Professional Report - Smoke Free Movies

where the villains dominate, smoking comes as a property. Smoking, bars, guns, bullets, kothas…these are
again rakshasas’ (demons’) properties..”
- Subhash Ghai, producer/director
“Because of also the anti-smoking campaign getting rather shrilly and there are people who use it almost as a
means of social power, to tick somebody off, I could today if I were working on a story use a character as a
rebel… to say that he is a shallow/immature person, a person who sometimes rebels without understanding in
which case I would use this. But it would be used to illuminate how shallow that character is.”
- Anjum Rajabali, screenwriter
If the audience identified with that (a negative) character, then of course, he would subconsciously absorb his
mannerisms and activity. But remember in all these films (like Satya – which dwelled on the underworld), the
major characters are played by actors who may be stars or may not be stars but have the star charisma built
into their personality, otherwise they wouldn’t get a major role. So when they smoke, like in Company, Ajay
(Devgan) smokes. Not only is he a star but also a very fine actor. Though he is portraying a bad character, the
audience while seeing him in the film is not just watching Ajay Devgan, they are also watching the character.
The consciousness is simultaneous, that’s why you enjoy it more. When he does it, it’s not just a gangster who
is doing it, but also Ajay Devgan who is doing it. There’s this seductive quality which is part of the aesthetics of
the cinema. Where the star persona and the character is merged in a manner that looks very attractive.”
- Govind Nihalani, director
Aditya (Pancholi) smokes (in Yes Boss) because we have shown him as a womaniser and a rich guy who is on
the wrong track. So it represents power and negativity. (Smoking is for characters who are) Mainly disturbed
and those from the darker side of life. Even in Rangeela, Jackie smokes when he is discussing about his wife’s
death. It reflected inner conflict. Jackie was shown as a big star…Power…Gulshan Grover is a hassled director
who is stressed because nothing is happening on the sets and so he is smoking. Smoking is used to portray
conflict and turmoil …rather than pleasure… If he is a positive character, and I want to relate to the upper class,
the family audience, I won’t do it. If I show him smoking, the reaction would be ‘he is not a good man’. That’s
the Indian psyche. `Cigarette peeta hai!’ (‘he smokes’). I don’t think that way but that’s how the audience, at
least the current crop of family audiences, thinks. The reaction is ‘oh the boy smokes, I am not going to get my
daughter married to him.’ Love stories and social films don’t show smoking. The other kind of films which show
the dark side of life and deal with poverty, crime and underworld, there cigarette/smoking becomes an essential
part. That’s because the films are shot in less light, in dingy joints, and the unexplored areas…cigarette
becomes a very essential device.”
- Sanjay Chhel, writer-director
“Realism doesn’t make for imitation. What they (the audiences) imitate is something that is aspirational. If it is in
an aspirational situation that you place a cigarette, then it is dangerous.”
- Shyam Benegal, director
• Do actors who smoke off-screen influence on-screen portrayals?
“The verdict on this issue is divided. While some felt that actors who smoke do tend to suggest to directors that
they use smoking as a prop or an acting device, others felt that even chain-smokers like Shah Rukh Khan and
Ajay Devgan tend to avoid smoking on screen unless the “script demands it”.
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