Smoke (1995)

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The families we make when we are adrift.

Smoke swirls and drifts and seeps into place we can't even see. And so does this film.

Auggie Wren (Harvey Keitel) runs a corner smoke shop in Brooklyn. Several people swirl into his shop and his life -- people whose lives are in fragile times, just as his is.

When one of his regular customers, writer Paul Benjamin (William Hurt), inquires Auggie's camera, Auggie makes a revelation. In my favorite scene of the film, and the one that sets the whole tone, Auggie explains the photo albums covering each day of many, many years to Paul:

Auggie: "I guess you could call it a hobby. But I do it every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow."

Paul: "So you're not just a guy who pushes coins across a counter."

Auggie: "Well, that's what people see but that ain't necessarily who I am."

Paul, as he looks through the first album: "They're all the same."

Auggie: "That's right. More than 4,000 pictures of the same place. The corner of Third Street and Seventh Avenue at 8 o'clock in the morning. Four thousand straight days in all kinds of weather. It's my project. What you'd call my life's work.

Paul: "Amazing. I'm not sure I get it though. What was it that gave you the idea to do this project?"

Auggie: "I don't know. Just came to me. It's my corner, after all. I mean, it's just one little corner of the world. But things take place there, too, just like everywhere else. It's a record of my little spot."

Paul: "It's kind of overwhelming."

Auggie: "You'll never get it if you don't slow down, my friend."

Paul: "What do you mean?"

Auggie: "I mean, you're going to fast. You're hardly even lookin' at the pictures.

Paul: "They're all the same."

Auggie: "They're all the same. But each one is different from every other one. You got your bright mornings and your dark mornings. You got your summer light and your autumn light. You got your weekdays and your weekends. You got your people in overcoats and galoshes. And you got your people in t-shirts and shorts. Sometimes the same people. Sometimes different ones. Some times the different ones become the same ones. And the same ones disappear. The earth revolves around the sun and every day the light from the sun hits the earth at a different angle."

Paul: "Slow down, huh?"

Auggie: "That's what I'd recommend. You know how it is. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Time creeps on its petty pace."

Others in the cast include:

Harold Perrineau Jr. as Rashid Cole, an African-American teenager who saves Paul from being hit by a truck and becomes almost like a son to Paul;

Stockard Channing as Ruby McNutt, Auggie's girlfriend from nearly 20 years before, who appears to inform Auggie he has a daughter who is pregnant and a drug addict;

Forest Whitaker as Cyrus Cole who didn't know he had a son;

Ashley Judd as Auggie's troubled daughter;

and Clarice Taylor as Granny Ethel.

This is a sensitive, ephemeral and cerebral tale, touchingly presented in a way that I think I will never forget.

Outstanding music by the Jerry Garcia Band, Louis Prima, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and others, plus my two favorites, "Downtown Train" and "Innocent When You Dream" written and performed by Tom Waits.

Written by Paul Auster and based on his short story "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story." Directed by Wayne Wang.

Run time: 1 hour, 62 minutes

Rated R for language.

My personal rating: A