Wayne Wang's Smoke

In Wayne Wang’s Smoke, the scene at Auggie Wren’s house where Auggie and Paul Benjamin are looking at Auggie’s photo album, which consists of four thousand pictures he has taken of the same place, at the same time, everyday, is a significant scene that contributes meaning to the film as a whole. Paul Benjamin is a writer who always purchases cigarettes from Auggie Wren’s tobacco shop; this is how the two men came to meet. The scene encompasses a wide range of mise-en-scene such as costumes and lighting, cinematic techniques such as a medium shot of the characters, as well as narrative techniques such as speech between the characters and the tense of the story, all which add emotion and encompass the most recognizable attributes of the scene.

The seven-minute scene begins with the two men enjoying a drink and a smoke in the back room of Auggie’s tobacco shop.

Auggie is showing Paul his photography albums, which consist of photographs taken of the same corner of the street where the tobacco shop is located. Auggie reveals that every photo is snapped at eight o’clock in the morning when Auggie opens the store. It is his life’s work and something he is very dedicated to doing. Paul glances over each page quickly and turns page after page, again scanning pictures too fast. In fact, Paul appears to not understand anything he is seeing because everything looks the same and he is not able to spot the distinctiveness of each photograph. After witnessing this for several minutes, Auggie finally disturbs Paul’s confusion and explains, “You’ll never get it if you don't slow down, my friend. You’re hardly even looking at the pictures. They’re all the same, but each one is different from every other one” (Smoke).

Paul continues looking, this time with more concentration, and we see black and white photographs on the screen in a fade in-fade out style transition. There is soft piano music playing in the background that is very calming, perhaps to compel viewers to focus on the photos. As Paul continues to look, he discovers a photo of his late wife, Ellen, walking in front of Auggie’s camera. Paul begins to cry as Auggie tries to console him. The scene then ends and transitions to a new scene of Auggie standing at his usual corner where he snaps a photo after briefly looking at his watch to confirm it is eight o’clock. Paul’s discovery of Ellen’s photograph reveals the reason behind Paul’s heartbreak and glumly manner that he possesses throughout the film.

In terms of cinematic techniques, the shot angle of the scene emphasizes the relationship shared by Paul and Auggie share. The shot angle is a low medium angle and captures a view of the men’s upper bodies sitting side by side, so no one appears superior or inferior to one another. Slightly to the right of the camera, we see a stack of Auggie’s photo albums and the way in which they are positioned off to the side in front of the camera almost makes the scene look like a sneak peak into the men’s meeting. There are a few moments where the shot angle becomes a medium close up, such as when Auggie is talking to Paul. Moreover, when Auggie stands up during the scene, it emphasizes the low angle of the camera, as Paul appears lower to the bottom of the screen to Auggie. The choice of medium shot angle allows the character’s emotions to be seen better than a wide shot angle would, and by being able to witness the emotions of the characters better, it allows the scene to become more powerful.

The décor and lighting of the room also plays a significant role in the movie when it comes to setting the scene. The nineties style kitchen with oak cupboards and a shabby looking photo hanging on the wall emphasize the time in which the movie was. Furthermore, the lighting in the room is dim with very little light coming in from the window behind the men, which means that the scene is taking place in the evening. The dim lighting also offers a warm ambiance to the scene. Additionally, there is a fan blowing behind Auggie and Paul revealing that it must be the summer time and the temperature is warm.

In terms of composition, the framing of the shot does not minimize the emotional action of the scene, but instead it works well with it. Auggie and Paul are positioned in the middle of the camera and this allows viewers to see their hand gestures and facial expressions clearly. This also serves as a visual manifestation of Paul and Auggie’s close friendship as well as the emotion they possess while looking at the photos. Paul’s interest in Auggie’s photos and Auggie’s excitement to share them with his friend make this a very important scene, and for the first time it also reveals Auggie’s other form of work, photography. The men are also sitting close beside each other which proves that they are from the same class, and their body language is casual with cigarettes in hand, bottles of beer on the table in front of them, and their shoulders slightly slouched.

Several narrative techniques such as point of view, speech, and tense are important to this scene. The point of view of the scene involves both men speaking to each other; Auggie is narrating his passion of photography – the story of why and when he takes his daily photographs. Both men are speaking to each other with New York accents, gruff voices either because of all their smoking or the lateness of the night, and they speak calmly with mutual respect given. All of Auggie’s photographs were taken days, months, and years before the scene takes place, and the black and white color of the photos emphasizes the earlier times they were taken in. Moreover, Auggie points out to Paul that even though the photographs are black and white, one is still able to distinguish day and late afternoon in the photos by the lighting from the sun or the way the light hits the buildings.

Furthermore, Auggie brings to Paul’s attention the different kinds of people he captures and how he measures the time. For instance, those walking around in sweatpants and a t-shirt holding a basketball during the day must have been photographed on a weekend. This allows Paul to take Auggie’s words into action about concentrating harder on the photos; he realizes by slowing down there are actual subtle changes in each photograph. More than that, Paul perhaps takes this into consideration in his life as he has been distraught over the death of his wife and tends to do go through life and his writing career rather half-hearted and slowly his life is disintegrating into the air like the cigarettes he always smokes. Auggie’s helpful piece of advice to Paul also offers significant meaning to the film, which is the world is not black and white and that there is always two sides to a story; one must learn to see that the world is many shades of gray and to never give up when life gets hard.

The sound in the scene shifts from solely Paul and Auggie’s dialogue to soft piano music playing in the background.

The music starts when Auggie describes the reasoning behind his photographs and viewers see photographs transition across the screen one after the other. The delicate music is an important part of this scene as it allows for viewers to focus on the photographs while listening to the soft melody. The music intensifies as Paul discovers a photo of his late wife Ellen and then it stops when he starts to sob. The break off of the music forces viewers to focus on Paul and his heartbreak. This scene also reveals a common tone of the film – especially Paul’s life – that is melancholy. And, this tone is exemplified with the somber piano tune playing in the background as he speaks to

Auggie.

When it comes to mise-en-scene, there is a lot to be found in this scene and to be considered. The setting of the scene, which is in Auggie’s kitchen, emphasizes the casualness of the meeting. The clothes the men are wearing are cotton button-up shirts that highlight not only the popular style in the nineties, but that they are simple men who prefer to dress casually most of the time. Note that the casual dress emphasizes the men’s simple lives. The addition of the smoke motif in mise-en-scene works to convey a scene where two men are having a heart to heart conversation about the photographs, and for Paul, a moment to remember his wife Ellen when he sees her photograph in Auggie’s album. Furthermore, smoke in the movie shows the way smoke always changes shape and there is no way to see shapes in it and if you do, they do not stay. Smoke is ever changing, much like life. Auggie’s encouragement of Paul to slowly look at the photos also speaks for the slow pace of the film. The slow place gave a prevailing element that gave the film a realistic quality about it and underlines a potential message of the film.

Overall, this sequence represented many different themes found in Smoke and the numerous cinematic techniques of the sequence contributed great meaning to the film. In the short seven-minute clip, viewers are able to understand Paul and Auggie’s lives a bit better, and one can witness the great loss Paul has faced with the passing of his wife. Another significant motif in the scene is that of smoking and it is a consistent feature in the film itself. The director, Wayne Wang, seems to feature smoking during scenes that deal with emotion and deep conversation like Auggie and Paul’s conversation over the photo albums. This scene is a very powerful one because it reveals a lot about the characters and the motif of smoke – it leaves viewers with emotion and an open mind about life.