Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9475 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-03-07
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 108 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's refreshing to see a film in which the writer receives equal credit with the director, showing that the dialogue actually means something. So it is with Smoke, a film about a New York quilt of contemporary characters who cross paths in a corner smoke shop, told in straightforward way by a talented acting group. Author Paul Auster and director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club) worked on the story for years before it reached the screen. Their characters include Paul (William Hurt, in a good role again), a grief-stricken novelist; Auggie (Harvey Keitel), the shop's owner with a secret passion; Ruby (Stockard Channing), Auggie's long-ago girlfriend; and Rashid (Harold Perrineau Jr), a teenager who is befriended by Paul and seeks his estranged father (Forest Whitaker). All the characters are great storytellers, whether it be out of loneliness, necessity or just nature. Like Auster's The Music of Chance, the film has accomplished an amazing feat: it makes us feel as if we are reading a serious novel, not watching a movie. --Doug Thomas

Synopsis
A collection of unrelated characters somehow come together and change each others lives... A cigar store manager takes a daily photograph of his store... A writer recently widowed is unable to write... A man who accidentally killed his wife runs away from his past...

Customer Reviews

THOUGHTFUL ENTERTAINMENT: Excellent Keitel/Hurt pas de deux
This is the kind of off beat film that begins far away from its main point. So in a sense, it takes you on a journey. Especially, if you've grown up in very large urban centers where there were local neighborhoods with ancient, musty old small stores run by engaging proprietors this scene and story will resonate with you. But even if you did not enjoy the benefits of New York City's inner city, many of the characters can be similarly identified in daily rural life in Arkansas.

The grizzled and contemplative cigar store proprietor Auggie Wren is masterfully played by Harvey Keitel. He plays a man hanging on to his business while trying to sqeeze out of the dreariness of each day some kind of meaningful life. He doesn't go out to meet life ... it comes to meet him in his cigar store. A customer and not quite neighborhood friend played to its understated fullest by William Hurt, is a formerly celebrated novelist Paul now struggles with his tragic life and getting back to writing. The thread which connects the action is pulled through the film by a street wise teenage "black kid" calling himself "Rashid" is very well acted by Harold Perrineau Jr.

Everyone is searching for something in SMOKE. Rashid, his father; Paul his lost interest in life; and Auggie his lost meaning of life. Not all of the movie takes place in the cigar store ... b ut a lot of it does, and perhaps like Hitchcock in REAR WINDOW or THE ROPE, the photography and direcrting make it work. But there are many other scenes on sites to provide both variety and action.

This film not only works it is a terrific journey that promises to take you through many ideas and situations that are familiar and some bizarre. But they are always interesting and enjoyable. That's what entertainment is about. It is a good idea to see this movie in a settled-in-for-the-night state. Full enjoyment in it requires attention that inevitably gives way to immersion.

I agree with those reviewers who wrote that at least Keitel and the screen adaptation of this film earned its 1995 Academy Award nominations. See for yourself.

If you only watch one more film, make it this one!
I'm going to find it very difficult to express in words how much this film means to me; not because of any deep, personal involvment, but simply becasue it is so utterly watchable. This is one of those offbeat, quirky little films that simply blows you away, without you knowing why or how exactly. Keitel and Hurt's performances are wonderfully subtle and underplayed, and I found it was the little, irrelevant things that fasinated me so - such as the way Hurt's character draws his little Dutch cigars through his lips before lighting it, and the fact that Auggie (Keitel's character), despite being a cigar connoisseur, smokes simple filter cigarettes.
This film won't appeal to all, but if you like your American films to come with a little less 'Crash, Bang, Whallop!' and a bit more intelligence, then you just have to buy this dvd.

The weight of smoke

Harvey Keitel may have run off with what plaudits there were for this hidden gem of a movie, but for me it is the performance of William Hurt that infuses the film with it's thoughtful, mellow, non-idealogical flavour.

There are a couple of scenes which Keitel and Hurt perform memorably together, one involving a collection of photographs and the final scene of the movie which is 'Augie Wren's Christmas Story' originally written by Paul Auster, and the creative spark behind the writing of the script. If you were to watch these two scenes alone I'd still recommend buying this film.

The dialogue is sharp and the direction leaves the actors to act, allowing them time to deliver as much with body language as with the spoken word. All of the cast shine (even Forrest Whittaker!) and apart from a slightly unconvincing eye patch the movie is absolutely flawless.

If you are at all interested in good contempory cinema this is an essential watch, and then a must have DVD. Enjoy it, it's a rare thing.