Female protagonists and the role of smoking in ... - IngentaConnect

AC 27 (1) pp. 59–83 Intellect Limited 2016

Asian Cinema Volume 27 Number 1 © 2016 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/ac.27.1.59_1

PETER C. PUGSLEY AND BEN MCCANN University of Adelaide

Female protagonists and the role of smoking in Chinese and French cinema ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS

A number of recent Chinese and French films include frequent images of smoking by young female characters. This observation leads us to consider whether this is merely a conventional genre trope, or whether it is a broader reflection of changes in the ways that filmmakers wish to represent young women in these national cultures. We contend that smoking on-screen can be viewed as a sign of potential change towards empowerment, individualism and increased risk-taking for young women in a globalizing world. Smoking has long been glamorized by filmmakers despite clear research showing that it is a harmful and addictive activity. Its determined use as a prop for the femme fatale, for instance, plays an important and lasting role in the film noir (and neo-noir) aesthetic. We explore the role of risk-taking female protagonists in contemporary Chinese and French films, including Ang Lee’s Se, Jie/Lust, Caution (2007), Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046 (2004), Claude Miller’s Thérèse Desqueyroux (2012) and Pierre Salvadori’s Hors de Prix/Priceless (2006). Furthermore, we investigate the gendered aesthetics of on-screen ‘tobacco imagery’ as a narrative device that confirms the convention of female protagonists (including the femme fatale) as a risk taker.

China France aesthetics femme fatale smoking female protagonists risk

www.intellectbooks.com 59

ac27.1.indb 59

18/08/16 5:47 PM

Peter C. Pugsley | Ben McCann

L’amour c’est comme une cigarette. (Vartan 1981) A number of recent Chinese and French films include notably frequent images of smoking by young female characters. This observation leads us to consider whether this is merely a conventional genre trope, or whether it is a broader reflection of changes in the ways that filmmakers wish to represent young women in these national cultures. We contend that smoking on-screen can be viewed as a sign of potential change towards empowerment, individualism and increased risk-taking for young women in a globalizing world. Smoking has long been glamorized by filmmakers despite clear research showing that it is a harmful and addictive activity. Its determined use as a prop for the femme fatale, for instance, plays an important and lasting role in the film noir (and neo-noir) aesthetic where ‘it is her strength and sensual visual texture that is inevitably printed in our memory, not her ultimate destruction’ (Place 1998: 63). In films such as Ang Lee’s Se, Jie / Lust, Caution (2007), the lasting impression of the leading female protagonist (played by Tang Wei) reflects that of the femme fatale as an empowered character, full of ‘eroticized abandon’ (Marlan 2004: 258). Evidence indicates that smoking is now increasing as a habit among young women in both Chinese and French communities: in France, as many as 38% of French women aged between 20 and 25 smoke (Eatwell 2013: n.p.), and in China government-supported research has shown that smoking rates for women across the nation grew from 8.76% in 1997 to 10.4% in 2004 (Anon. 2008). Our aim therefore is to explore the role of risktaking female protagonists in contemporary Chinese and French films, including Si, Jie, Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046 (2004), Claude Miller’s Thérèse Desqueyroux (2012) and Pierre Salvadori’s Hors de Prix/Priceless (2006). Furthermore, we investigate the gendered aesthetics of on-screen ‘tobacco imagery’ (to use the prevalent term in health communications) as a narrative device that confirms the convention of the femme fatale as a risk taker. While film studies academics have long been wary of using rigid media effects theories to explain the impact of on-screen behaviours, a modified approach can still have some salience in today’s media-saturated world. When filmmakers in nations and territories such as France and Greater China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) draw upon globally recognized cinematic conventions to create desirable, independent female characters, they undoubtedly have an impact upon the behaviours of their audience. We acknowledge the problematic use of a term such as Chinese cinema, but hesitate to reframe this as Chinese-language cinema as this then opens the film to include films from Singapore and Malaysia, both of which have established Chinese-language film industries, or even from diasporic filmmakers working in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia or elsewhere that choose to create Chinese-language films. Early media effects theorists such as Albert Bandura proposed (via primitive methods) that media consumption led to direct behavioural change by an ever-vulnerable audience. However, later research has shown that audience behaviours and responses to the media are infinitely more complex and are dependent on a range of personal, social, cultural, political and economic factors (see e.g., work in the areas of media effects, influence and representation by Paul Lazarsfeld, George Gerbner, Raymond Williams or Stuart Hall). The complexity of factors that may indicate how cinematic imagery can lead towards behavioural change in audiences leads us in our attempts to

60

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 60

18/08/16 5:47 PM

Female protagonists and the role of smoking in Chinese and French cinema

illustrate how these non-Hollywood screen industries present glamorized and gender-specific images of smoking. The glamorization of smoking can also be seen as a reflection of broader cultural changes across Europe and Asia. In France, the appearance of smoking in films has been singled out for comment by the World Health Organization (WHO), which quoted a French government study where threequarters of the 481 French films analysed contained smoking, and that ‘it was noticed anecdotally that smoking in these films conveyed an image of success or glamour or represented modern women who were beautiful, emancipated or sympathetic’ (2010: 11). It is, however, difficult to find consistent data on smoking rates in many countries across the developing Asian region, with even WHO results relying on smoking-related data only from countries that wish to participate in data collection. While data on smoking rates may be less than consistent, there are a range of consistencies that can be found in the techniques and representations of cinema. Renowned US film theorists David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson write that ‘many of the principles of artistic form are matters of convention’ (2001: 51), and for filmmakers and audiences alike these conventions provide entry into a celluloid world where meanings are created and reinforced. The cinematic convention of the femme fatale as a risk-taker can be seen to reflect desirable changes in identity formation for young women in France, China (inclusive of Hong Kong and Taiwan) and many other nations, such as Malaysia (Pugsley 2013). The cinematic femme fatale is a key focus here because the use of smoking frequently occurs as part of her allure in a highly sexualized extension of the ‘lip eroticism’ (Gately 2001: 279), most commonly found in near-pornographic close-ups of women eating phallic-shaped fruits or drizzling honey across their lips. As a narrative device, the visual appeal of the smoking woman often lessens as the plot advances; there is less focus on her sexual appeal (and her smoking) as the story twists and turns and she heads towards her final denouement. Unlike the on-screen representations of chaste wives and virginal daughters, femmes fatales maintain a commanding presence on the screen, where their ‘iconography is explicitly sexual’ and where ‘[c]igarettes with their wispy trails of smoke can become cues of dark and immoral sensuality’ (Place 1998: 54). Contemporary film offers a new site for exploration because it builds upon the on-screen sexual liberation of women in the 1960s that saw a shift from the femme fatale’s ultimately passive use of sexuality (as a means to romantic or economic gain) to a determinedly ambitious position where she craves ultimate power over her male protagonist. The femme fatale, therefore, now plays a much more central role in the action of a film and in the outcome of the narrative. The films selected for analysis here are post-2000 releases (with reference back to earlier influential films) for two interrelated reasons. First, the intensity of the presence of cigarettes increases around this moment due to the empowerment of more female characters moving across and through various film genres. Instead of being confined to the traditional space of film noir, the figure of the femme fatale who deploys smoking as a specific gesture shifts into new cinematic styles and genres – including horror, melodrama, musical and thriller. Second, the ever more innovative ways in which films have been produced since 2000 have fundamentally altered the aesthetic possibilities of the audio-visual text where the aesthetics of smoking can be captured in an increasingly seductive manner through the clarity of digital photography and sophisticated lighting techniques. These visual advancements provide


