Here's Audrey Tautou in her pyjamas and drawing deep on a Gauloise, enticing pushovers like me to go and see Coco Avant Chanel. (I obeyed her doe-eyed command last night.)And here she is again in the poster seen in British cinemas: same pose, same eyes, same pyjamas but instead of the fag, a preposterous pen.
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Perhaps she's taking a course in something... utopian-idealist censorship in cinema advertising, maybe.What bothers me about this in particular is that I don't know exactly who has done it, or with how much authority.
For all I know, our beloved government, which seems to pride itself on inventing new laws even more quickly than it invents new offences, may have actually got this on the statute books; a sub-clause perhaps, in the law banning cigarette advertising. (In addition, cigarettes may not be featured in advertising...)
Far more likely, however, is that this is a voluntary gesture on the part of the film company, but in a way that's even more creepy. Because voluntary is not the same thing as unilateral, and it means that somewhere someone has exerted pressure. And I don't know who, or what form of pressure, or how much. The new-morality Kray twins have sent some of the boys round, it seems. (But all in a good cause so OBVIOUSLY THAT'S OKAY - right, everybody?)
Perhaps they should have cut their losses and gone with this weird and misleading American one, which has a kind of sixties, Warhol factory feel about it:
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The film itself is a respectable, unsurprising and unsurprisingly handsome trot through a not terribly interesting life-story; painless, very easy on the eyes and schematic to a fault: all it lacks is the cartoon light bulb appearing over her head every time she sees a bale of black cloth or gets her first glimpse of a Breton fisherman's striped shirt.I was amused to see Benoît Poelvoorde, who had slipped from my consciousness entirely since his face, fifteen years younger and thinner, had adorned many an undergraduate wall back in my university days, pointing a gun at you on the poster for a ridiculous film called C'est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog, 1993) which at the time had seemed sufficiently controversial to be mistaken for important, worthy and, if you were a student, cool. He's very good in this, however, so all is forgotten (again).
I haven't mentioned Audrey, but it would just be embarrassing blather with all critical sobriety switched off and the full compliment of hysterical adjectives, so I'll spare you.
14 comments:
Hmm.. that's odd. I wonder if it is the law? A friend of mine sent me a story last month about movie posters for a Jacques Tati retrospective in Paris, where they replaced his pipe with a whirligig???
Quite frankly I think cigarette advertising is a bad thing, but cigarettes in books, movies, or movie posters is allowed. It's almost like freedom of speech, and freedom of expression. If the character smokes, they smoke. That's all there is to it. It doesn't mean YOu have to smoke. It's all just too politically correct..
Here in America at least the laws about showing smoking are very, very strict. As a society we seem pretty much convinced that smoking is the world's greatest evil.
I watch old movies, so I'm soaked in images of smoking all day long, and I'm not a smoker, so I think all those rules are nonsense.
Agreed with Elizabeth-- smoking in movies hasn't affected me whatsoever (unless my subconscious is just yearning for a smoke right now).
I don't think the pen looks ridiculous or anything...that's actually how I hold my pens...but the reason for changing cigarette to pen I don't understand. I doubt a lot of young, impressionable kids will glance at the poster for the Coco Chanel movie and say "Oh gee, Coco smoked...now I want to smoke."
I'm not a smoker, and dislike intensely to enter a cafeteria to have a little dose of cofee, and find the place it's as smoke-filled as an opium den (as they usually are around there: the reaction to anti-tobacco laws by smokers has been to smoke twice than before, and *specially* in forbidden places...good for the taxman, tho´)
This having been said, I find that film ensorship just silly... As stated by the ladies above, I've been exposed to tons of films where actors smoke quite a lot, and never felt the lest inclination to imitate them in that.
Matthew: Dang. I want the full Matthew Coniam "with all critical sobriety switched off and the full compliment of hysterical adjectives" treatment, which never is a thing to be spared but is always a treat! With regard to the Coco ad, might it be a marketing ploy to appeal to two distinct audiences rather than a government plot? After all, the first ad snared you in like a fly to honey (as if would have me); and the second one might get a more, shall we say, cozy set? All this is just a passing thought, mind, as I love the line " . . our beloved government, which seems to pride itself on inventing new laws even more quickly than it invents new offences . . " and love a good rant as well as the next guy! Also like "the morality Kray twins."
By the way, while we are on the topic of how much I like your writing, could you tell me the title or titles of a book or two you have contributed to? And please don’t be humble. I have my eye out for your forthcoming pre-code horror book and will get it instantly. -- Mykal
I have a pen that LOOKS like a cigarette and I quite often pose with it just like Audrey.
I notice that there is also a book in the doctored version. Which makes it seem as if Coco is doing some work in bed (as I often do) rather than just having a post prandial cigarette. Fascinating!
Agreed with Mykal-- it probably was done to appeal to a different demographic. And partly censorship as well. I'm a bigger fan of the first reason. :)
I watched Ghostbusters again the other night, and they practically chainsmoke their way right through it. They actually fight ghosts with fags dangling out of their mouths.
Big journey, short time.
Juliette - do you hold your pen like that when you're doing your Peter O'Toole impersonation?
Kate - censoring Tati's pipe! That's a declaration of war. What next? Sherlock Holmes???
Mykal - I wrote some of the entries in those pretty awful 101 Horror Films (etc) You Must See Before You Die, some reviews for a book called 10 Years of Terror: British Horror Films of the 1970's, a chapter of Art of Darkness: The Cinema of Dario Argento, some reviews and an essay on Jack the Ripper films for Flesh & Blood Book 1 (reprinted in Flesh & Blood Compendium) and some essays in the Necronomicon books (Walerian Borowczyk animations in Book 2, Antonioni's Blow Up and De Sade movies in Book 4.) Most of it written in my early twenties and not very good. I promise my new one will be much better, if I ever get the damned thing finished.
Jenny - the book is odd. Until my good lady pointed it out I didn't realise there wasn't one in the first picture. Our recollections differ, but I could swear that in the film she was reading a book and having a ciggie. So this would mean that the French not only left the fag in, they took the book out. Surely not? But if so - vive la France!
Matthew: I'll hunt them down and eagerly await next! -- Mykal
Oh, sometimes. I like to switch things up. ;)
That censored poster is horrendous! I can't believe it still works this way... Jesus!
I knew I could count on you for some pro-cigarette anger!
Audreu Tautou is just incarnation of elgance and "chic" parisian look! Though the movie about Coco Chanel is nothing that really portrays the importance of this woman in women´s fashion design with its masculine and glamourous touch of simple sophistication! And what a ridiculous campaign of not showing "smoking in cimema and posters! if we go on like that we will go back to ancient times of absurd censorships! What a great blog you have on cinema! I loive taht quote from Truffaut´s you have at the beginning! Hope you visit mine. Just learning now to manage with blog writing etc...
Hi Isbelle!
Thanks for the lovely comments and yes, I certainly agree with you about Audrey!
I really like Jane Birkin too and am enjoying your blog!
Do stay around!
Best,
Matthew
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