Smoke (film)

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Movie
German title Smoke - smokers among themselves
Original title Smoke
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1995
length 112 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Wayne Wang
script Wayne Wang
Paul Auster
production Kenzô Horikoshi
Greg Johnson
Hisami Kuroiwa
Peter Newman
music Rachel Portman
camera Adam Holender
cut Maysie Hoy
Christopher Tellefsen
occupation

Smoke (German subtitle: Smokers among themselves ) is an independent film from 1995 by director Wayne Wang . In the script, written by Paul Auster , several storylines are told in parallel, the center of which is a small tobacco shop in Brooklyn .

history

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The interwoven story offers five storylines, arranged in individual episodes with subtitles, which influence each other. The intersection of the storylines is a small tobacco shop, the Brooklyn Cigar Company , which has regular customers, smokers of various ethnicities, in and out. On leaving the store, the Euro-American writer Paul Benjamin is saved one day by an African-American boy named Rashid Cole from being run over by a truck when he carelessly tries to enter the lane. Paul then offers Rashid a place to sleep for two nights in his apartment. Rashid initially refuses, but appears the next morning and accepts the offer.

Paul has been living in his writer's apartment after the violent death of his then pregnant wife - she was shot in the street nearby - unhappily alone since the 1970s. One evening, shortly before the shop closes , Paul wants to get his Schimmelpenninck cigarillos quickly , so the owner, Auggie Wren , invites Paul into his apartment for a cigar's length . There he shows Paul his project: every morning at exactly eight o'clock he has been taking a tripod photo of his shop, seen from the opposite corner of the intersection, for many years. The two of them look at the albums, seasons, light moods, people, change - and when they arrive in the albums of the 1970s, Paul suddenly finds his deceased wife depicted in a photo. Paul, so suddenly confronted with her picture, loses his composure and cries.

After two days, Paul sends Rashid away again. As soon as the boy is gone, the doorbell rings and Rashid's worried aunt is standing outside. From her Paul learns that Rashid's real name is Thomas, has lived with her and her husband since he was born, that Rashid's mother is dead and that his father has been missing for twelve years. A fortnight ago, however, the news had arrived that Rashid's father was working in a small gas station.

Rashid / Thomas goes to this gas station and stays in front of it until he starts a conversation with his father Cyrus Cole , who of course doesn't recognize him. At first Cyrus thinks Thomas is a thief. Thomas drew the gas station and pretends to sell him the drawing - or alternatively to get a job at Cyrus.

Unexpectedly, Auggie receives a visit from his old ex-girlfriend Ruby . Time has not passed by Ruby without a trace either. All in all a well-groomed, sexy blonde, she lost her left eye at some point and has been wearing an eye patch since then, which she tries more badly than right to hide with a perky lock of hair. She asks him for money for her pregnant daughter Felicity and tells Auggie that he is the birth father. You can learn more about Auggie in a dispute. He'd stolen a necklace for Ruby eighteen years ago, so he'd been sentenced to military service in the Navy instead of prison. He had to give up his plan to go to college. Auggie is finally persuaded to visit the drug addicted daughter with Ruby, only to find out that Felicity had an abortion two days ago. Felicity, who not only insults Auggie, but also calls her mother "pirate eye" and "stupid cow", threatens her partner's violence and throws them out. When Ruby and Auggie leave, she starts crying.

Cyrus, who lost not only his left arm but also his first wife in a self-inflicted car accident exactly twelve years ago when he was under the influence of alcohol, gives Rashid, who calls himself Paul Benjamin, a short-term job: clearing out his workshop. Thomas-Rashid-Paul sees that his father has a new little family with a wife and child, a new little happiness.

Rashid appears again at Paul and gives him a television set that comes from the clearing out job. Paul finally confronts Rashid. In reality, Rashid is looking for a place to hide. Because he has stolen robbers, the Creeper and his gang, their stolen property worth over 6,000 dollars.

