“You could write a novel or you could write a poem that’s two lines long But cinema is restricted commercially. It’s this which makes his work, for all the Americana on display, seem more European or Asian, and not just because he often features non-American characters. Those long takes where people do nothing much in particular, the silences, the languor, may all seem random, but they’re the product of a quite formalist imagination, despite Jarmusch’s insistence that he’s an intuitive film-maker.I ask if his attraction to short films and long scenes springs from a desire to push the boundaries of cinema. And it’s a drug! They get to use drugs, and take a break to get some stimulation from a drug.

I like that as a device for a little conversation.”Jarmusch has more of a miniaturist’s or a lyric poet’s sensibility than that of a feature film-maker in some ways. His films are often accused of lacking plot, when what’s really going on is an attempt to grasp a certain mood, to fix a point in time that feels imbued with ineffable feeling. The whole world is toxic…”Is directing a kind of drug too, given that it is addictive, expensive and can be hazardous to one’s health “Well it can be, as can money or sex But again, I’m not judgemental. It’s not good or bad, it’s just there,” he says and surprisingly links this thought to the movie. “I like the idea of coffee breaks, like this little situation of people having coffee, and smoking together, as something outside of the daily routine. Anything you use for yourself, I don’t understand why there should be laws saying you can or cannot do that It’s absurd to me Are drugs sometimes very bad for people? Yeah, certainly.

They sometimes kill people, but then so does driving cars, or emissions from cars or factories. The reason crime is involved in drugs is because drugs are illegal so people can’t get them, they become junkies, they start robbing people. “It’s a powerful drug, nicotine, as is caffeine, as is alcohol, and these are drugs that are treated in different ways, in different cultures,” he says “Like, tobacco is a sacred drug in Native American culture. Think also of the Japanese tourists played by Masatoshi Nagase and Youki Kudoh in Mystery Train, doing Zippo tricks and chuffing away constantly.Jarmusch is passionate on the subject of tobacco and lights up in every sense when the subject of the bar-ban on smoking in New York is raised.

How many people die from doing stupid things from drinking alcohol? But does that mean it should be outlawed?”I don’t think any drugs should be outlawed, they should be decriminalised. If I knew I probably wouldn’t have done it, so I probably just do them intuitively. But all my work is intuitive to a large degree.”Maybe this is why there’s such a strong sense of coherence running through his oeuvre; and, while the self- financed Coffee and Cigarettes is in some ways Jarmusch Lite, a sampler of sorts, it shares not only cast and crew with his other films but resonates richly with them. PhD theses could be written on the significance of smoking in Jarmusch movies. It goes back as far as his first feature Permanent Vacation, in which the lead characters re-enact the scene in Rebel Without a Cause when Natalie Wood replaces a cigarette in James Dean’s mouth the right way round. “I think it’s just a theme of human nature that you have little resentments running through, you have.. you know, little rivalries,” he says a bit haltingly. “I’m not sure where ideas come from because I’m not an analytical person.