ac27.1.indb 61

18/08/16 5:47 PM


a more tactile ‘closeness’ and intimacy with modern audiences (including mobile, personal screens). We specifically focus on contemporary films from France and China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) as these are territories with important and influential cinema industries, and, as noted, where smoking among young women has been increasing. Our selection of these two seemingly disparate cinemas is also driven by connections between them, and the possibilities of cultural exposure to ‘foreign’ behaviours. Films such as Le voyage du ballon rouge/Flight of the Red Balloon (2007), a French/Taiwanese film directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, proposes an increasingly dynamic cultural fluidity between different national registers, tones and film aesthetics. This story of a French family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese student stars Juliette Binoche who smokes regularly throughout the film. Hou’s earlier Taiwan-based Qiānxī Mànbō / Millennium Mambo (2001) also features a female protagonist for whom smoking is a mark of sophistication and abandon (see Figure 1). Hou’s transnational step into the French sphere, and his grafting of Asian imagery into the new Europe, is indicative of contemporary global cinema’s ongoing interrogation with voyages and cultural hybridity, and of how the smoking protagonists in both films suggest a link between old source text and new, remade products. Likewise, Hong Kong icon Maggie Cheung’s collaboration with French director Olivier Assayas in the French film Clean (2004) features an Asian femme fatale using the gesture of smoking to signal both erotic appeal and intercultural sameness. The cultural context of cinema has long been an important site for identity-making among young women as fashion-savvy, independent citizens. More recently, this identity has begun to operate within global – rather than national – spheres through the ready availability of films. Many studies cite the image of cinematic stars smoking on-screen as a determining factor in smoking initiation among teenagers (see e.g., the extensive overview at Cancer Council Australia 2007); however, most of these studies focus entirely on western cultures and the dominant Hollywood cinema. The rise in smoking rates for young women in some Asian and European countries is occurring as

Figure 1: Shu Qi in Millennium Mambo (Hou, 2001).

62

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 62

18/08/16 5:47 PM


tobacco smoking in general is decreasing in the United States and other western nations such as Australia. In Taiwan, these rates doubled from 1987 to 2005 (Tsai et al. 2008), while in France, despite a ban on smoking in all public places in 2007, the number of female and teenage smokers has increased by nearly 30 per cent in recent years. This rise in young female smokers suggests an emerging cultural shift in attitudes to smoking. French and Chinese films (as examples of non-Hollywood cinema) increasingly feature the gratuitous use of scenes that glamorize smoking courtesy of femmes fatales who use their smoking to signify their sexual desirability (see noted Taiwanese actress Shu Qi in Figure 1). Furthering Grossman’s aim to refigure the femme fatale ‘into something more complicated and meaningful than a figure of fatal sexuality’ (2009: 66), we contend that French and Chinese films frame their leading women as complex but ultimately desirable characters, and further interrogate the aesthetic osmosis between Chinese and French cinema.

IMAGERY AND INFLUENCE The use of film as an influence in smoking initiation is well documented in western contexts (see e.g. Chapman and Davis 1991; Distefan et al. 2004; Sargent et al. 2005; or Polansky and Glantz 2009); however, beyond US-led studies there is less research linking on-screen smoking to adolescent initiation. This means that countries like France or China (or Taiwan) are often overlooked, even though they are sites where rising tobacco sales are linked to an aggressive expansion of indirect promotions following the tightening of restrictions on the sale and advertising of tobacco products in the English-speaking West. Furthermore, China has seen a rise with urban adolescent smoking prevalent in up to 11% of girls (Tansey et al. 2003). In France, some 30.2% of women are smokers, with 26% identified as daily tobacco smokers, a sharp increase from 21.7% in 2008. This figure is almost double that of the United States with 16.5% women smokers (WHO 2013). And there are concerns that as many as one-third of young women in France are smokers (WHO 2010: 11). Given these increasing rates of smoking among young women and the urgent public health implications this raises, it is concerning that many French and Chinese films continue to present desirable images of female protagonists who smoke. In the United States, for example, studies based on health agency data indicate that smoking in movies leads almost 390,000 adolescents each year to start smoking (Charlesworth and Glantz 2005). Existing research has indicated the extent to which individuals’ smoking initiation is related to media portrayals of smoking, but little research has closely examined the narrative structures and cinematic conventions that allow or require protagonists to smoke. There is much to suggest that the aesthetic beauty of the act of smoking still occupies a premium space in the cinematic world – whether as a way to drive a narrative, as a reflection of reality, or as a way of asserting a particular identity – and as Richard Dyer once wrote, ‘[w]ithout understanding the way images function in terms of, say, narrative, genre, or spectacle, we don’t really understand why they turn out the way they do’ (2002: 2). In their writings on cinema, André Bazin (2005: 32–33) and Roland Barthes (1993) both herald the close-ups of female faces as a means of enhancing the realism of the cinema (forcing the actors to act honestly and naturally). By allowing spectators to contemplate the female face in such intensive detail, Barthes argues that close-ups of facial activity – crying, smiling, smoking – represent a ‘fragile moment when the cinema is about to draw an existential from an essential beauty’ (1993: 57).