Paul tells Thomas the story of a skier who, while skiing, finds the body of another skier trapped in the ice, who looks like him in a mirror. After a short time the man realizes: the dead man is his father, who at the time disappeared on a ski tour. Today, however, the man is older than his own father in the ice before him.

Shortly afterwards, Paul and Thomas visit a bookstore, Thomas dashes forward for the shy Paul and invites the young Japanese-American bookseller to go out for three, which works. You go dancing and meet Auggie and his young Puerto Rican companion. At Paul's request Auggie gives Rashid a job in his tobacco shop, where he immediately destroys Auggie's illegal Cuba cigars, the trade of which is banned in the USA, by carelessly causing irreparable water damage to the stored cigar boxes. Auggie's savings over the past three years and his reputation as a trader have gone up in smoke, and Rashid has lost his job. When challenged, Rashid gives Auggie the booty money as compensation and Rashid gets the job back.

Creeper and some of his boys later break into Paul's apartment and beat him up. Thomas-Rashid can escape in time.

Auggie and Ruby meet again before Ruby leaves again. Auggie gives Ruby the booty money to make a withdrawal therapy affordable for Felicity, which maybe not, maybe his daughter is.

Auggie and Paul visit Rashid at the gas station. When they get to know Cyrus Cole with full attribution, Thomas finally has to reveal his identity as Cyrus' son. Father and son cry. Later you sit together in the garden, Cyrus, his new wife and Thomas' little half-brother.

Jump in time: It is just before Christmas. Paul has been commissioned by a major New York newspaper to write a Christmas story, but has no idea. At Paul's request, Auggie tells him one thing during lunch together. It's the story of how he got his camera. As the table settings are being served, Auggie sees the headline Thieves killed in jewel robbery in the newspaper . It's Creeper and his gang.

History of origin

On Christmas Day 1990, the New York Times published Paul Auster's short story Auggie Wren's Christmas story in its feature section . This is shown at the end of the film. Wayne Wang read it and first met the author in May 1991 in his Brooklyn studio. After buying Schimmelpennincks , Paul Benjamin's brand in the film, in a cigar shop, and walking around the neighborhood, Auster shared some stories about Brooklyn residents. This gave rise to the impulse for Smoke and Wang asked Auster to write the script for the film himself. It should then be more than two years before filming began.

Blue in the face

After the shooting of Smoke , the film Blue in the Face was produced. It uses the same locations and some characters from Smoke , but is not a sequel. Rather, it is a series of free improvisations without a script and without rehearsals, which are loosely connected by a framework plot. The entire film was shot in just six days. The main role falls to the character of Auggie Wren. In addition to guest appearances by stars like Jim Jarmusch , Lou Reed , Michael J. Fox , Madonna and Roseanne Barr , Blue in the Face features brief interviews with Brooklyn residents.

Awards

Wayne Wang and Harvey Keitel received the jury's special prize, the Silver Bear , for Smoke at the 1995 Berlinale . At the Danish Robert Film Festival in 1996, the film was recognized as the best foreign film.

Book edition

  • Smoke / Blue In The Face , USA 1995; 112/83 min; Screenplay: Auster; R: Wayne Wang
    • Script: Smoke & Blue in the Face: Two Films. Faber & Faber, London 1995. ISBN 0-571-17569-4
    • Translation: Smoke & Blue in the Face: two films. German by Werner Schmitz . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995. ISBN 3-499-13666-X (Contains both scripts and an interview with Paul Auster)

Trivia

The “smallest cinema in the world” with nine seats according to an entry in the Guinness Book of Records , the palace cinema in Radebeul , Saxony , opened in 2006 with Smoke as the opening film.

Harold Perrineau Jr. plays a teenager in the film, but was around 30 years old when it was made.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Smoke & Blue in the Face: two films. German by Werner Schmitz. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995
  2. ↑ Smallest cinema - seat capacity, accessed April 21, 2013.