Photo by Barry WetcherGet Along, Little Stogie: Lou Reed visits the smoke shop.
'Blue in the Face'
eulogizes Brooklyn
By Richard von Busack
Brooklyn is truly a soulful borough, God knows, but it seems to be one of those Bermuda triangles that throws off a filmmaker's equilibrium, like Montana and the Amazon. Spike Lee, normally a hard-edged director, turns into Mr. Softee when he starts eulogizing Brooklyn (Crooklyn and the last reel of Mo' Better Blues). And Paul Auster and Wayne Wang (creators of Smoke) were both soft-hearted to begin with.
Blue in the Face was improvised and filmed during a week on the set of Smoke. A down-at-the-heels Brooklyn cigar shop faces conversion into a health-food store. Auggie Wren (Harvey Keitel), the manager, sells smokes and listen to stories. Auggie's customers are more uptown than in Smoke--Lou Reed, Giancarlo Esposito, Michael J. Fox and Roseanne stop by to slum and to shtick. Free of the calculation that marred Smoke, Blue in the Face is a more watchable and likable movie; the story isn't so fraught with a message of the importance of connection with your fellow man.
There are a few fine jokes (especially an early scene in which Auggie dispenses some street-corner justice) and even some realistic ardor when Roseanne, as the store-owner's wife, makes a pleading pass at him. It's not an embarrassing scene, because it's believable. Roseanne must have been waiting for just such an opportunity ever since she saw The Piano. For the most part, though, the women don't have much presence, although Lily Tomlin is in drag, and Madonna is a singing telegram girl--now there's original casting! The romantic lead (Mel Gorham) is a woman in heat for Keitel, and the picture runs with that notion for a few scenes too many.
Wang and Auster's mourning for the lost heart of Brooklyn, Ebbets Field, is a badly needed center for the film--it works, even when underlined by a shamelessly sentimental fantasy scene. Maybe I'm just more romantic about baseball than I am about Christmas (Smoke's focal point), but it's tragic to see newsreel footage of the destruction of the famous baseball stadium. Some cold-blooded wit painted the wrecking ball white with stitches, to look like a baseball. A little of that end of New York humor would have muted the piercing twinkliness of Blue in the Face. The movie is like New York coffee: lukewarm, and almost never quite dark or bitter enough to taste.
Blue in the Face (Unrated; 89 min.), directed by Wayne Wang, written by Paul Auster and Wang and starring Harvey Keitel.
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