ac27.1.indb 63

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Young women initiate smoking for a variety of reasons, including the social and economic changes such as those in western societies from the late 1800s enabling the ‘emancipation’ of women, when the rise in female smoking mirrored ‘changing attitudes to respectable femininity and the use of commercial products to break down once dominant notions’ (Hilton 2000: 138). Global tobacco companies increasingly capitalized on these changed behaviours by targeting products towards young people, with an ever-increasing focus on promoting smoking initiation in young women (Hafez and Ling 2005). In terms of how this links to smoking in films it becomes necessary to ‘gain an understanding of the normative gender roles and social values of modern Asian [and French] women and identify the effects of sociocultural influences on cigarette diffusion and behaviours’ (Tsai et al. 2008: 976). By focusing on the images of smoking in Chinese and French films, we wish to apply ‘an approach that accounts for both the expression of agency and the social meaning of smoking performances’ (Nichter 2003: 142). Cinema’s contribution as a form of mass entertainment celebrates risk-taking characters such as the daring, high-stakes femme fatale who is much more ‘fun’ than the virtuous virgin or the homely mother figure (Allen 1983: 185), and it is this risk-taking that we wish to illustrate in the context of French and Chinese films.

THE ALLURE OF THE FEMME FATALE Early work into the genre of film noir exposed the concept of the femme fatale in its cinematic form. Christine Gledhill’s 1998 work, for example, opens up the parameters within which to explore the role of the femme fatale and the gendered aspects of film noir, allowing for multiple readings of the genre and subgenre spaces in which empowered female characters can now be found. Classic film noir conventions can now be ‘used consciously to offer a metaphoric revelation of a modern social and psychic malaise’ (Gledhill 1998: 33). Furthermore, it is not just the style but also the content of contemporary film that has been refigured to the point that the ‘sex is more explicit, the violence more graphic’ (Holt 2006: 37). These are significant shifts in the genre conventions, but, importantly, they have led to the shift from the classic femme fatale who never escaped justice to ‘the femme fatale of neo-noir, [who] more realistically, often does’ (Holt 2006: 28). In other words, she may smoke, drink, steal or kill, but she now gets away with the performance of such risk-taking, sending a dangerous, but often desirable, anti-authoritarian message. Changes to cinematic content and to the role of the femme fatale are not, however, exclusive to the imagery projected by Hollywood’s noir cinema. Turning to France, Dawn Marlan (2004: 258) has argued that ‘the lasting iconic images of French smoking […] are cinematic’, although this iconicity is traditionally framed around masculinity – whether that be Jean Gabin chain-smoking as he awaits capture in Le Jour se lève/Daybreak (1939), Jean-Paul Belmondo dragging on a cigarette in A bout de souffle/Breathless (1960), or Jacques Tati’s omnipresent pipe in his Monsieur Hulot films. Yet the association between smoking and cinema in French cinema should also be seen as a feminized and sexualized gesture, especially in many contemporary films where smoking often signals defiance, self-sufficiency and an attitude of self-destruction: ‘the right to die, with style’ (Parr 1997: 31–32). Moreover, many of these films feature younger actresses who imitate or mimic the smoking gestures of older actresses (usually playing maternal roles) in a bid to achieve maturity, independence, peer acceptance and sexual freedom. These actresses often assume the narrative

64

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 64

18/08/16 5:47 PM


role of the femme fatale, with its long tradition in French cultural production, including in the films of Truffaut where she was sometimes referred to as an archetypal belle dame sans merci (Allen 1983: 7). But even though the terms themselves are French, they reinforce ‘the profound Anglo-Saxon conviction that sexy – erotically dangerous – women are usually French, and as a corollary, most French women are sexy’ (Allen 1983: viii). In the film era, this imagery is extended in even more complex forms in the noir femme fatale where ‘the iconography of violence (primarily guns) is a specific symbol (as is perhaps the cigarette) of her “unnatural” phallic power’ (Place 1998: 54) and becomes even more overtly defiant in the face of masculinity in the shift to neo-noir where she demands ‘sexual pleasure as well as economic power’ (Straayer 1998: 153). The links between the femme fatale, smoking and a subversive, often deadly, sexuality came to the fore most prominently in French cinema in Truffaut’s Jules et Jim (1962) where the lead actress Jeanne Moreau plays the epitome of the ‘Modern Woman’ – a smoker, sexually liberated and comfortable in the traditional male domains of the nightclub and casino. Moreau once famously stated, ‘I don’t trust men who don’t smoke’ (Fouquet and Jeremy van Loon 2007). By smoking a cigar in Jules et Jim while disguised as a man, Moreau (like her contemporaries Brigitte Bardot and Simone Signoret) destabilizes traditional gender codes, and posits the notion that the femme fatale is not simply the projection of a (male) director’s fears and fantasies but the personification of an unconventional, enlightened woman who has served as a role model to subsequent generations of French actresses and female spectators. The femme fatale’s new iconographic image was therefore ‘more erotic and more evil than in earlier art’ (Allen 1983: 12). Glamorized cinematic images of young women smoking also raises two important questions to which we look to established theories on film, gender and culture for answers. First, is the influence of such images linked to genderspecific attitudes and socially constructed ideals of beauty that filmmakers wish to replicate? The images can be seen purely in terms of their value as cinematic art: aesthetically pleasing and photographically alluring. Second, are the meanings created in these cinematic (and gendered) representations tied to the establishment of a unique, culturally significant identity in a globalizing world, one where on-screen women are empowered and emancipated?

THE FEMALE PROTAGONIST The field of gender studies has long focused on the subjectivization of feminine beauty. Gender theorist Susan Bordo is aware of the materialist desires imposed upon women in western cultures, pointing out that preoccupations with ‘fat, diet and slenderness’ are part of ‘the most powerful “normalizing” strategies of our century’ (1990: 85). Indeed, many women smoke to stay slim, despite evidence that any possible ‘benefits’ to reduced weight are countered by longer-lasting, damaging health effects. This over-valuation of body aesthetics adds to the difficulties in deterring young women from smoking, and in making ‘the truth of the connection between smoking and future ill health […] real enough to motivate behaviour change’ (Keane 2002: 127). In other words, there is a self-objectification leading young female smokers to be more concerned about the ‘appearance-related dimensions’ of their body rather than its ‘functionality’ (Harrell et al. 2006: 737). And while our interest is in cinematic images that may motivate young women to initiate smoking, one cannot disregard the fact that quitting smoking has an association with


