this highway, in this place? What is it that you want to tell me?
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