Thread by @victorlledo

"Smoke" is a #1995 film directed by #WayneWang over a script by #PaulAuster that tells the story of several characters whose lives intersect at a Brooklyn tobacconist on the heydays of 1990s smoking bans.

2.- The cast includes #HarveyKeitel, #WilliamHurt, #GiancarloEsposito, #StockardChanning, #AshleyJudd, as well as #ForestWhitaker, #HaroldPerrineau, #JoseZuñiga, to name but a few of a long list of willing and resourceful talent.

3.- Auggie (Harvey Keitel) is the great confidant of all of them. The bizarre story of how he got his camera and why he decided to create his unique collection of photographs - the same framing of the house across the street for 14 years - will finally give Paul (William Hurt),

4.-a prestigious novelist in creative crisis, a plot to work with. In turn, Paul will help Rashid (H. Perrineau), a somewhat lost black teenager, in the search for his father. This turns out to be Cyrus (Forest Whitaker), a modest mechanic trying to put his life back together.

5.- The vital circle closes when this human contacts touch and involve Auggie himself in such a way that they force him to assume his forgotten responsibility regarding Ruby (Stockard Channing), an old girlfriend with whom he had a daughter (Ashley Judd), who, then a teenager,

6.- goes through a very difficult time. Wayne Wang's original staging, as well as the alluring performances, fully engage the viewer and make the advertising maxim that gives meaning to the title a reality: "Things more precious are lighter than air."

7.- With their trademark poetic, and calming speed - essential, according to him, to be able to appreciate the really important things in life – Auster and Wang achieved a suggestive emotional puzzle, a juicy slice of life, a bit too low to the ground maybe- despite some isolated

8.- reference to divine providence - but full of a kind and suggestive humanism. The film's technical details are also noteworthy. The cinematography creates a beautiful and atmospheric portrait of Brooklyn, while the editing skillfully weaves the different plot lines together

9.- The musical score enhances the emotional impact of the film. Smoke was also nominated for the Grand Prix at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. “Smoke” can be seen as a critical response to the perceived authoritarianism behind the 1990s smoking bans. There was an ever-growing

10.- concern about the health risks associated with smoking and secondhand smoke that led to a push for stricter regulations on smoking in public spaces and a shift in societal attitudes towards smoking. The film portrays smoking as a deeply ingrained part of urban culture and

11.- highlights the personal connections and moments of reflection that could be associated with smoking, at some point. In “Smoke”, reality, often painful, hopes, sadness, humor (always intelligent), love, friendship, the sense of work, and artistic creation, far removed from

12.- alienating materialism , solidarity, and comprehension are real, have entity, can be touched with the hands, and reflect with authenticity and depth the complex and fascinating interlinings of the human soul.
Some interlinings weigh as much as the smoke from a cigarette.

13.- In full accordance to the experiment of Sir Walter Raleigh... in Smoke, the smoke represent the ephemeral and transitory, is the words that can be said after a long drag...

14.- the emotions that get lost after the moment. And, since the human soul rest on them, the smoke, despite its light appearance, weighs much more than anything else.