Wayne Wang's Smoke

In Wayne Wang’s Smoke, the scene at Auggie Wren’s house where Auggie and Paul Benjamin are looking at Auggie’s photo album, which consists of four thousand pictures he has taken of the same place, at the same time, everyday, is a significant scene that contributes meaning to the film as a whole. Paul Benjamin is a writer who always purchases cigarettes from Auggie Wren’s tobacco shop; this is how the two men came to meet. The scene encompasses a wide range of mise-en-scene such as costumes and lighting, cinematic techniques such as a medium shot of the characters, as well as narrative techniques such as speech between the characters and the tense of the story, all which add emotion and encompass the most recognizable attributes of the scene.

Auggie is showing Paul his photography albums, which consist of photographs taken of the same corner of the street where the tobacco shop is located. Auggie reveals that every photo is snapped at eight o’clock in the morning when Auggie opens the store. It is his life’s work and something he is very dedicated to doing. Paul glances over each page quickly and turns page after page, again scanning pictures too fast. In fact, Paul appears to not understand anything he is seeing because everything looks the same and he is not able to spot the distinctiveness of each photograph. After witnessing this for several minutes, Auggie finally disturbs Paul’s confusion and explains, “You’ll never get it if you don't slow down, my friend. You’re hardly even looking at the pictures. They’re all the same, but each one is different from every other one” (Smoke).

The music starts when Auggie describes the reasoning behind his photographs and viewers see photographs transition across the screen one after the other. The delicate music is an important part of this scene as it allows for viewers to focus on the photographs while listening to the soft melody. The music intensifies as Paul discovers a photo of his late wife Ellen and then it stops when he starts to sob. The break off of the music forces viewers to focus on Paul and his heartbreak. This scene also reveals a common tone of the film – especially Paul’s life – that is melancholy. And, this tone is exemplified with the somber piano tune playing in the background as he speaks to