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Charlie Rose Interview-- Thank You for Smoking



Just before the movie Thank You for Smoking was released, Charlie Rose (PBS) interviewed Christopher Buckley (the author of the original book), Jason Reitman (the script writer and director of the movie), David Sacks (who produced the movie, his first), and Aaron Eckhardt (the actor who played Nick Naylor).

I find this interview interesting for a variety of reasons, some of which I will detail here.

1.  Buckley notes that Reitman had been screening the movie at college campuses across the country. Reitman recalls one particular showing at the University of California at Berkeley, which he says is an intimidating place to screen a "libertarian film" (more on that later).  During the Q & A session (after the film), one older lady stood up and starting berating him for not going after Big Tobacco for doing such evil things.  And the students starting booing her until she shut up.  Reitman is quite pleased with that response.  Why?

2.  Elsewhere in the interview, both Reitman and Sacks refer to the movie as a "libertarian" film. I won't go into the details here, but the point is _The movie has a politics_.  In what ways is the movie "libertarian"?

3.  Sacks, who is a noted libertarian, goes on to say that he wanted to produce this movie because he loved how "the morality of the story is inverted"; usually the Big Tobacco person is the bad guy, but in this case, he's really the hero, "you're rooting for him." He goes on to say that, "We've made 'spin' necessary . . . it's society's hypocrisy that's made spin necessary. . . . We love our vices, and big government has gone too far when they crack down on these things." 

4.  Buckley notes that the son, Joey, is entirely Reitman's addition to the story.  (Joey does appear in the book, but only briefly; Reitman makes Joey a major character, and Nick's relationship with his son is a key element-- it's function is largely to "humanize" Naylor.

Following from that, it is interesting to see Buckley and Reitman together-- Buckley praising Reitman's work, and Reitman giving credit to "Buckley's words."  Why?  Because the book and the movie are radically different stories.  In addition to the development of Joey as a character, there are a lot of significant differences:  for starters, in the book, Nick is not really the Sultan of Spin.  In fact, he's kind of a bumbling fool, trying (and often failing) to defend the indefensible.  Second, Nick's kidnapping is actually orchestrated by his boss, B.R.  (Incidentally, in the movie, they don't tell you what was written on the sign hanging around his neck, only that "it was some pretty f***ed up s**t."  In the book you find out that what it said was "Executed for Crimes Against Humanity.") After the kidnapping, the F.B.I. determines that it was in fact Nick who orchestrated his own kidnapping (he is "set up" to take the fall by a coworker), and Nick ends up serving time in jail.

Finally, and I think most significantly, the ending of movie differs completely from the book. Reitman, in a different interview, says that when he was trying to find someone to produce the movie, some of the major movie studios wanted him to change the ending, saying that Nick has to go work for the Red Cross or something, which Reitman thought was "silly." This seems strange to me, since in the book, after Nick gets out of jail, he goes to work for "Clean Lungs 2000," an anti-smoking campaign. What do you think, then, is the significance of the change Reitman made to the ending?


Comments

  1. TishApril 2, 2020 at 9:31 PM

    I do agree with the ending of the movie is completely different from the book. They wanted to make some changes for the ending. I think they should have followed the book just because I feel like books always are very detailed and they have more information they end up giving you and ends up dragging you more in than a movie. Thats how I feel but others might feel different about that.

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