Hidden Movie Gem: “Blue in the Face”

Today’s Hidden Movie Gem guest post comes from Joshua Caldwell.

Movie Title: Blue in the Face

Year: 1995

Writers: Paul Auster & Wayne Wang

Lead Actors: Harvey Keitel, Lou Reed, Michael J. Fox

Directors: Paul Auster, Wayne Wang, Harvey Wang (video segments)

Plot Summary: Paul Auster and Wayne Wang’s follow-up movie to Smoke presents a series of improvisational situations strung together to form a pastiche of Brooklyn’s diverse ethnicity, offbeat humor, and essential humanity. Many of the same characters inhabiting Auggie Wren’s Brooklyn Cigar Store in Smoke return here to expound on their philosophy of smoking, relationships, baseball, New York, and Belgian Waffles. Most of all, this is a movie about living life, off-the-cuff.

Why I Think This Movie Is A Hidden Gem: Paul Auster and Wayne Wang shot this in the five days following up their collaboration on Smoke, with Blue in the Face occupying the same universe (although tonally different).

I first saw this movie at some point back in high school, I don’t even remember what age, and only caught about 20 minutes of it before it ended. It was on some random channel, late at night, and for some reason, it just stuck with me. I can’t really say why. It might have been the fact that it was set in a cigar store (I was really into cigars in high school) or the improvisation nature of it or the fact that I hadn’t seen something like it before. It made such an impression (in the way that 20 minutes can) that despite not knowing anything about the movie, I wanted to make a movie about my own life and friends that echoed this film. Much like the film, it was to be about these little random, funny experiences that make up our life. And it seemed liked something I could actually do. For the first time, directing, filmmaking, writing, became doable.

Beyond my personal reaction to the film, it’s just a pleasure to watch an amazing group of actors perform. And what a cast this film has, especially for a film you probably never heard of: Harvey Keitel, Lou Reed, Michael J. Fox, Roseanne, Jim Jarmusch, Giancarlo Esposito, Madonna, Mira Sorvino, Lily Tomlin and Keith David.

My Favorite Moment In The Movie: Hard to choose between Jim Jarmusch’s appearance as a man having his last cigarette or Michael J. Fox’s (clearly insane) survey taker.

My Favorite Dialogue In the Movie:

Tommy: I don’t eat shit. It’s against my religion.
Pete: What religion is that?
Tommy: The religion of sanity, Peter. You should try it sometime.
Pete: I did, but I was excommunicated.

Key Things You Should Look For When Watching This Movie: The Performances. Watch the little starts and stops, the changing of directions, the incomplete sentences, the left turns in conversation. This is dramatic improv and it really enhance your writing and your dialogue because you get to watch people improvising within a dramatic context. And that’s key. Sure, sitting in a coffee shop listening to others might help tune your ear but the drama isn’t there. This film has fights, discussions, arguments, realizations and more, all improvised.

Also, Jared Harris as Jimmy Rose. Took me multiple viewings and several years (including Mad Men) before I realized it was him.

Filmed in just five days, using the same set and much of the same cast as Smoke. The premise of the film came to directors Wayne Wang and Paul Auster while watching an improvisation session between Harvey Keitel and the castto help them get into character for filming Smoke. They decided that the improvisations were so funny that they would spend a few days after shooting Smoke just filming improvised scenes. Auster and Wang claim to have “borrowed” the idea of shooting another movie on the back of an existing one from Roger Corman who often used to shoot movies very quickly on leftover sets from other productions.

Movie Trailer (in German):

Thanks, Joshua! To show our gratitude for your guest post, here’s a dash of creative juju for you. Whoosh!

Tomorrow: Another Hidden Movie Gem!

Note: We filled up the month of October, so I don’t need any more guest posts. Thanks to everyone who participated!