Thank you for smoking

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Movie
German title Thank you for smoking
Original title Thank you for smoking
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2005
length 92 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 6
Rod
Director Jason Reitman
script Jason Reitman
Christopher Buckley
production David O. Sacks
music Rolfe Kent
camera James Whitaker
cut Dana E. Glauberman
occupation

Thank You for Smoking is a 2005 film satire directed by Jason Reitman and starring Aaron Eckhart . The film is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Buckley , which was published in Germany under the title "Thank you for smoking here" .

action

Nick Naylor is a lobbyist for the tobacco industry and as this vice president and press spokesman of a "Research Center for Tobacco Studies", which was founded by American tobacco companies and is financed by them. As part of his work, Naylor appears on talk shows and gives lectures in which he downplays the health risks of smoking and skillfully relativizes them. He is proud of his talent, but also makes it clear again and again that he finds this work important in order to protect multinational corporations. In his free time he meets regularly with two other bustling lobbyists (a representative of the alcohol lobby and an arms lobbyist), where they discuss their work in a relaxed atmosphere and a. discuss who has the harder job and has to justify the most deaths.

Nick Naylor shows his talent right from the start on the Joan Lunden Show by explaining to a critical TV audience that the opponents of the tobacco industry are in reality the bad guys, while the tobacco industry wants its customers to live long and keep smoking.

Naylor's most influential opponent in the public debate is Senator Ortolan Finistirre of Vermont , who is also leading a public relations campaign, albeit against smoking. At Naylor's suggestion, the head of a tobacco company decides to polish up the image of smoking with cleverly placed scenes in Hollywood films. On his behalf, Naylor closes a deal with a film producer so that the main characters can be seen with cigarettes in a soon to be released feature film. He also bribed the Marlboro Man , who had cancer , so that he wouldn’t speak publicly about the tobacco industry.

During a TV broadcast, Naylor is threatened with death by an unknown person. Shortly afterwards, Naylor is actually kidnapped. He is covered with numerous nicotine patches all over his body and suffers a nicotine overdose from which he almost dies. At the hospital he was told that after this nicotine poisoning, his body was now hypersensitive to nicotine and that one more cigarette could kill him, whereupon he stopped smoking.

The journalist Heather Holloway, who met Naylor during an interview, seduced him and later published all the information he had revealed to her in bed in confidence. Naylor is then fired from the tobacco company. However, he can get himself up again with the help of his son Joey, who reminds him what he can do best: convince with skillful speech and do PR. Naylor gets back into the PR business and publicly exposes the journalist.

Finally, he faces the long-avoided hearing before an investigative committee of the US Senate and makes such a brilliant performance that his old employer wants to hire him again, which Naylor refuses. This turns out to be a smart decision, as the tobacco industry is soon obliged to pay enormous amounts of damages and the "research center", Naylor's former workplace, is closed.

In the end, Finistirre intensified his campaign against the tobacco industry by wanting to have cigarettes digitally removed from classic films. He told a critical journalist that he was not changing the story, but improving it.

Naylor is now self-employed with the agency Naylor Strategic Relations and advises companies. So he gives z. B. Tips to managers of cell phone operators on how best to deny and cast doubt on the connection between cell phone radiation and brain tumors .

background

  • The film title alludes to the widespread no-smoking sign Thank You for Not Smoking in the USA .
  • The group of three lobbyist representatives are called in the original version of the film "MOD Squad", the abbreviation for "merchants of death" (dealers of death). In the German dubbing it became “TAG-Team” (Tobacco, Alcohol & Guns), here the abbreviation also stands for “deadly, but good”.
  • Although the subject of the film is smoking, no actor is shown smoking.
  • The scene from the black and white film with John Wayne that Nick Naylor watches on TV is from the movie You Were Our Comrade . In it, the main character (Wayne) is shot at the moment when she tries to light a cigarette. Since John Wayne had stipulated in his will that no pictures of him with a cigarette should be shown, director Reitman had to convince Wayne's son personally that it would have been in the interests of his father and that in the film you would have Cigarette consumption is not advocated, but rather satirized the methods of the cigarette industry.
  • The character of Marlboro Man , played by Sam Elliott, is based on one of the actual actors: Wayne McLaren . When he developed lung cancer from cigarette smoking and subsequently became an opponent of cigarettes, Philip Morris USA tried to deny that McLaren had ever worked for them. Two other cast members (David McLean and Dick Hammer) in Marlboro Man also died of lung cancer.
  • The original ending of the film saw Naylor's son (when he and his father appear before the press after the hearing) suddenly pull a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. When Naylor notices that his son is putting a cigarette in his mouth, he yells at him and immediately knocks the cigarette out of his mouth. Director Reitman removed this scene in the final version, because with this scene Naylor's son would look as if he hadn't understood anything.
  • The film had its world premiere on September 9, 2005 during the Toronto Film Festival . For the first time in the USA he was seen on January 21, 2006 at the Sundance Film Festival . The official theatrical release in the USA was on March 17, 2006, in Germany on August 31, 2006.

Reviews

  • Lexicon of international film : Elegant and easily developed satire on lobbyism, politics, Hollywood and the tabloid press, which shows with relish the various cynicisms and entertains them profoundly.
  • A comedy that both art film and popcorn lovers might like - Susan Green, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE
  • It is unpredictable how much style Reitman will put into the film. You only expect something like that from a comedy by the Coen brothers - Jon Popick, PLANET SICK-BOY

Awards

  • The film was nominated twice at the 2007 Golden Globe Awards : for Best Picture - Comedy or Musical and Aaron Eckhart for Best Actor - Comedy or Musical .
  • Jason Reitman won a 2007 Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay.
  • The National Board of Review awarded Jason Reitman a 2006 NBR Award for Best Directing Debut.
  • The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating “particularly valuable”.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for Thank You for Smoking . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2006 (PDF; test number: 106 304 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Thank You for Smoking . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Audio commentary on the DVD
  4. ↑ Bonus material on the DVD
  5. ↑ Thank You for Smoking. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 

Web links