May 31, 2007
Don’t Bogart That Point Posted by Frederic D. Schwarz at 04:00 PM EST The Motion Picture Association of America recently decided to be more aggressive about giving R ratings to films that include smoking. In the June 11 issue of National Review, Rob Long comments on this policy. (The article is available online only to subscribers.) Long scoffs at the idea that characters who smoke on-screen cause viewers to do the same: “Smoking isn’t cool because people do it in movies. People do it in movies because it’s cool.” The reason so many characters light up in films, he says, is that smoking injects some movement—”business,” in actors' lingo—into what otherwise would be a static scene of talking heads: “It draws attention inexorably to the smoker and away from whatever mediocre dialogue he or she is forced to say . . .” This is a good point—so good, in fact, that Fred Andersen made it in an article called “Smoking and ‘Business’” in the pages of American Heritage nine years ago, back when American Heritage actually had pages. Unsurprisingly, both articles invoke Humphrey Bogart, who lit up so often on screen that his characteristic smoking style has become a verb.
With this new ratings policy, as usually happens, social reformers have chosen a heavy-handed command-and-control scheme to attack a problem that was well on the way to solving itself. The main use of smoking in film is to break up long, dialogue-heavy scenes, and when’s the last time you saw one of those in a movie aimed at teenagers? Moreover, when’s the last time you saw a movie that wasn’t aimed at teenagers? These days you’re lucky (or unlucky, considering the quality of most movie dialogue) if a character speaks two consecutive sentences without something blowing up or somebody demonstrating a bodily function. Still, the decision has been made, and filmmakers will just have to cope. What can replace smoking? Andersen suggests drinking, even if it’s fruit juice, but that would quickly become conspicuous, and it doesn’t always fit the action. Cat’s-cradle would work nicely, and tying a bow tie would be my first choice, but I have to admit that these things work in an even narrower range of circumstances. How about rock/paper/scissors? It’s getting more popular every day, with championship tournaments and frequent pop-culture references. The trouble with r/p/s is that it takes two people, so it wouldn’t work for the type of scene where an anguished character pours out his or her soul. A bold conceptual filmmaker might have his characters use 1960s-Motown-style hand motions, like the Supremes backing up Diana Ross on “Love Child.” For most films, though, this would be a distraction; rhythmically imitating a football referee only works if you have music to do it along with. My nominee for Hollywood’s “business” activity of the future is knitting. It’s trendy, especially in the film industry, so the characters wouldn’t have to worry about looking like dorks. As with smoking, it can be done anywhere at any time for no particular reason. And it’s innocuous enough that no self-appointed censor of right or left can possibly object to it. In fact, knitting has already been used in many films, as these fans can attest. So knitting is the perfect choice as the favorite shortcut for future filmmakers who need to get around a boring screenplay—unless some future researcher discovers that it causes carpal tunnel syndrome.
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