Stars Smoke, Critics Fume (2002)

Smoking was fairly common in classic Hollywood movies, but a new study says smoking in movies is making a comeback.Fewer Americans are smoking these days, but a new study finds that in the movies, many of which are R-rated, more characters are smoking than ever before.

Emily Watson lounges and smokes in Gosford Park, Gene Hackman and Gwyneth Paltrow light up in The Royal Tenenbaums. Billy Bob Thornton's co-star in The Man Who Wasn't There said all Thornton's character does on screen is smoke and breathe.

Stan Glantz, a professor at the University of California-San Francisco, who studied movie smoking from the 1960s to 2000, said the lead characters in films are four times more likely to smoke than real people.

"If you look at the imagery of smoking in the movies as it's presented, it really looks much more like a cigarette advertisement," he said.

Glantz's campaign for smoke-free movies tried to place an advertisement in Daily Variety objecting to Sissy Spacek's smoking and a prominent pack of Marlboros in the film, In the Bedroom.

Variety rejected the ad, saying it unfairly singled out one movie. And the director said smoking was necessary for Spacek's character.

"She smokes four cigarettes in the film that are very specific moments, and they're for very specific reasons," said the film's director and co-writer, Todd Field.

These days, Rob Reiner, for one, keeps smoking out of his own movies, because he said it sends a bad message.

"I do notice every time somebody lights up a cigarette in the movies, I'm always aware of it," Reiner said. "And I will say as it happens, 'Why did they need to do that?'"

"That it has become a cliche-that a certain kind of character smokes," said Lindsay Doran, a Hollywood producer. "And when people think of it that way, sometimes they're challenged to do something else."

In Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks was given a nervous twitch in his hand, instead of a cigarette.

But in the current film Monster's Ball, one of the writers says smoking is a creative choice. Maybe the guy would smoke, but some say every time an actor lights up a cigarette on screen, it seems to spark an argument.

编者按：在全世界范围内，1／10的成年人死亡原因与吸烟有关。在俄罗斯，每年有30万人的死因与吸烟有关，因此俄罗斯总统普京于2000年7月7日签署了《禁烟法》，禁止公民在公共场所吸烟，以及在电视节目和电影中出现吸烟镜头, 除非这一镜头对于整个电视、电影的剧情有重大影响、必不可少。

尽管美国烟民的数量正不断减少，但一项新的研究表明，在电影，尤其是成人电影中，越来越多的演员却是以烟民的形象出现的。

艾米莉·沃特森在影片《高斯福特庄园》(Gosford Park) 中扮演了一个懒散的瘾君子；吉恩·哈克曼和格温妮丝帕特洛在《特伦鲍姆一家》(The Royal Tenenbaums) 中有许多点烟的镜头；和比利·鲍伯斯顿联合出演《缺席的人》(The Man Who Wasn't There) 的演员说，比利饰演的这个角色的最大特征就是成天叼着烟卷，喷云吐雾。

加州大学旧金山分校的教授斯坦·格兰斯在研究了20世纪60年代到2000年电影中的吸烟镜头之后说，在这些电影中，所有主要角色中烟民的比例是现实生活中烟民比例的4倍。

他说："如果你仔细注意影片中那些吸烟的场景，你会感觉它更像是香烟广告。"

格兰斯教授是"无烟影片"的倡导者，他正努力争取在《每日花样》（Daily Variety）上刊登广告，抗议女演员茜茜·斯派克在电影《不伦之恋》(In the Bedroom) 中的吸烟镜头和影片中万宝路香烟的特写镜头。

但是《每日花样》拒绝了格兰斯教授的这一要求，认为这样点名道姓地批评某一部影片是不公平的， 而且这部影片的导演也自有说辞，认为吸烟能够体现片中斯派克所扮演的角色的性格。

该影片的导演兼编剧托德·菲尔德说："她（斯派克扮演的角色）在影片中有四处吸烟的镜头，但是每次吸烟的原因都不同。"

眼下，也有一些导演表示将尽力删除影片中的吸烟镜头，罗布·赖纳就是其中一位。他认为这种镜头的确会产生不好的影响。

赖纳说："演员在电影镜头中点烟的时候，我就会格外注意。每当看到这些镜头的时候，我总会问自己'难道他们非要吸烟吗？'"

好莱坞导演林塞·杜兰说："让某一类角色在镜头前吸烟已经是一种老套情节了，如果导演能够意识到这一点的话，就会改用其他比较有创意的表现手法。"

例如在电影《拯救大兵瑞恩》中，汤姆·汉克斯扮演的角色在紧张的时候手就会不停地抽搐，而不是点上一根香烟。

但是在最新影片《魔鬼球》(Monster's Ball) 中，一位编剧坚持认为让该片中的人物吸烟还是很有创意的。或许最终片中还是会出现吸烟的镜头，但是影片中每出现一次吸烟的镜头，都可能会引发一场争论。