Carl watches Motion Pictures I aim to share my thoughts and opinions on the films I watch as I watch them

Caught the opening sequence of Mr & Mrs Smith last night which took me back to a conference i attended in Vegas earlier in the year, Michael Tronick (Film Editor of Mr. & Mrs. Smith) was talking about the opening sequence, he brought up an interesting point around smoking on film.

The opening sequence of Mr. & Mrs. Smith takes place in a psychiatrists office where the couple is receiving marriage counselling (great scene), the footage Michael Tronick show cased in Vegas featured Angelina Jolie and a steady stream of smoke from a lit cigarette. The first thing the studio wanted was the smoke to be removed from the shots. This is understandable due to the censorship against unwanted smoking.

The general argument against smoking on film comes from a concern around adolescent kids adopting the habit because their screen hero’s make it look cool, I can agree to this to some degree, but what about the artistic freedom? I am sure Doug Liman (Director of Mr. & Mrs Smith) had a reason for the smoke, adding information to the environment or the state of mind of the characters or maybe just becasue Hitchcocks Mr & Mrs Smith smoked? Did the film suffer its removal? Would the film have received some negative criticism from the public if it stayed? These are the pros and cons and I’m guessing the cons outweighed the pros because it was cut.

Today it would be very rare for a lead protagonist in a block buster film to smoke a large contrast to the silver screen days of yester year where smoking was the symbol of cool. Some factions are calling for the outright banning of all smoking on film, this will never happen due to large scale censorship being a bad thing. Others fight for complete freedom, this will also most likely not happen due to the paying audience having an opinion that causes financial implications for the studio, which in turn means the producer of a film is pressured to pressure the director to ensure smoking is not portrayed as cool.

Filmmakers also have social responsibility, and this goes both ways. Film tends to reflect the current social condition, so if smoking is considered bad it will appear on screen only in the hands of villains. If we started censoring things like this, film would become propaganda, reflecting society means that sometimes the protagonist will smoke because he is a real person with real problems. The balance is then produced, smoke on screen only when necessary to the narrative of the story.

How do you feel about smoking on film? Me personally it does not bother, let me know what you think.