In his anthology film “Coffee and Cigarettes” (2003), Jim Jarmusch employs awkwardness as his principal storytelling tool. Across eleven episodes, rather vignettes, the characters participate in an uncomfortable dance over the marriage of coffee and cigarettes. The veil of discomfort reveals underlying social tension, class dynamics, and existential truths. Jarmusch meticulously crafts each scene to resonate a state of unease. The film being dissected into various episodes of raw human interaction enhances the prevailing predicament of emotional limbo, as each segment introduces a new set of characters and their distinct peculiarities and encounters that never quite resolve themselves. The mundane mise-en-scene of the contrastive black & white shots composed of the humble pair of coffee cups and ashtray adds to the tension between the characters.

The awkwardness in these interactions is deliberately choreographed. In the vignette, “Somewhere in California”, musicians Tom Waits and Iggy Pop engage in a discomforting conversation, riddled with concealed ego and insecurities.