No,No,No,No,No,No...(you're so close)....you write like a male, so I'll chance referring to you as Mr. Schaefer.....
Thanks for responding, I'm delighted to read a first-post by someone who loves "Smoke" as much as I. It's one of my all-time top-5, as well. However, let's sharpen our thinking, if we might.
You're correct when you say that it's not important whether Augie's story is true or not. You're mistaken when you say that that fact is the only focus of this thread. I would suggest that the people who are asking for help fail to understand a good deal about the movie. They can be forgiven -- it's not obvious, and my own epiphany came only when I listened to Tom Waits's song as the end-credits rolled. There are weightier issues extant than just the veracity of Augie's story -- it is merely emblematic of the larger theme of the movie.
First, you need to read my earlier thread for an exposition of the larger issues. I won't repeat everything I said, here. Let me respond to some of your comments:
"...all we ever tell are stories, and all of our stories are fictions of one kind or another, in fact, we can never really tell the truth in an absolutely objective way." ----- Balderdash, my dear Mr. Schaefer. There is a well-understood difference between fact and opinion and analysis. We may err in expressing an opinion, or in a summary analysis (which is more opinion), but our human intelligence is quite capable of discerning -- and relating -- objective truth as fact. The variables regarding expression of fact are two: whether we have deluded ourselves, or whether we choose to lie. Read your philosophers -- and Noam Chomsky -- on the nature of human language insofar as its ability to allow us to agree on scientifically indisputable fact.
Your claim that "the best way to tell the 'truth' is through fiction..." is specious, and overstated. Yes, often a Steinbeck or a Faulkner will present deeper levels of truth than those of which we are typically aware -- but that very much depends on the skill of the writer, and not all of us are capable of expressing truth through fiction in that august company.
Please don't ever, again, write a sentence which includes the words "...is what life is all about...". That, after all, Mr.Schaefer, is arguably the central question of our existence, and one which has been debated ad infinitum -- but never answered -- for millenia, by far smarter folks than you and I.
You pick three scenes (only) which you represent as an "essay on life itself." I agree with the the inclusion of those scenes, but you leave out too much. The other vignettes/subplots (e.g. Augie's daughter(?), the identity of Rashid, the reaction of Rashid's father to his appearance, Paul's response to stumbling across the pictures of his dead wife in Augie's photos) are not in the movie by accident, or as "filler." They are just as critical in constructing the essay the movie provides. To me, one of the beauties of this movie is its coherence, the fact that the filmmaker did not "lose his way" and clutter up his tale with loose ends and irrelevancies. It is as lean and taut as can be imagined.
Finally, you say we are the "cigars" and our living is the "smoke" that one might try to weigh. But you say that "living well" is what produces a lot of smoke and leaves us, in the end, as small "butts." Mr. Schaefer, we are burned up at the end whether we have lived good lives, or no. Moreover, you imply that the "smoke" of our lives is produced by "burning good stories together." Confusing and inept imagery, to me. Clearly, it is not our lives, in toto, that the movie addresses. It addresses only the question "what is truth and what are lies (non-truth)?" -- and in that examination looks only at our relationships and our capabilities for self-delusion -- not at the totality of our lives.
May I suggest that "Smoke" represents "Truth" -- or the lack thereof -- in the things we say to others, as well as the things we say to ourselves. Yes, our stories, if you will, but more than that: our thoughts, our dreams, our delusions, our understanding, our beliefs, our attempts to communicate. It is as difficult to weigh smoke as it is to weigh truth in human thought and communications. The fact that Tom Waits tells us that, in lying, we are yet "innocent when we dream," precisely encapsulates the dilemma in weighing truth. There is a moral dimension to lying, but expiation is sometimes available in motive, or in our own self-delusions, or simply in the tragedy of the neurotically-flawed survival responses of humans -- to an indifferent and cruel environment.
Mr. Schaefer, please forgive me for what you may believe is an excess in criticism. I only took this time and detail because the movie is so important to you and to me -- it's clear you have thought deeply about it. It is such a seminal work that I have merely attempted to "sharpen" your thinking and to suggest other threads of thought. Feel free to offer your own criticisms or negations of my analysis.
yukon
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mschaefer-3
17 years ago
Your comments are certainly interesting, but it appears as though you perceive me as a student awaiting your pearls rather than a "brother in arms".
Don't we all come at truth from slightly different angles?
The angle I have found most trustworthy - or rather, most reflective of my own spirit or way of walking in the world - is one where story is the basic form of communication. I admit this perspective is different from most and certainly different from your perspective. Nonetheless it is a valid perspective because it gives me access to truth.
The movies that I like the most are ones that speak to me through the story, like this one or The Matrix, or Little Miss Sunshine. Movies that have lousy stories, like The Departed, or Lucky Number Slevin leave me feeling empty or wasted.
Actually I DO believe that fiction is the closest way to share the truth, which is a kind of "Jungian" worldview (and that's also probably why I like movies so much).
Finally, all good stories reveal something universal. The story in the beginning of the movie about the cigar and the smoke (as well as the movie in toto) works because it taps into something basic in the psyche. It works as a story of a whole life (as I wrote about originally) as well as a story of "truth" that you spoke about.
Thank you so much for your attention.
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17 years ago
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murderofasnowangel
16 years ago
I tend to believe, although certainly not what is intended, that the cigar/smoke is in relationship to its nature. Not its burning tendencies, but its quality of adhering to you, your clothes, and your environment. Watch again with that in mind, and it brings out another layer in the film.
