Every character in the film smokes. Constantly. The policemen, birdy, everyone. Was there someone I missed not smoking? Did big tobacco have some kind of involvement in this or was it purely the directors trying to portray what people thought of cigarettes during the time?
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OP, yeah I think it was just the style. If you look back at 40s film noir movies there is typically a LOT of smoking. It was seen as stylish and "the thing to do" back in those days. I don't advocate smoking, but I can't lie, the smoke floating around also just looks cool in dark B&W scenes and adds to the atmosphere sometimes.
Drop the effeminate no-smoking nonsense. Quit telling people how to live for god's sake. You sound like a woman.
Smoking was advertised as healthy in those times. Doctors smoked in the early to mid twentieth century. This film isn't smoking propoganda. It's reflecting the times.
shareDoctors smoked in the early to mid twentieth century.
Most of the notes in this thread seem to reveal very few who were around when smoking was very popular. I, however, was, and I can assure you that everyone smoked all the time and in all situations -- including the waiting rooms in doctors' offices. Indeed, smoking was allowed in high school classrooms in many states, including my own home state. If the teached smoked, he or she didn't mind if we smoked. True also all the way through university, which for me takes it to 1964.
I remain mystified that so many people are so virulent about smoking, but I guess I just don't get it. Sorry, o righteous ones!
I remember being continually hospitalized as a child often in four bed public wards with a usual assortment of three old men who chained smoked. On one occastion I remember complaining to the doctor. His accompanying nurse said, "There must be something wrong with this kid if he can't take the smell of a cigarette." Ironically, seemingly just for spite, I was then moved into a semi-private room with a very old man who wheezed and gasped for breath.
shareThe only person I really remembered smoking in this at all was Billy Bob's character. His wife has a drag in one scene, and the scene where Crane and Gandolfini share a cigar. Other than that the only thing that stands out as a ton of smoking is the main character. And I think that was supposed to be the point.
shareWow, and I thought I was the oldest person on the internet! I graduated from high school in 1965, and yes, pretty much everybody smoked even though the Surgeon General's warnings were starting to appear on packs.
But it was never allowed on any school campus, let alone any classroom, that I attended. I went to school in three states. I've heard of smoking areas in high schools in tobacco growing states, however. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a teacher smoking.
There were only a few places people didn't smoke. Supermarkets, people didn't smoke, even though it was allowed. There was no rule, no law, it was just social convention. Wouldn't it be nice if we could behave without rules and laws? (we probably do, but just don't think about it)
Another place people didn't smoke was in a theater, BUT when a new theater opened in my town, it featured a special section that was walled in with glass, where people could do two things: Watch the movie with a crying child (the room's nominal purpose) AND smoke. "No smoking except around children".
Interesting. Maybe there were different rules in different parts of the country. I graduated HS in '66 and my memories are somewhat different. Where I lived every movie theater had a smoking section (usually about half the seats) and there were no partitions. Teachers smoked, like most everyone else, but only in the teachers' lounge or outdoors. There was no smoking in the classroom in high school. On the other hand, smoking was okay in hospitals, except near an oxygen tank due to the fire risk. You could even smoke in elevators, which were considerately provided with ash trays.
shareMy high school's expansion wing was built in 1964 with a student smoking court, but by the time I started high school (1973), no student smoking was allowed. The teachers' lounge, however...now that was a different story. When that door opened the smoke practically billowed out. This was in NJ, by the way, not a tobacco state.
shareHoly *beep* people smoked in the 1940's?!??!?!???!??! Someone should file a lawsuit to ban that decade!
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Ah, the social psychology of smoking. Fascinating subject.
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In the 1940's the vast majority of adult Americans smoked. My mother was in her teens and twenties during that decade and was a stubborn exception. She was something of a curiosity and was constantly asked why she didn't smoke. She gave all the (now familiar) reasons that to her seemed obvious: health, expense, smell, fire hazard, etc.. A typical response from other women was, "but what do you do with your hands?" The typical response from men was something along the lines of "what a tedious killjoy you are".
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Smoking was seen as healthful, an affirmation of maturity, and above all "stylish", the '40's notion of anything today termed "cool". Many social expressions were involved in the intricacies of the physical act of smoking. A whole culture of expression existed around the acts of retrieving a cigarette, preparing it for lighting, lighting it, inhaling the first puff, exhaling the smoke, holding the cigarette, tapping ash, repeated puffs, and finally stubbing, crushing, dropping, stamping out the butt. By the 1940's cigarette smoking was not only a personal act but also a social and cultural act.
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Cigarettes of the 1940's were nearly all unfiltered so the smoker "dry-lipped" the end of the cigarette while smoking it. Slightly exaggerating the dry lipping made the person look tough, sort of like Humphrey Bogart's contentious and slightly contemptuous demeanor. Often a flake of tobacco would stick to the lip that would have to be plucked off and flicked away. This, too, was considered stylish among males, but not so much among females.
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Along these lines, one of the reasons for developing filtered cigarettes was so that women could purse out their lips instead of tucking them in as the cigarette was held between the lips. Women preferred to look pouty with full lips rather than thin-lipped tough. Another reason women adopted filtered cigarettes was due to their "sensitive throats". With smoking, women's voices became gravelly and deepened from soprano to alto, from alto to tenor and even to baritone. So partly for these reasons filtered cigarettes were considered effeminate until the 1950's issue of the first US Surgeon General's report about the ill-effects of tobacco smoking. Only then did tobacco companies begin generalized marketing of filters as a health feature of their products.
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It's not hard to imagine a time in the future when social anthropologists will be explaining in historical documentaries the phenomenon of smoking during the 20th century. Won't it be a hoot when people turn to one another after seeing such a documentary and say, "wow... I wonder how crazy a society has to be to have something as weird as THAT get so fully implanted in it!?" Based simply on the fact that the thread op posted the question about so much smoking, I'd say that day may be closer than we think. And that's a good thing.
Interesting. Although I think future anthropologists will have an easier time explaining smoking than they will professional wrestling or flip flops as stylish footware.
shareAs shown in Mad Men, everyone smoked, all the time, up into the seventies. That's everyone. It was unusual to meet an adult who didn't smoke. Tobacco companies began giving away cigarettes to soldiers in WWI, and thousands of men came home.... customers. Cigarettes as gesture-props were a way of life, and tobacco was more than happy to assist Hollywood. It used to be a habit, like coffee, that kids could hardly wait to "grow into".
The smoking in this movie only stands out because of contemporary legislative trends. If this movie were made and shown in the era it portrays, the smoking wouldn't even be seen.
What I had in mind was boxing the compass.share
I'm from the Philippines and I don't smoke. And when I was in school 10 years ago, my German professor and classmates/new acquaintances always asked me why I didn't smoke. Smoking is still seen as cool and adult stylish here. We are so behind the times. They know you can get cancer, bad teeth/breath/skin, second hand smoking, dark lips, etc but they simply don't care. All they care about is that everyone does it and it must be cool. Those who don't smoke are considered kill joys.
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What a complete and total moron.
You must go to a "special" school.
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