Continuing in movie-talk vein, one force that has swept through the western film industry to greater and lesser degrees is the current hatred of tobacco and the tobacco industry. The Michael Mann film, The Insider, starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino – with a fine performance also by Christopher Plummer – is a good example. All the pieces are in place: a big, evil ciggie firm makes its products more addictive by dark scientific means; Crowe, who plays a scientist, leaves said evil organisation and blows the whistle on its practices. He is hounded, threatened, his marriage and career collapses. Pacino, as the hero-journalist, tries to expose all this, and in the process gets leant on by his big-bucks media empire bosses. The viewer comes away from the production in no doubt that cigarette companies are just a few inches short of being Nazis.
If you take a random look at any major Hollywood production these days, you seldom see stars light up a cigarette, except possibly some of the more dubious or “troubled” characters. When I watched Steve Martin’s hilarious spoof film of 1940s film noir, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, I was reminded of how in the movies of the time, everyone smoked. Even the pet dogs would have smoked, given half a chance. And the cinema audiences smoked like chimneys as well. This is now a distant memory. The modern James Bond in Casino Royale does not smoke his Morland Specials, whereas Connery smoked and of course 007’s creator, Ian Fleming, puffed away heroically. Bogart got through several packs of Luckies in a movie, and so did the various hot dames who acted with him. Spencer Tracy was unusual in that he did not smoke. Can you imagine Hugh Grant smoking, or George Clooney?
Of course, there is a bit of a backlash from time to time, creating wonderful satire. Thankyou for Smoking, the film based on the humorous novel by Christopher Buckley, is one such. And the great Denis Leary tries to keep the flag flying. But for real defiance of the health-obsessives, the French cannot be beaten. Last night I watched the French cop film 36, starring the usual roster of craggy-faced Jules and Jacques with their Galoises and Gitanes attached permanently to their lower lips. I counted, or tried to count, the number of cigarettes smoked in the film and gave up at about the 200 mark.
If Sarkozy is to be a great president of France, he needs to smoke.
There was one line, among many, in Thank You For Smoking that I loved – the one describing the firearms member of the ATF trio who,
Hugh Grant’s character in the Bridget Jones Diary movie, parts one and two smoked. Mind you, the character he played in the movie was a shit of major proportions.
🙂
From “Thank You….”
If he wasn’t a heavy smoker the patches would have killed him.
There was the movie “200 Cigarettes” from the late 90’s, in which cigarettes actually played a role in the plot.
(IMDB Link)
Hugh Grant smoked a lot in About a Boy and BJD I &II
Smoke and Blue in the Face stand out as excellent films that are about smoking without being against it.
The Man Who Wasn’t There has a lot of smoking too, and is also excellent.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy has Gandalf puffing away happily.
I’m more concerned by the peculiar rules against the use of animals in films, which is quite restrictive. I suppose CGI has solved the problem to some extent, but I’m amazed at the things you aren’t allowed to film animals doing without various powerful lobby groups essentially destroying your film. This fine example of non-governmental self-regulation always unnerves me a bit.
J, any chance of some examples? I can imagine you can’t film animals getting hurt but what else is restricted?
Not a film, but in the most recent episode of the generally medicore “Smallville”, one of the characters has a dream about the “Smallville” characters being involved in a ’40s era murder plot. The show actually did a fair job with the decor and the pulp dectective dialog, and the near constant presence of smoke, and cigarettes. Virtually every character, from the leads to the extras was smoking something at some point.
I found it a nice touch, as I had been wondering how, or if, they would handle the prevalence of smoking in the flims, and life, of that era.
Robert: here’s an example unrelated to the film industry, but if this could happen, anything can.
Were I in the office I could quote you verbatim the MTV ‘guidelines’ on video submissions and their rules regarding smoking and drinking. I still laugh whenever I recall a video shot in South Africa many years ago which was rejected by MTV Europe and USA on the grounds that ‘the lead singer appears to be drinking a glass of champagne in one sequence’. This was at the same time that MTV rushed through a video from a certain well known L.A. rapper where he and his ‘homies’ all run around waving semi-automatics, shoot up the trunk of a car containing an informer and then stand around drinking and smoking at a BBQ, all the while referring to their “gatts” and their “bitches”. Of course making an accusation that MTV are bigots and actively discriminate against non-coloured music videos on spurious grounds would immediately guarantee that any further submissions to them would be ignored.