ac27.1.indb 65

18/08/16 5:47 PM


weight gain in women (Guiliano 2007). Images of slender women on-screen, such as Zhang Ziyi in 2046, or Tang Wei in Se, Jie / Lust, Caution, Charlotte Gainsbourg in Ma Femme est une actrice / My Wife is an Actress (Attal, 2001) or Mélanie Laurent in Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas / Don’t Worry, I’m Fine (Lioret, 2006), must surely reiterate the concept – these slim women are rarely seen eating, but often seen smoking. As indicated, shifts have occurred in gendered representations of women in film, such as the move in the 1970s where theorists: adapted the concept of the ‘classic realist text’ to the specificity of gender – something male critics had hitherto largely ignored. Film noir, precisely because of its potential for subversion of dominant American values and gender-myths, provided an ideal group of films through which to make feminist use of classic-text arguments (Kaplan 1998: 3) in which film noir provided ‘a response to a troubled sense of masculinity in the 40s’ (Kaplan 1998: 4). This idea is reiterated by James Maxfield who ‘explores women in noir films who are “fatal” to the hero but who are not themselves evil or deliberate agents of the hero’s destruction as the classic femmes fatales […] are seen to be’ (Maxfield 1996 in Kaplan 1998: 5). By the 1990s, Ruby Rich saw a new audience appetite for femmes fatales and their ‘rapacious acts, their disregard for human life, their greed and lust and lack of restraint’ (Kaplan 1998: 5). The challenge for filmmakers was to reinforce the femme fatale behaviour not just through dialogue and narratives but also through visual means.

GENDER AESTHETICS AND CULTURAL BEHAVIOUR The first approach in this section draws upon the understanding that a highly sexualized, gendered aesthetic has long been used in art. As Allen notes, in reference to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s 1865 drawing of a woman, Rossetti’s muse exemplifies the ‘heavy-lidded gaze, pallour, long full throat, luxurious hair, [that] recur constantly in individual works in which erotic challenge and danger are so intermingled as to become a unified whole’ (1998: 5). In capturing the act of smoking, such visualities are also prevalent – the tilt of the head accentuates the ‘long full throat’, the inhale accompanied by a ‘heavy-lidded gaze’. But where Allen explores the static imagery of the fine arts, we illustrate how cinema similarly draws on these aesthetically driven human behaviours to portray the femme fatale. We expand upon Grossman’s modelling of ‘a critical analysis of film noir that might help to revitalize close readings in film studies’, (2009: 12) where she sets out to address the misreading of the femme fatale and ‘the extent to which her role depends on the theme of female independence, often misconceiving her motives and serving mainly to confound our understanding of the gender fantasies that surround these so-called bad women’ (2009: 22). Indeed, the problem as Grossman sees it is in the ‘inflexibility of the category’ (2009: 22), creating a need to ‘reframe the “femme fatale” not as a given but as a critical apparatus for helping us to understand the limits of social roles and cultural fantasies about women’ (2009: 40). This approach also causes us to consider the idea of ‘spectatorial desire’ as an issue of gender in line with Mary Anne Doane (1991: 19–20), who notes that ‘The woman’s beauty, her very desirability, becomes a function of certain practices of imaging – framing, lighting, camera movement, angle’.

66

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 66

18/08/16 5:47 PM


The second theoretical component we draw upon in this section is the aesthetics of smoking as a cultural behaviour. Judith Butler suggests that a woman’s behaviour contributes to her culturally informed identity through the ‘stylized repetition of acts’ (2003: 392–402). Films such as Anne Fontaine’s Coco avant Chanel (2009), Wong’s 2046 and Lee’s Lust, Caution clearly exhibit this ‘stylized repetition’ in a variety of ways: highly sexual, signalling comfort, or suggesting a defiant, anti-establishment nature. Of course there is more to it than just repetition of particular behaviours, as ‘gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo’ (Butler 2003: 393). Thus, the manner in which a woman smokes – or is seen to be smoking – is a cultural act, a gendered performance that occurs within, or in contradiction to, the confines of social and cultural norms. Each of these acts has its precedents as seen in the historical representations of smoking in art and advertising over many centuries, from seventeenth-century Iranian portraits to nineteenth-century Orientalist paintings of Middle Eastern bath houses. However, the arrival of photography, the advent of mass media advertising and the rise of the tobacco industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw images of women smoking become implicated in the new and overt ‘visual culture’ of smoking (Tinkler 2006: 2). The 1920s signalled an almost unchecked proliferation of images of women smoking, reiterated by the glamorous images on the silver screen. The decades of the 1920s to the 1950s became the era of ‘the feminization of smoking’ in which the ‘inter-war woman smoker’ used cigarettes to define her position in the cocktail set as a modern, independent woman (Tinkler 2006: 42). This independence positioned the smoker on the cusp of mainstream society, echoed by the on-screen femme fatale who was ‘central to the intrigue of the films’ but was ‘not placed safely in any of the familiar roles’ such as wife, mother, daughter or lover (Kaplan 1998: 16). The following section examines how French and Chinese filmmakers use smoking as a visual and narrative device to denote the rapaciousness of the femme fatale.

SEX AND DECEPTION IN LUST, CAUTION Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain [2005]; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [2000]; The Ice Storm [1997]; The Wedding Banquet [1993]) returned to his Chinese roots with the 2007 release of Lust, Caution. Although now firmly part of the transnational Hollywood movie system (albeit utilizing strong contacts within Asian cinema), Lee chose to follow up his ground-breaking exploration of US cowboy culture and homosexuality, Brokeback Mountain, with a film set entirely in China (and Hong Kong), and entirely in the Chinese language. One of the key points of interest in this study, though, is the overt use of smoking as a plot device. Ang Lee is not afraid to promote the ‘lip eroticism’ noted earlier, most often found in the frenzied, passionate devouring of food in such films as the erotic US blockbuster 9 1/2 Weeks (Lyne, 1986). Such blatant sexuality is firmly evident in Lust, Caution. The ‘evil eroticism’ noted earlier is not, of course, exclusive to French cinema, and Lee’s historically based espionage thriller features several key scenes of ‘evil eroticism’ that revolve around smoking. The first of these sets up an ongoing narrative when Ang’s femme fatale, Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), a burgeoning actress and communist activist is offered a cigarette by her female comrade Lai Shu Jin (Chu Jr Ying).


ac27.1.indb 67

18/08/16 5:47 PM


She initially refuses; however, her colleague insists, telling her, ‘Artists have to smoke’. Wong is reluctant, but upon being told that ‘It comes in handy onstage’ (Figures 2–4), she acquiesces in what is later to become a key part of

Figure 2: ‘Artists have to smoke’ in Lust, Caution.

