Women smoking on screen: Women smoke for emotional reasons, men smoke for other reasons.
In the film Stalker (1979) directed by Andri Tarkovsky the Stalkers wife lights up a cigarette just after she has nursed and put her husband to bed after his latest return from the Zone. She is in an obvious state of distress, the Stalker has had his faith in humanity punched by the desire for easy happiness and after he has been placed in bed she leaves his side and crouches on the floor in a corner, lights up a cigarette and explains why she decided to live and marry the Stalker despite him being a Stalker and one of God’s fools and the warnings from her mother. She is distraught as she reflects on the hardship that she must endure whilst also gaining so much happiness from her love, a love that is bitter-sweet and un-regrettable. Her hands tremble and it is the cigarette and the act of smoking that offers her a touch of calming solace
While a scene earlier when the Writer, Professor and Stalker had just returned to the café, where they were eventually meet by the Stalker’s wife who asked the Stalker to return home with her and the child: here she exhibits a quiet strength. As the family leaves the Writer look back after them with a smoke between index and middle fingers and his chin rested on the anatomical snuffbox of his hand that holds the cigarette. He is in deep contemplation regarding the Stalker and the experience he has just had. The shot is largely static with little movement and the visceral quality of contemplation is framed. The Writer is show to be quietly contemplative and is in control of his emotional state
What we have in quick succession, by a director who is regarded as one of the great maters of cinema is both male and female on screen and being quite expressive with a cigarette in hand. The Writer is composed and thinking whilst the Wife is having an out pouring of emotions and it seems that she needs a smoke just to be able to breath. We are presented with two polemic depictions of smoking, one being for a activity whilst contemplating the other as a claiming activity whilst distraught. But also are we being presented with and solidification of an old myth: that women smoke for emotional whilst men for other reasons?
