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Mood:
Contemplative Touching Clever Humorous Sentimental Sincere
Plot:
Human Nature Friendship Parents and Children Artists and Showbiz Hopes Mind and Soul Family Relations Friends more...
Genres:
Comedy Drama Independent
Time/Period:
90s
Place:
New York USA Store Urban
Praise:
Award Winner Critically Acclaimed
Humor:
Dark Humor
Style:
Ensemble Cast Episodic Multiple Stories
Based on:
Based on Short Story
Attitudes:
Semi Serious Realistic Slow

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Overview

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Smoke, 1995

Starring: Harvey Keitel, William Hurt

Directed by: Wayne Wang

Written by: Paul Auster

Language: English

Country: Germany, USA, Japan

Runtime: 112 min

MPAA Rating: R

Rating:7.4

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Profile of Smoke

The mood of Smoke is contemplative, touching, and clever. The plot centers around human nature, hopes, and friendship. It features dark humor. Smoke is a drama, comedy, and independent movie. Stylistically, it stars an ensemble cast, involves multiple stories, and is episodic. In approach, it is realistic. The pacing of Smoke is slow. It takes place, at least partly, in a store and in an urban environment. The setting is New York. Smoke happens in the 1990s. It is derived from a short story. The movie is known for being an award winner and critically acclaimed.

Summary of Smoke

In 1990, novelist Paul Auster was asked to contribute a Christmas story to the New York Times. The resulting piece, "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story," forms the basis for his screenplay for SMOKE. Directed by Wayne Wang and set in a Brooklyn cigar store, Auster expanded the story to include four other characters whose lives intertwine with Auggie Wren's. As Auggie, the manager of the store that serves as a neighborhood meeting place, Harvey Keitel gives a restrained, mellow performance. The other characters, Paul (William Hurt), a blocked writer; Rashid (Harold Perrineau Jr.), a troubled youth; Ruby (Stockard Channing), Auggie's former lover; and Cyrus (Forest Whitaker), Rashid's long-lost father, form a web of relationships over a few summer days. Auster, who had previously adapted his novel THE MUSIC OF CHANCE into a taut script, here exhibits a loose, almost improvisational style as he lets his characters simply talk about their lives. Wang eschews the big, somewhat melodramatic style he used in THE JOY LUCK CLUB for relaxed, natural direction that allows the actors, who are all terrific, to project an everyday realism seldom seen in American movies. The actual Christmas story appears at the end in a beautiful black-and-white montage, accompanied by a bittersweet Tom Waits song.