"I wanted to do a portrait film with extended takes. Smoking came into it later, as the ploy to get people to stand still and not be totally conscious of being filmed, although a big part of Twenty Cigarettes is that very self-consciousness of a person in front of a camera and how that changes over time. Cigarettes also have this built-in duration and people will smoke at a different rate, and they'll smoke the whole cigarette or part of the cigarette. Smoking has such a stigma now, especially in the U.S., so I thought it would be interesting to make a film where I won't have any value judgment at all on smoking." Sorry! This has NC-17 written allllll over it. [NYT]
[Photo: TIFF]