15 Years of ‘Smoke’ – A
Retrospective Appreciation
The
mid 1990s was something of a golden time in American cinema – American independent cinema, that is. In the wake
of the success of Pulp Fiction, came a small stream of modestly budgeted
American indie movies. That’s not to say that Pulp Fiction was responsible for
those films, but it certainly helped pave the way, and demonstrate to producers
that independent films could be profitable.
One
such film was ‘Smoke’, written by novelist Paul Auster and directed by Wayne
Wang, released in 1995. Set in Brooklyn in the
summer of 1991, it tells the story of the lives of a number of Brooklynites who
paths lead them to and from the Brooklyn Cigar Company, a small corner shop run
by Harvey Keitel’s character, Auggie Wren. Among the characters whose lives
collide in small but unexpected ways (and sometimes unexpectedly powerful ways)
are Paul Benjamin (William Hurt), a novelist grieving for the death of his
wife, whose life is saved by a black teenager, Rashid (Harold Perrineau) who is
on his way to find his father, Cyrus Cole (Forrest Whitaker). Then there’s
Auggie’s old flame Ruby (Stockard Channing) who comes to him to get help with
her (and possibly his) daughter, Felicity (Ashley Judd). Added to these are
some deft characterisations from the supporting players (mention must be made
of Giancarlo Esposito, Jared Harris, Mary B Ward, Jose Zuniga and Steve
Gevedon) which give the film an extra depth, another layer of richness.
‘Smoke’
is an outstanding little film in many ways. It consciously breaks many of the
rules of filmmaking: it has long dialogue scenes, most of the characters
(particularly Hurt and Keitel) have some great monologues, visually the story
is told primarily in master shots with the occasional medium shot (close-ups
are reserved for the final scene in the film) thus giving the actors the
freedom to breathe. And while the film is particularly (and appropriately)
reverential to Paul Auster’s words, the film also takes a particular delight in
the silences between the words, the pauses in the dialogue, that feel so real
and so utterly believable. In a key scene in the film, Paul sits with Auggie as
Auggie shows Paul his “life’s work”: four thousand photographs of the same
location – 8 a.m. on the corner of 3rd Street and Seventh Avenue,
with pictures going back to the late 1970s. Paul’s reaction is that it’s
overwhelming. To which Auggie replies: “You’ll never get it if you don’t slow
down, my friend”. And the same is true of the film itself. It requires, demands,
even, that the viewer slow down, take in all the details, ponder the pauses in
the dialogue, the looks that pass between the characters., consider the themes
underlying the film.
From
a thematic perspective, ‘Smoke’ is very rich. The film indirectly asks a lot of
questions, such as: if something is stolen by someone, but is then stolen by
someone else who puts that thing to good use, is there a moral dilemma – or is
the thing redeemed? Substitute the words ‘money’ and ‘camera’ for the word
‘thing’ and you have two examples in the film of how this works. Then there is
the fact that the parent characters in the film, particularly Ruby and Cyrus,
are trying to make up for having screwed up in their lives and the effect it
has had on their loved ones – their children in particular – and how they try
and set things straight. And the film is full of surrogate relationships: Paul
the man in need of a son, and Rashid the boy in search of a father; Auggie, the
man who has no family but takes it upon himself to help out Ruby’s daughter –
the kindness of strangers, if you will. And then there’s the theme of
storytelling itself. The film is full of tales, some of them are tall; some of
them may even be true. The story that Auggie tells Paul at the end of the film
may or may not be true, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, it’s a
good story, and it ties up the entire film nicely.
They
question is, though, fifteen years after its release, does ‘Smoke’ hold up? On
the whole yes. The criticism that I have of it are criticisms I had when I
first saw it over 10 years ago – nothing much has changed. At times, the film
is too deliberately slow for its own good. Wang and Auster deliberately set out
to make a film that flew in the face of the then cinematic trend of action,
explosions, and music-video-style editing. But sometimes, they go a little too
far, sometimes the film is just a little too slow. And then there’s the
character of Felicity, played by Ashley Judd: the character doesn’t work.
That’s no criticism of the performance of Ashley Judd, it’s just that the
character is a walking talking cliché, and that’s down primarily to Auster.
Watching the film on DVD, I found myself skipping through some of the scenes to
I found boring to get to the scenes that I like, the scenes that I remember the
film for. I could watch the final scene between Harvey Keitel and William Hurt,
when Keitel tells Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story a dozen times: both actors are
so compelling, and Harvey Keitel is a master storyteller. Other scenes, I just
skipped through: the whole Felicity sequence, Rashid working in Auggie’s shop
and a few others. ‘Smoke’ is a strange film in this respect: it’s less than two
hours long, but feels like a lot more. If you like the film, then that time is
not enough; if you don’t like the film then it will seem like an eternity of
suffering.
‘Smoke’
just about holds up. It’s brilliant by moments. But you do have to sit though
some mediocre stuff to get to those moments – and that requires patience.
But
there is one thing that is undeniable about ‘Smoke’: it’s a generous film. It’s
generous to its actors, who are given the time and space to breathe and really
bring to life their characters; it’s characters are generous (on the whole) to
each other. The theme of generosity crossed over into the real world as well.
In a remarkable act of directorial generosity, Wayne Wang gave Paul Auster a
co-filmmaking credit, and the film is, officially, “A film by Wayne Wang and
Paul Auster”. Wang received a small amount of grief from the Director’s Guild,
some of whose members were angry at him for having shared the filmmaking credit
with a writer.
‘Smoke’
was made for $6 million. It tool $8
million at the US France , Japan and Germany
He
has every reason to consider it as much.
- April 2010
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