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ginbelt
13 years ago
sjones-6/yukon lectured mschaefer-3 (greatly edited from a much longer, extremely condescending post):
our claim that "the best way to tell the 'truth' is through fiction..." is specious, and overstated. Yes, often a Steinbeck or a Faulkner will present deeper levels of truth than those of which we are typically aware -- but that very much depends on the skill of the writer, and not all of us are capable of expressing truth through fiction in that august company.
mschaefer-3 replied: Your comments are certainly interesting, but it appears as though you perceive me as a student awaiting your pearls rather than a "brother in arms".
Don't we all come at truth from slightly different angles?
Actually I DO believe that fiction is the closest way to share the truth, which is a kind of "Jungian" worldview (and that's also probably why I like movies so much).
I guess I'm a little surprised there is even debate on the role of fiction as a kind of Ultimate Truth in a film like Smoke. Paul Auster is a postmodernist author (that's not debatable, it's a fact). One of the main tenets of postmodernism -- perhaps THE MAIN tenet of postmodernism -- is that the very
idea of "truth" is nebulous and certainly not objective....what we think of as "truth" is simply a social construct. So, "fiction" (by another name: a lie) or "truth" -- it doesn't make much difference in the Austerian framework. Some authors in the postmodern camp go even further with this, saying that there can actually be a deeper truth in a made-up story than in something that actually happened. Think of a novel like Catch-22, which did not happen....the crazy events in that novel tell a deeper truth than the reality of the military.
I feel reasonably certain Paul Auster would tend to side with those that say the best way to tell truth is through fiction, and that ya don't gotta be a Steinbeck or Faulkner to do this well, either, as Common Man Augie Wren does it perfectly fine in his Christmas story...
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pdlussier1
11 years ago
Yes, thank you, I'm also surprised that, despite waxing lyrical and the certainty that only she(?) holds the proper interpretation--albeit I agree with the bulk, not the details, of her view--sjones doesn't mention Paul Auster and his sustained, Lacanian examination of "truth" as an abstract, inaccessible state entirely mediated through language; knowing this, sjones' focus on lying, backed by her personal understanding of Waits' song and the ideas of a right-wing quack (Rand), misses the mark and the main point, and she deserves one of her own "No,No,No,No,No,No...(you're so close)..."
In all of his work, Auster's central theme, which is firmly grounded in only one side of a complex, multifaceted semiotics debate as well as linguistic Whorfianism and Kierkegaardian Absurdism, is the idea that reality, which we can only access through sense experience (empiricism), lies outside of the bounds and, hence, the possibilities of language, what Auster sees as the very determiner of structure and organization and the only means through which we can construct, express, and interpret/decode a personalistic perception of reality--that gap between reality and language is what seems to obsess Auster, including its significance: a search for an absolute truth or an explanation to the grand 'WHY?" is absurdly futile. In "Smoke", that void is examined through the role and purpose of narrative, an interrogation into the art of storytelling (weighted against a 'professional' storyteller, Paul Benjamin), and how one's socially-guided relation and perception of the 'speaker' inform how we fill that gap.
That said, sjones' suggestion that "Paul's chief function in the movie is to provide the perspective of the "Greek chorus," is wholly erroneous, as such an element goes against the very ideas explored by Auster. Ditto for the symbolic meaning she attributes to 'smoke', contradicting herself by seeing it as a representation of both truth and lies. Knowing anything about Auster, it makes more sense to see smoke as 'sense experience'--which permeates all--whose value can only be surmised by applying shared conventions to accepted, fixed states within the tangible world. However, truth is unattainable, for all we really have is our own acceptance of the relevancy ascribed to what is otherwise unverifiable. Weighting a cigar or cigarette, before and after, may allow us to assign a degree of significance to smoke, but in no way does it provide measurable and verifiable proof of an empirical quality which cannot be observed directly. There's the gap.
The philosophical ideas explored by Auster are just that, ideas, and shouldn't be assumed to be those that drive most of the current research in Theoretical Linguistics or semiotics (sjones mention of Chomsky in relations to this is irrelevant). "Truth" itself is still a highly debated subject, which includes the validity of facts, and one that's far from simple when examined from epistemology, and with important implications depending on which side of the mind-body problem one "chooses" to adhere to. The ardent belief in such a thing as "scientifically indisputable facts" betrays ignorance re the real nature of truth, the scientific method, and Popper's dominant (and debated) PHILOSOPHY that guides scientific enquiry, namely, science merely proves an hypothesis (built on previous hypotheses); hypotheses must be falsifiable.
'Twas my two cents... :)
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cathyguy
16 years ago
sjones-6
First let me say that I don't really "know" anything. But, I appreciate your thoughtful brilliant insights into this movie. This is what the forum is all about to me.
To me this movie is so realistic in the pain and realism on situations in our lives. It is so true how we can be catalysts in others lives to make a difference. Auggie to Paul with the picture of Paul's wife and to Ruby. Paul as a mentor to Thomas. Thomas to Auggie with the money to fix his mistake. And, Auggie and Paul for Thomas and Cyrus. Making things right is not often easy or unpainful.
Is it ever right to lie? Your wife asks "Do I look fat?" That is a good moral question. The story by Auggie may or may not be true, but does it matter? No. Sometimes all we have are dreams and they become the only truth we have. Dreams can be more real than the truth if that is all you have. So, "You're innocent when you dream." Is like having the faith of an innocent child. I have always heard that truth is stranger than fiction. I think this movie could be about faith in what we don't know and thinking the best despite of what we do. It also shows that forgiveness goes along way and it catches on and can spread.
I love the story about the man in the ice. It reminds me of an essay "Once more to the lake". E.B White (Charlotte's Web fame). The father has deja vu and he becomes the son and remembers his father taking him on the boat. A kind of a time warp deja vu thing. We are our fathers (Cyrus and Thomas).
"I believe in coincidences, I just don't trust them." Source debatable.
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