Figure 3: ‘It comes in handy onstage’ in Lust, Caution.

Figure 4: ‘Wong’s first cigarette!’ in Lust, Caution.

68

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 68

18/08/16 5:47 PM


her character’s persona. Wong takes a deep drag on the cigarette. Her friend then holds it aloft proudly in a clear display to the young men nearby (already deeply infatuated with Wong’s smouldering beauty) and proclaims, ‘Wong’s first cigarette! Who’s next?’ The men scramble to be the first to put their lips on the cigarette so recently caressed by Wong. Later, in perhaps the most pivotal moment in the film, Wong (now a trained communist spy) accepts a cigarette offered across a restaurant table by the married and powerful secret service agent, Mr Yee (Tony Leung ChiuWai), the target of the communists’ covert political operation. This visually rich scene is framed by dark crimson curtains, Wong’s deep blue cheongsam and low side-lighting – a cinematic technique that highlights the whiteness of the exhaled smoke. Wong leans forward as Yee lights her cigarette (Figure 5), then reclines with Yee fixed in her gaze (although, through the use of Yee’s POV, it is us, the audience, that are being gazed at). As she slowly exhales, her mouth is closed and the smoke streams down from her nostrils (see Figure 6), echoing Eva Marie Saint’s ‘almost post-coital

Figure 5: Wong (Tang Wei) leans forward to Mr Yee’s (Tony Leung) flame in Lust, Caution.

Figure 6: Tang Wei in Lust, Caution.


ac27.1.indb 69

18/08/16 5:47 PM


exhalation of smoke’ in Hitchcock’s North By Northwest (1959) (Hilton 2000: 149). This scene not only sets up Wong’s manipulative seduction of Yee but also shows Ang Lee’s mastery of his craft by acknowledging the 1940s’ ‘cinematic device of using the cigarette as a ritual of courtship’ (Hilton 2000: 149) – as so oft featured in the films of femme fatales played by Bette Davis or Lauren Bacall – and the cigarette ‘lighting ritual’ (Tinkler 2006: 122) that clearly signifies the shift in their relationship from merely flirtatious to one of overt sexual desire. The use of the close-up of Wong’s face recreates what Mitry (c. [1963] 1997: 69) refers to as the ‘grosses têtes’/‘big heads’, the unavoidable vision of the protagonist and their action, and reflects Hilton’s (2000: 157) suggestion that ‘the cigarette has never lost its elusive sexual overtones’. In a later scene Wong and Lai, by now a couple of experienced spies, seeking a moment of solitude together, enact a different lighting ritual before they quietly smoke, clearly enjoying the practice. The procedure is painstakingly recorded, from the taking of the packet of cigarettes from a pocket, the lighting of each cigarette, and then the slow, languorous inhaling, then exhaling (Figures 7–10), showing what Klein (in Keane 2002) refers to as ‘a darkly beautiful, inevitably painful pleasure’.

Figure 7: The anticipation.

Figure 8: The lighting ritual.

70

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 70

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Figure 9: The exhale.

Figure 10: The enjoyment.

GLAMOUR AND COMFORT In Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai’s award-winning 2046 (nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes), leading Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi (cited in a 2006 China Daily article as a ‘non-smoking, non-drinking stunning young woman’) is often seen with a cigarette in hand. Wong’s use of the cigarette as a visual device has a long history in his films. A number of different promotional materials for his 1995 feature Fallen Angels (Figures 11 and 12) all clearly show his protagonists smoking. His multi-award winning In the Mood for Love (2000) set in the aesthetically pleasing 1960s features a succession of characters, male and female, who smoke (Figure 13). In 2046 the ease in which characters smoke, luxuriously revelling in the act itself, reiterates ‘the alluring repetition and brevity of the act, and its ability to accomplish “a little revolution in time”’ (Keane 2002: 120). Wong’s film contains a myriad of references to identity and Chinese nationalism in the light of the Hong Kong handover, with the title of the film referring to the year in which Hong Kong’s self-rule comes to a complete close as Beijing’s


ac27.1.indb 71

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Figures 11–12: Promotional materials for Fallen Angels.

Figure 13: The glamour of smoking in In the Mood for Love. central government takes over. The film plays with the complexities of identity in 1960s’ Hong Kong and in the future world of the year 2046, and each of the female leads – Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, Faye Wang and Carina Lau – is seen smoking at various times (Figures 14–16). As Wong’s film illustrates, the habit of smoking has not been eradicated by the year 2046 (these ‘future’ scenes take part on a train to the future world), and in the two roles played by Faye Wong in 2046 (as Wang Jing Wen and

72

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 72

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Figure 14: Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi) strikes an elegant pose in 2046.

Figure 15: Wang Jing Wen (Faye Wong) inhales in 2046. Android wjw1967) she is seen smoking, head tilted back and exhaling slowly. In her Android role, Wong is revisiting the concept of the smoking robot, which is not new to cinema; perhaps its most famous player is the ‘replicant’ Rachael in Ridley Scott’s cult-classic from 1982, Blade Runner. In one famous scene from that movie, Rachael (played by US actress Sean Young) chainsmokes her way through an interview with Harrison Ford’s Deckard as he attempts to discover whether she is human or replicant.


ac27.1.indb 73

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Figure 16: ‘Android’ (Faye Wong) exhales in 2046.

Figure 17: Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi) in quiet contemplation in 2046. In the scenes set in the 1960s (as part of a cryptic link back to In the Mood For Love), smoking is repeatedly used in the highly stylized rooftop scenes where the characters escape the confines of their thin-walled apartments (Figure 17).

74

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 74

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Figure 18: Wang Jingwen (Faye Wong) and Chow Mowan (Tony Leung) flirting and smoking. In Wong’s 2046 the cigarette is represented as both a comfort and a motif of playfulness firmly linked to ideals of glamour. It also plays a highly sexualized role, as the characters constantly flirt with each other (Figure 18).

