What is a good substitute for a cigarette in a dramatic movie scene?
Cigarette’s are really cool. Not the whole cancer part so much, but the standing there smoking at certain moments in cinematic history is priceless.
What can we replace the cigarette with? Can anything fill such cool shoes?
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43 Answers
A one-ie, shaped like a cigarette.
A bottle of Jack Daniels?
I guess that is just as bad as the cigarettes.
I have seen toothpicks used.
A spoon. Specifically, a spoon being used to eat something like ice cream or pudding. Think “Rusty” in Ocean’s 11.
I agree with @loser. A cigar is way cooler than a cigarette. Classier too.
A lollipop, if anyone can do it as well as Kojak.
A toothpick, debate over.
When in doubt, suck the thumb. That is what it’s there for.
A gun? Only thing in movies that trumps cigarettes.
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Replace it with…absolutely nothing. Many of us who don’t smoke at all would easily relate to dramatic movie scenes where nobody is smoking anything.
Flipping around a butterfly knife.
No substitute. Look – smoking is bad for you, blah blah blah. So is everything else. But nothing punctuates a dramatic gesture quite like a cigarette slashing through the air in an argument. And the slow, luxurious wafting of smoke at an intense moment is the perfect visual counter. And no, I don’t smoke.
a fantastic articulation @ranwulf
i too don’t smoke…but i agree fully
@ranwulf damn, I really want to smoke now
Holding a dwarf by his erection & using him as an umberella would be one alternative.I can see Bogart now “Here’s looking at you kid“Practical to, I mean a cigarette wilts & looks all floppy in the rain, not cool.Wheras the wee man’s appendage would be up to the task,I imagine.
I think cigars are really cool, but it only seems like it’ll fit a mob or mafia leader.
I don’t really think anything can replace a cigarette, especially the flick of the butt when finished.
Brad Pitt’s roles in Fight Club and Snatch required him to smoke (and did a damn good job at it).
But the closest thing would probably be what everyone here said, a tootchpick.
The hero could take a small rat out of his pocket & start stroking it.
A kazoo….much classier than a ciggy butt.
I reject the premise of the question. Cigarettes are neither “cool” nor “dramatic”. Seeing them ruins any move I watch, as they fill me with nothing but disgust.
A cigarette still invokes a certain image. Reflective of our society.
Cigars do that too. Like cursing in a movie or sex.
You might find it dirty or disgusting but so is the world. Our farts still smell, people have bad breath and bad attitudes.
It all makes for good “realistic” drama.
Turning off one’s cell phone. Standing there without being interrupted fully immersed in dramatic reality of the moment.
“What is a good substitute for a cigarette in a dramatic movie scene?”
A Hot Dog with sauerkraut and mustard.
I’ll take two.
An ocarina. For the geeks out there.
@PacificRimjob Rolled up into a cigarette.
So it’ll be a big, smoking piece of irony.
The downside of the cigarette is that it’s so trite. In a movie, we ought to be able to come up with specific actions that either retell the story, or emphasize a character trait.
For example, in a movie about a prison break, the anal warden spends a conversation folding a piece of paper into ever smaller squares.
Or the teenager who’s trying to find herself peels the label off her drink bottle.
Or the mother who’s choosing not to see the molestation of her child by her boyfriend spends the scene cleaning the kitchen, but her visitor notices she’s missed one very obvious spill in the middle of the counter.
Yes, actors love to hold them; it substitutes for doing the work of the actor, and makes characters look convenstional.
Cigarettes are just lazy writing. Make stuff up!
@mattbrowne: Interesting. I was thinking that playing with one’s smart phone was the modern equivalent of smoking while standing alone at a bar or while waiting by a doorway. A friend once told me that he smoked so that it appeared he was doing something even when he had nothing to do. But as you revealed, it is the exact opposite. Smokers seem to be introspective as they wait, while phone users reach outward.
I am surprised no one has mentioned a joint yet.
My choice would be a cup of coffee. Steam wafting up.
A joint was mentioned. Answer 16. :-)
A hat covering the character’s face? ;)
@simpleD – Yep. That was my reasoning exactly.
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