Sunday, September 8, 2002
Cancer’s cure - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Four Friday’s ago, the New York Times had a stirring op-ed piece by one Joe Eszterhas. Eszterhas has scripted fourteen movies, including the infamous Basic Instinct. He also penned the recent novel, ripped from the Clinton-Lewinsky headlines, American Rhapsody. His piece was headlined: “Hollywood’s Responsibility For Smoking Deaths.”
His piece is an impassioned plea to his Hollywood compatriots to halt the plethora of screen glamorisation’s of smoking. It seems that over the past eighteen months Eszterhas himself has been battling cancer. He’s got throat cancer, the result of a lifetime of smoking, “I am alive but maimed. Much of my larynx is gone. I have some difficulty speaking; others have some difficulty understanding me.”
In reading his piece I was stuck by a number of reactions. First, as a non-smoker, I tended to wonder if his complaining was the essence of hypocrisy, as he’s sick now, and now he bitches about the ills of smoking. Perhaps he is a hypocrite, but one must remember addiction is an illness and so he’s been a little more sensitive to the weed than he once was. And it does take a big man to fail, a bigger to admit such failure. Eszterhas admits: “Smoking, I once believed, was every person’s right. Efforts to stop it were politically correct, a Big Brother assault on personal freedoms. Second-hand smoke was a non-existent problem invented by professional do-gooders. I put all these views into my scripts.”
Eszterhas goes on to point out where his misguided views clouded his screenplay’s. He notes that in Basic Instinct, the smoking there was part of the sexual subtext: “Sharon Stone’s character smokes; Michael Douglas’ is trying to quit. She seduces him with literal and figurative smoke that blows in his face.” He records too, that in the film’s most controversial and famous scene -- the one where Sharon Stone is photographed at the right angle, showing her sans knickers -- “she even has a cigarette in her hand.”
The next reaction I had was that Eszterhas is making a plea, and in a way he should be heard. Sure he’s a hypocrite, but he is trying to rectify the errors in judgement he’s made. I am encouraged by his courage and integrity in trying to do better. I am a teetotaller when it comes to smoking. I’ve been surrounded by second-hand smoke, though thankfully not from my parents. For a while I thought too it was a lifestyle choice that people made. I still think that, and if people choose to smoke than they should be able to. If I should be able to still chew my Excel, then people should smoke. Mind you though whilst I could be felled by lock-jaw one day, the cigarette smoker will likely come down with cancer similar to that Eszterhas has now.
I appreciate what Joe Eszterhas has had to say. It’s a high profile plea from a repentant sinner who now realises the gravity of his past transgressions. However, I can’t wholeheartedly endorse a full-fledged rejection of cigarette smoking in films. Motion pictures are both entertainment and escape, as well as a reflection of the realities of past and present. The smoking, figurative or not, as seen in Basic Instinct didn’t really reflect reality. Rather, the film was really a smut-ridden piece of frivolous entertainment that could be construed as entertainment or escape. Eszterhas, were he to do it again, would not have glamorised smoking so.
There is a fine line between what’s deemed glamorisation, and what’s the portrayal of reality. To one the smoking in any given film may be innocuous and part of the blocking the actors do. To another it could be one of those product placement deals whereby big tobacco is trying to weed the average moviegoer into taking up the habit. Though Eszterhas’ sentiments are heartfelt and well-meaning, I think that’s all they should be. Filmmakers, like when employing nudity, should only do so when necessary and vital to the story line. When it becomes gratuitous, such as the manipulation of violence in motion pictures today, then of course not. Somehow I have hope in the consumer and moviegoer that they know the difference between what’s art and what’s blatant advertising. My heart goes out to Eszterhas as he goes through the ravages of this terrible habit. My admiration goes out to him too, for making a plea. Hopefully this will prevent at least one person from enduring what he’s going through.
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