Cigarette Blues

“Cigarette Blues” is a little film with a big message – that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and cancer will kill you. The pain and sorrow of this fact is demonstrated through the work of two very different artists. A sculpture, composed entirely of cigarerette butts smoked by prominent West Coast artist Louis Bunce, completed shortly before his death of lung cancer, opens the film. Oakland Blues singer Sonny Rhodes follows, singing the title song, a mournful tale of his lover whose refusal to stop smoking led to her death. “‘Cigarette Blues’ is a beaut!… you take people right up to the brunt of smoking without ever any sense of preachin’, never anything to cause the defenses to harden, and show’em (with unusually delicate balance-even for you! and in celebration, as is your usual) this ‘view.’ Bravo!” – Stan Brakhage