(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still / The White Stripes)
Tue 20 January 2026 4:00, UK
In the standalone sequence ‘Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil’, from Jim Jarmusch’s 2003 anthology Coffee and Cigarettes, Jack and Meg White sit at a round table, glancing aimlessly around the room while ‘Down on the Street’ by The Stooges blares on from the speakers.
Coffee mugs in one hand, cigarettes in another, Jack and Meg sit in silence for a minute and a half before Meg breaks with, “So Jack, you going to tell me about your Tesla coil?” Reluctantly, Jack agrees, explaining how he built Nikola Tesla’s electrical resonant transformer himself, expanding on the many inventions he is credited with.
“He perceived the earth as a conductor of acoustical resonance,” Jack proclaims, before the pair put on their goggles and test Jack’s invention, causing it to break. Defeatedly, Jack wheels the Tesla coil away in a little red wagon, leaving Meg to contemplate “Earth as a conductor of acoustical resonance” by clanking her coffee mug with a spoon.
Coffee and Cigarettes, shot in black and white, furthers Jarmusch’s signature minimalist approach to his films, united by the simple act of drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, turning ordinary conversations into meditations on obsession. Jack and Meg White are the perfect inclusion, communicating with an effortless cool, their characterisation in Jarmusch’s vision offering a comical glimpse at the otherwise private, reserved duo.
But how did they meet?
Jarmusch first met The White Stripes in New York City, where they staged a free concert in Manhattan’s Union Square. Spotting Jarmusch in the audience, they invited the director backstage and forged a friendship.
“When we first met Jim, he had a book about Tesla on his desk, and I started saying how much of an admirer of Tesla’s I was,” Jack explained to Coming Soon in 2004, “We started talking, and we were eventually going to make a video for our last album in which I was going to play Tesla.”
The unrealised film turned out to be too expensive to bring to life, but Jarmusch later presented Jack and Meg with his concept for a short film about a Tesla coil, about which the duo were immediately intrigued. “I really like his use of silence and empty space,” Jack said, when asked about what appeals to him in Jarmusch’s films, continuing, “I think his silence is really powerful… In the beginning of our segment, there are 20 seconds of nothing being said, and that’s my favourite part.”
Including, but certainly not limited to, Jarmusch’s early immersion into the late 1970s ‘no wave’ punk scene centered at CBGB’s, forming his no wave band The Del-Byzanteens, working frequently with the brilliant Tom Waits and composing his own score to his 2013 film Only Lovers Left Alive with his musical project Sqürl; music has been a constant across Jarmusch’s artistic output. Naturally, his adoration of The White Stripes would bleed into his film work.
“To me, music is such the perfect form of expression,” Jarmusch asserted to Mean Magazine, while in conversation with Jack. “I’m a huge White Stripes fan. I get so much energy from seeing them play, and when you find out that people whose work you love are also incredible, great people, that’s always exciting. I just fell in love with these two crazy creatures, and now they can’t get rid of me.”
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