TAUTOU, THÉRÈSE AND THE GOLD DIGGER OF SAINT-TROPEZ Audrey Tautou is perhaps most familiar to non-French audiences from her breakthrough performance in Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain / Amélie (Jeunet, 2001), as the wide-eyed gamine (and non-smoker) who changes people’s lives around her for the better. Since the early part of this century Tautou has been regarded as France’s most bankable star, due to her role in Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code (2006) and her appearances in each chapter of Cédric Klapisch’s Spanish Apartment trilogy (L’Auberge Espagnole/The Spanish Apartment [2002], Les Poupées russes/Russian Dolls [2005] and Cassetête chinois/Chinese Puzzle [2013]). According to Ginette Vincendeau, Tautou ‘crystallizes and authenticates’ the social values of her time (2005: 14), while for Isabelle Vanderschelden, Tautou’s choice of roles has often seen her as ‘“an ideal daughter” type and an unthreatening form of young femininity’, which has led to a wide fan base that includes young audiences (2007: 22). More recently she has been cast in more challenging roles that see a distinct shift away from her earlier ingénue persona, two of which deploy smoking as a marker of her character’s personality, ambition and internalized thought processes. In Miller’s Thérèse Desqueyroux, Tautou plays the eponymous wife of a 1920s’ wealthy French landowner whose boredom for the provincial, bourgeois life in which she finds herself sequestered leads her to poison her husband. She also chain-smokes throughout the film – early on, her smoking reinforces her modernity, her proto-femininity, and her ease within the


ac27.1.indb 75

18/08/16 5:47 PM


opulence of the Desqueyroux world. It is she, rather than her husband, who smokes and who possesses a heightened intellect and an interest in contemporary thoughts and ideas that suggests a form of transference from male landowner to female matriarchal power (Figure 19). She is in control in these early scenes, first of courtship, then of marriage. Yet we never forget that this is a marriage of convenience, an alliance that will materially benefit both families, and, as the narrative progresses, Thérèse’s free-spiritedness is replaced by dour acceptance. Miller’s camera frequently frames her in close-up, cigarette in hand, staring blankly at walls, or out of windows, as images of constriction and entrapment surround her (Figure 20). When fires ravage through the pine forests that represent the family wealth and ambition, Thérèse stands near the flames and nonchalantly smokes a cigarette – her only response to marital passivity is the act of smoking – an act of solitude and defiance, but one also of acceptance as she ruminates over a plan to dispose of her husband. In an earlier film, Salvadori’s Hors de Prix/Priceless, Tautou plays Irène, a gold digger who trawls the French Côte d’Azur in the hope of enticing rich older men to fund her lavish lifestyle. In a nod to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Edwards, 1961), she eventually falls in love with Jean (Gad Elmaleh), a barman at a luxury hotel; after the schematics of the ‘meet cute’ and the usual crossings and double-crossings, the two head off to Italy, penniless but in love. As with the characters in 2046, the ease with which Tautou smokes reveals a great part of her attitude and sense of entitlement – when

Figure 19: Audrey Tautou, flirting and playing the power game, in Thérèse Desqueyroux (Miller, 2012).

Figure 20: Tautou, trapped in Thérèse Desqueyroux.

76

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 76

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Figure 21: Tautou, flirting again, in Hors de Prix (Salvadori, 2006).

Figure 22: Tautou figures out her next move, in Hors de Prix. she lights up, it is an act of confidence, of alluring sensuality, but above all a performative gesture destined to achieve its desired purposes of wealth and status. Tautou’s sartorial elegance (backless gowns, grey bikinis, little black dresses) goes hand-in-hand with her smoking in Priceless; one cannot exist without the other. Smoking is deployed at numerous times: to indicate a coquettish innocence to a potential sugar-daddy (Figure 21); to trigger the inner workings of Irène’s thought processes as she figures out her next move (Figure 22); as a reflex gesture as she spies Jean (who she has mistakenly taken for a millionaire) (Figure 23); and as an overtly sexual signal that links her back to the femme fatale type (Figure 24). In all cases, Tautou and Salvadori conspire to reinforce smoking as a normative act that is in itself an extension of Irène’s body language. Ultimately, both films forge a link between smoking and female emancipation, whether in the forests of southern France or in the boulevards and bijoutiers of the Riviera. Tautou’s willingness to put herself at the centre of the narrative – by dint of her star power, but also her combination of the gamine and the ambiguous – is aided by her ‘smoking’ acts. In 2009, she played the fashion designer Coco Chanel in Coco avant Chanel (Anne Fontaine), who, like Thérèse and Irène, chain-smokes for much of the film (Figure 25). That the poster for that film was banned throughout the Paris


ac27.1.indb 77

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Figure 23: Tautou spies Jean, in Hors de Prix.

Figure 24: Tautou, as friendly femme fatale, in Hors de Prix.

Figure 25: Tautou in Coco avant Chanel (Fontaine, 2009). transport system reveals the paradox that frequently surrounds film advertising, smoking, and the depiction of strong, independent, free-thinking female characters in France. For the French government, the poster undermined their recent policy to ban smoking in public places, while for distribution company Warner France, the poster of Chanel smoking ‘translates her strong personality and her modernity’ (Karenr 2009).

78

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 78

18/08/16 5:47 PM


CONCLUSION Analysis of the aesthetic and narrative function of the cinematic female protagonist shows that technical and artistic methods including backlighting and sexualized imagery create desirable representations of the act of smoking. The use of lighting techniques is crucial to the cinematic image, where ‘it singles out the key characters, provides (especially in the use of backlighting) a sense of depth to the flat screen image and directs the attention of the viewer to what is important in a shot’ (Dyer 2002: 164). The demand for the femme fatale, for example, is sated by filmmakers proficient in such techniques and keen to promote the ‘rapaciousness’ of their female protagonists, and how smoking becomes a part of a character’s development, exemplifying Butler’s concept of the ‘performance’ of gender. The aesthetic appeal of smoking as an on-screen act of beauty can therefore be furthered through the heightened sensory appreciation of seeing a favourite film star in stylish clothes and flawless make-up. Finally, when French or Chinese actors such as Audrey Tautou, Marion Cotillard, Élodie Bouchez, Zhang Ziyi or Maggie Cheung light up on-screen, this opens up a range of behavioural possibilities for young women. We note the influence of western cinematic stars like Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett Johansson who provide role models for young women across the globe, yet all have been seen smoking on- and off-screen. The portrayal of the female protagonist in recent Hollywood films, including Brian De Palma’s femmes fatale (played by Johansson and Hilary Swank in The Black Dahlia [2006]), completely glosses over the realities of smoking, including the sensory affront of ‘stinky clothes’ and ‘dirty ashtrays’ (Valdivia 2009: 192). Importantly, there are a series of individualistic behaviours around smoking that fit with desires to construct one’s identity as part of a global cosmopolitan culture. As many US-based studies show, films are instrumental in smoking initiation by young people, especially when a favourite actor is seen smoking on-screen (Distefan et al. 2004). It follows, then, that this logic can also be applied to other nations where cinema plays an important role in cultural development. By looking at the ways in which female protagonists are portrayed in contemporary films, we contend that the more normative actions of the on-screen performance can be considered in light of the increase in smoking rates among young women in France and China.