Of course with MTV nothing equates to the stupidity encountered some years ago on a video (against shot in South Africa) where it was rejected on the grounds that “it might encourage people to jump off tall buildings” or “people might be encouraged to think that they can run into traffic and survive”.
Sometimes I feel that if the music industry were running an aircraft carrier they would leave the red tabs on the missiles, in case they are a danger to the enemy.
Think how much better it would be if Sarkozy were to smoke hemp!
Now that Sarkozy has won, Britain had better look to its’ laurels, if he sticks to his word! He promised to borrow some ideas from the Anglosphere, so you’ve got competition.
Nick: somehow I am not holding my breath – see Perry’s latest post.
Alisa, are you not holding your breath because-
a) The air there is so bad, you want to replace it as soon as possible?
b) You never practiced holding your breath as a child, so you’re not sure you can do it right?
c) You think that even if Sarky means what he says, the country is so conservative in its’ inertia, that he won’t be able to make major changes?
d) any two or all three of the above?
Can you imagine Hugh Grant smoking, or George Clooney
Grant does smoke (or did) – just not in the movies. I strongly suspect he moved house 50 yards down the road so that nipping out to Pankaj’s shop for a fag would be easier.
I’m fairly sure I’ve seen Clooney listed as a guest for some of those celebrity-cigar-smoker events. But I’ve never seen a photo. Image control is a serious business.
It doesn’t change the current movie code, which is that bad (or at least seriously flawed) people smoke. The most classic example is the X-Files, where the evil of the Smoking Man is as risibly overdone as everything else.
Might this not be a case of Karma? Hollywood was once paid to push fags, now political correctness dictates that they push clean air? And aren’t they ‘encouraged’ by the feds to insert anti-drug messages into their movies, if they can? Can anyone enlighten us on these points?
Nick: c), obviously. a) would depend on precisely what is being smoked:-)
Your last comment is apt. I am all for anti-smoking, anti-drug messages in pop-culture, as long as the gov. has no hand in it.
Dot Cotton.
With all due respect to the above posts, there is one aspect not covered:
People are not smoking as much in real life.
There is one thing not covered in the above posts:
People are not smoking as much in real life.
Oh dear.
Who scratched Michiganny?
I told you not to play with him unsupervised!
But he wanted to play! Michi looked appealing! I missed your warning! I’m just another victim! I think I missed your warning because of all the smog in the air, caused by the few remaining smokers.
Sorry!!!
In Britain more women seem to be smoking than ever (although a lot of men have given up).
The population also seems to be drinking more booze and taking more drugs than ever.
Perhaps the United States is different. I have heard that it is.
As for smoking and morality. If I met a man who was a pipe smoker I would guess (as long as he was just smoking tobacco) that his morality was rather better than avarage. That would be true for both Britain and the United States.
On whether people should be allowed to smoke – that is up to the owner of the property. It is nothing to do with the government (local government or other).
Yeah. We discovered cocaine and meth, two areas in which the rest of the world is sadly lagging, and don’t need tobacco and ethanol anymore. (Is this where the lefties chime in with how bad it is that the US consumes most of the world’s oil, has half of the world’s lawyers, and consumes about 90% of the world’s cocaine?)
Seriously, though, smoking is in serious decline here. IMHO, it’s a welcome social development. Ever since I quit, the smell drove me up a dang tree.
(The ban, on the other hand, was not my idea.)
Actually, if you watch BJ 1, Grant only ever holds the cigarette. Doesn’t inhale (v bill Clinton, they have mroe than one thing in common.) BJ 2 no smoking at all. About a Boy, only one inhale. Grant was only ever a social smoker and gave up when he broke up with Liz Hurley. He does not smoke at all now…just thought i would throw this in…