Smoke & Blue
in the Face
Director: Wayne Wang
Year: 1995
Rating: 8.0/7.0
There are stories within all of us. But some can tell them better than
others. The writer of this, Paul Auster, can tell a story as his many books
would suggest. This is a wonderfully effecting film about intersecting lives
and the small stories that emerge in a slice of Brooklyn that I call my
home. Park Slope Brooklyn, from Prospect Park down to 5th avenue. I have
been living there since about 1980 and seen it go through a lot of changes.
Now it has all been gentrified with sushi restaurants, boutiques, baby carriages
and their nannies and a distinct scarcity of non-white faces. It was nothing
like that when I moved there in 1980 and had not yet changed over when this
film was shot in 1995. There was a lot of diversity and phone booth sized
take out pizza shops, bodegas on nearly every corner where the numbers were
sold, smoky bars that smelled of stale beer and smoke and newspaper shops
like the one Augie owns in this film. Watching this is like a trip through
time. I miss that part though I admit the increased valuation of my co-op
partly makes up for it!
In a leisurely talkative stroll this film follows the lives of just a few
of the people who live here - the common thread being the smoke shop where
people gather to talk baseball, buy cigars, debate current events (the bit
about invading Iraq is a strange note) and just bullshit. The stories don't
end - they are just snapshots in time like the photos Augie takes of his
shop from across the street every day. But within these snapshots is an emotional
resonance that sticks like a bandage to heal a wound. When one character
sees his dead wife in Augie's photos or a boy finally tells his father that
he is his son are powerful moments.
Filling in the cast admirably is a very understated William Hurt, a subdued
Harvey Keitel in a terrific performance, Forest Whitaker, Stockard Channing
and Harold Perrineau are the major figures but around the edges are Giancarlo
Esposito, Jared Harris, Ashley Judd and Malik Yoba. Made in the same year,
Wayne Wang also directed Blue in the Face with some of the same characters.
Blue in the Face (1995) – 7.0
This is a fun movie. I had planned to only get started on it and then finish
the rest tomorrow. But it just cracked me up and I could not stop myself.
Not ha ha funny - but just more of a grin. So now it is 2:30 a.m. and I
am writing the review. For what it is worth. After Smoke, Wayne Wang and
Paul Auster collaborated again on this film. It is a love letter to Brooklyn
even more so than Smoke. But I am not sure how much its appeal spreads past
the borders of this borough. While Smoke had a few stories at the core of
it, this one just riffs on Brooklyn with clearly much of the conversations
and situations being improvised by the actors. Sometimes it works (Lou Reed,
Jim Jarmusch, Giancarlo Esposito, Malik Yoba) and sometimes it doesn't (Rosanne
Barr, Michael J Fox, Lily Tomlin and Madonna) but another excellent performance
from Harvey Keitel in his smoke shop anchors it all in place. There is no
plot that matters - Brooklyn is the main character and if you have a fond
affection for the place that seems just right.