GLOSSARY Ang Lee 李安 Carina Lau (Liu Jialing) 劉嘉玲 Chu Jr Ying 朱芷瑩 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 臥虎藏龍：青冥寶劍 Fallen Angels 墮落天使 Faye Wang 王菲 Gong Li 鞏俐 Hou Hsiao-Hsien 侯孝賢 In the Mood for Love 花樣年華 Lust, Caution 色, 戒 Maggie Cheung 張曼玉 Millennium Mambo 千禧曼波 Shu Qi 舒淇 Tang Wei 湯唯


ac27.1.indb 79

18/08/16 5:47 PM


The Wedding Banquet 喜宴 Tony Leung (Leung Chiu-Wai) 梁朝偉 Wong Kar-Wai 王家衛 Zhang Ziyi 章子怡

REFERENCES Allen, V. M. (1983), The Femme Fatale: Erotic Icon, New York: Whitston Publishing. Anon. (2006), ‘Good girl’s burning desire to walk on wild side’, China Daily, 19 October, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-10/19/ content_711679.htm. Accessed 08 December 2009. —— (2008), ‘Smoking on the rise among women in Beijing’, China Daily, 9 February, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-02/09/ content_6446597.htm. Accessed 10 December 2013. Assayas, Olivier (2004), Clean, France: Journeyman Films. Attal, Yven (2001), Ma Femme est une actrice/My Wife is an Actress, France: Canal+. Barthes, R. (1993), ‘The face of Garbo’, in R. Barthes, Mythologies, London: Vintage, pp. 56-7. Bazin, A. (2005), ‘The evolution of the language of cinema’, in A. Bazin, What is Cinema? Vol. 1., Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 23–40. Bordo, S. (1990), ‘Reading the slender body’, in M. Jacobus, E. F. Keller and S. Shuttleworth (eds), Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science, New York: Routledge, pp. 83–112. Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2001), Film Art: An Introduction, 6th ed., Boston: McGraw Hill. Butler, J. (2003), ‘Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory’, in A. Jones (ed.), The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 392–402. Cancer Council Australia (2007), ‘Smoking in movies: Countering its public health impact’, Position Statement, www.cancer.org.au. Accessed 19 September 2011. Carné, Marcel (1939), Le Jour se lève/Daybreak, France: Productions Sigma. Chapman, S. and Davis, R. M. (1991), ‘Smoking in movies: Is it a problem’, Tobacco Control, 6: 4, pp. 269–71. Charlesworth, A. and Glantz, S. A. (2005), ‘Smoking in the movies increases adolescent smoking’, Pediatrics, 116: 6, pp. 1516–28. De Palma, Brian (2006), The Black Dahlia, USA: Universal Pictures. Distefan, J., Pierce, J. and Gilpin, E. A. (2004), ‘Do favorite movie stars influence adolescent smoking initiation?’, American Journal of Public Health, 94: 7, pp. 1239–44. Doane, M. A. (1991), Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis, London: Routledge. Dyer, R. (2002), The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation, 2nd ed., London: Routledge. Eatwell, P. M. (2013), They Eat Horses, Don’t They?: The Truth About the French, London: Head of Zeus. Edwards, Blake (1961), Breakfast at Tiffany’s, USA: Jurow-Shepherd Productions. Fontaine, Anne (2009), Coco avant Chanel/Coco before Chanel, France: Haut et Court, Ciné@, Warner Bros. Entertainment France, and France 2 Cinéma.

80

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 80

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Fouquet, H. and van Loon, J. (2007), ‘France bans smoking in cafes, clubs: Rejects Sartre’s Gauloises’, Bloomberg, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/ news?pid=newsarchive&sid=axw.78.HGL5U&refer=europe. Accessed 9 February 2013. Gately, I. (2001), La Diva Nicotina: The Story of How Tobacco Seduced the World, London: Simon & Schuster. Gledhill, C. (1998), ‘Klute 1: A contemporary film noir and feminist criticism’, in E. A. Kaplan (ed.), Women in Film Noir, New ed., London: British Film Institute, pp. 20–34. Grossman, J. (2009), Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir: Ready for the Close-Up, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Godard, Jean-Luc (1960), A bout de souffle/Breathless, France: Les Films Impéria, Les Productions Georges de Beauregard, Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC). Guiliano, M. (2007), French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure, London: Vintage. Hafez, N. and Ling, P. M. (2005), ‘How Philip Morris built Marlboro into a global brand for young adults: Implications for International Tobacco Control’, Tobacco Control, 14: 4, pp. 262–71. Harrell, Z. A. T., Fredrickson, B. L., Pomerleau, C. S. and Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2006), ‘The role of trait self-objectification in smoking among college women’, Sex Roles, 54: 11–12, pp. 735–43. Hilton, M. (2000), Smoking in British Popular Culture 1800–2000: Perfect Pleasures, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hitchcock, Alfred (1959), North By Northwest, USA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Holt, J. (2006), ‘A darker shade: Realism in neo-noir’, in M. T. Conard (ed.), The Philosophy of Film Noir, The Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, pp. 23–40. Hou, Hsiao-Hsien (2001), Qiānxī Mànbō /Millennium Mambo, Taiwan: 3H Films. —— (2007), Le voyage du ballon rouge/Flight of the Red Balloon, France and Taiwan: Margo Films. Howard, Ron (2006), The Da Vinci Code, USA: Columbia Pictures. Jeunet, Jean-Pierre (2001), Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain/Amélie, France: Claudie Ossard and Union Générale Cinématographique (UGC). Kaplan, E. A. (1998), Women in Film Noir, New ed., London: British Film Institute. Karenr (2009), ‘Audrey Tautou’s smoking chanel ad banned in Paris’, 24 April, http://blog.sfgate.com/dailydish/2009/04/24/audrey-tautous-smokingchanel-ad-banned-in-paris/. Accessed 5 January 2015. Keane, H. (2002), ‘Smoking, addiction, and the making of time’, in J. F. Brodie and M. Redfield (eds), High Anxieties: Cultural Studies in Addiction, Berkeley: University of California, pp. 119–33. Klapisch, Cédric (2002), L’Auberge Espagnole/The Spanish Apartment, France: Bac Films, Ce Qui Me Meut Motion Pictures, France 2 Cinéma and Mate Films. —— (2005), Les Poupées russes/Russian Dolls, France: Lunar Films. —— (2013), Casse-tête chinois/Chinese Puzzle, France: Opposite Field Pictures. Lee, Ang (1993), The Wedding Banquet, USA and Taiwan: Ang Lee Productions, Central Motion Pictures and Good Machine. —— (1997), The Ice Storm, USA: Fox Searchlight Pictures.


ac27.1.indb 81

18/08/16 5:47 PM


—— (2000), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, China, USA and Japan: Asia Union Film & Entertainment Ltd., China Film Co-Production Corporation, Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia and Edko Films (as EDKO Films). —— (2005), Brokeback Mountain, USA: Focus Features and River Road Entertainment. —— (2007), Se, Jie/Lust,Caution, China, Hong Kong and USA: Haishang Films. Lioret, Philippe (2006), Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas/Don’t Worry, I’m Fine, France: Nord-Ouest Productions. Lyne, Adrian (1986), 9 1/2 Weeks, USA: Producers Sales Organization. Marlan, D. (2004), ‘Emblems of emptiness: Smoking as a way of life in Jean Eustache’s La Maman et la Putain’, in S. L. Gilman and X. Zhou (eds), Smoke: A Global History of Smoking, London: Reaktion Books, pp. 256–64. Miller, Claude (2012), Thérèse Desqueyroux, France: Les Films du 24. Mitry, J. (c. [1963] 1997), The Aesthetics and Psychology of the Cinema, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nichter, M. (2003), ‘Smoking: What does culture have to do with it?’, Addiction, 98: S1, pp. 139–45. Parr, G. (1997), ‘Smoking’, Sight and Sound, 7: 12, 01 December, pp. 31–32. Place, J. (1998), ‘Women in film noir’, in E. A. Kaplan (ed.), Women in Film Noir, New ed., London: British Film Institute, pp. 47–68. Polansky, J. and Glantz, S. A. (2009), ‘Taxpayer subsidies for US films with tobacco imagery’, Tobacco Control Policy Making, http://escholarship.org/ uc/item/8nc8422j. Accessed 22 August 2014. Pugsley, P. (2013), ‘The female protagonist and tobacco imagery in Spinning Gasing: A new aesthetic in Asian cinema’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 27: 6, pp. 799–811. Salvadori, Pierre (2006), Hors de Prix/Priceless, France: Les Films Pelléas. Sargent, J. D., Beach, M. L., Adachi-Mejia, A. M., Gibson, J. J., Titus-Ernstoff, L. T., Charles P. Carusi, C. P., Swain, S. D., Heatherton, T. F. and Dalton, M. A. (2005), ‘Exposure to movie smoking: Its relation to smoking initiation among US adolescents’, Pediatrics, 116: 5, pp. 1183–91. Scott, Ridley (1982), Blade Runner, USA: The Ladd Company. Straayer, C. (1998), ‘Femme Fatale or lesbian femme: Bound in sexual Différence’, in E. A. Kaplan (ed.), Women in Film Noir, New ed., London: British Film Institute, pp. 151–63. Tansey, R., Carroll, R. and McClaren, N. (2003), ‘Moral antecedents of smoking behaviour and risk beliefs among overseas Asian students’, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 16: 2, pp. 91–110. Tinkler, P. (2006), Smoke Signals: Women, Smoking and Visual Culture, Oxford and New York: Berg. Truffaut, François (1962), Jules et Jim/Jules and Jim, France: Les Films du Carrosse and Sédif Productions. Tsai, Y.-W., Tzu-I Tsai, T.-I., Yang, C. L. and Kuo, K. N. (2008) ‘Gender differences in smoking behaviours in an Asian population’, Journal of Women’s Health, 17: 6, pp. 971–78. Valdivia, A. N. (2009), ‘What can we get away with? The ethics of art and entertainment in the neoliberal world’, in L. Wilkins and C. G. Christians (eds), The Handbook of Mass Media Ethics, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 189–202. Vanderschelden, I. (2007), Amélie, London: I. B. Tauris. Vartan, S. (1981), ‘L’amour c’est comme une cigarette’, lyrics by Michel Mallory and Florrie Palmer, France: RCA, Cat: PB 8734.

82

Asian Cinema

ac27.1.indb 82

18/08/16 5:47 PM


Vincendeau, G. (2005), ‘Miss France’, Sight and Sound, 15: 2, 01 February, pp. 12–15. Wong, Kar-Wai (1995), Fallen Angels, Hong Kong: Chan Ye-Cheng and Jet Tone Productions. —— (2000), In the Mood For Love, Hong Kong: Block 2 Pictures, Jet Tone Production and Paradis Films. —— (2004), 2046, Hong Kong: Jet Tone Films. World Health Organization (WHO) (2010), Empower Women: Combating Tobacco Industry Marketing in the WHO European Region, Copenhagen: WHO. —— (2013), WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2013, Copenhagen: WHO.

SUGGESTED CITATION Pugsley, P. C. and McCann, B. (2016), ‘Female protagonists and the role of smoking in Chinese and French cinema’, Asian Cinema 27: 1, pp. 59–83, doi: 10.1386/ac.27.1.59_1

CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS Peter C. Pugsley is Head of the Media Department at the University of Adelaide. He has published widely on the cinemas of Asia, including the recent books Morality and Sexuality in Asian Cinema: Cinematic Boundaries (Routledge, 2015) and Tradition, Culture and Aesthetics in Contemporary Asian Cinema (Routledge, 2013). Contact: School of Humanities, The University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia. E-mail: [email protected] Ben McCann is Head of the French Department at the University of Adelaide. His latest book is Julien Duvivier (French Film Directors Series) (Manchester University, 2016). In 2013 he published Ripping Open The Set: French Film Design 1930–1939 (Peter Lang) and Le Jour se lève (Ciné-file French Film Guides) (I.B. Tauris). He also co-edited Cinema Utopia: The Cinema of Michael Haneke (Wallflower Press, 2011). Contact: School of Humanities, The University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia. E-mail: [email protected] Peter C. Pugsley and Ben McCann have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.


ac27.1.indb 83

18/08/16 5:47 PM