Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man

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Mulder and Scully are told a speculative history of the mysterious person they know as the Cigarette-Smoking Man.

[edit] Summary

Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" is the seventh episode of season 4 of the television series The X-Files. It details the previous exploits of the Cigarette Smoking Man (CSM), which include some of the most infamous political assassinations of the 20th century, rigging the Oscars, preventing the Buffalo Bills from winning the Super Bowl and drugging the Russian goalkeeper Vladislav Tretiak during the Miracle on Ice ice hockey match. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully meet with The Lone Gunmen, where Frohike details what may be CSM's real life. Finally, in the present day, CSM contemplates his failed career as a pulp fiction author.

In one of the scenes, the CSM is seen having a conference over internal matters, which he has the final say on. One member mentions, "spooky" and CSM tells him that he is, "mine to keep an eye on." After being notified via pager that, Gorbachev has just resigned, he proceeds to give the conference men Christmas presents, which are all ties. Before he leaves, one of the men asks CSM if he would like to eat with their families for Christmas, to which CSM is surprised, but ultimately declines, lying; claiming he has family to see. The men at the conference look at each other quizzically after opening their gifts. In the following scene it is foreshadowed that he is 'seeing family' as he stops in front of Mulder's door in the Bureau.

[edit] Background Information

In the original script, the Cigarette Smoking Man actually shot Frohike to death at the end of the episode. Although this version of the ending was actually filmed and several takes of it were shot, Chris Carter had Morgan and Wong change the episode's conclusion because, according to CSM actor William B. Davis, if Frohike survived, the CSM's enigma remained. The episode's production crew subsequently discovered that the footage of the original ending had mysteriously disappeared. Director James Wong later jokingly considered the highly unlikely possibility that the Lone Gunmen themselves had made the footage disappear. (The X-Files Season 4 DVD)

There was some concern among the production crew, before filming of this episode began, that the dramatic impact of the Cigarette Smoking Man would be diluted by the story focusing on him, since virtually no personal information about the character had previously been revealed.

According to Frank Spotnitz, a lot of the fans failed to pick up on the subtlety that the version of past events in this episode was only a possible history of the Cigarette Smoking Man and not necessarily his definitive one. Frank Spotnitz chose to believe that the Cigarette Smoking Man's actual history differed from these events.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, as Agents Mulder and Scully, appear in this episode only in voice-over and archive footage. Although some people thought this episode was written as a way to give the lead actors a week off, the episode was one of the first ideas that Glen Morgan and James Wong had when they returned to The X-Files television series, after their departure to work on their own series, Space: Above and Beyond. The production crew simply realized that they could produce the episode without the actors' participation and everyone was fine with this. The situation allowed Duchovny to spend a week in Los Angeles, a fact that he later cited as one of the prime reasons that the episode had been one of his favorites in the season and Gillian Anderson also named it amongst her favorites from the year.

Bill Davis was happy that this episode would focus almost entirely on his mysterious character but, like many, he was initially puzzled at the seeming contradictions in the script. He found it easier to accept that someone might claim responsibility for the death of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King than the idea that a person had kept the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl Hell. The actor's task of finding the fine line between tragedy and comedy also proved to be a challenge. Chris Carter had to speak with Bill Davis on several occasions and spent hours with him on the telephone, talking about the character, because the actor felt that the episode really made the character something that it wasn't. Carter tried to explain to Davis that, even if a person's mission in life is to be a destroyer, that person still has hope in the back of their mind that they can be a creator and that this vanity was suddenly the Cigarette Smoking Man's vanity. Carter believed that Glen Morgan and James Wong were also attempting to express this message, that it was clearly evident in the episode and that this aforementioned vanity of the Cigarette Smoking Man made him "sort of a silly person". Davis acknowledged Carter's assistance with the performance in this episode.

According to Davis, Jim Wong's direction was also a big help because Wong told the actor to play against the fact that many of the stage directions pointed toward farce and to instead let the situation play out. The director also helped Davis with his character's miserable speech in which the CSM compares life to a box of chocolates; Davis was initially "almost Shakespearean", when he prepared the scene and played it for the first time, but, according to Davis, Jim Wong made him "toss it off more, and it worked out fine. (I Want to Believe: The Official Guide to The X-Files, volume 3)

This episode is the only one in the series that provides a possible name for the "Deep Throat" character - Ronald.

There are several references to the film Forrest Gump in this episode, notably the "Life is like a box of chocolates" speech. Like Gump, CSM is present in and influences a great deal of recent historical events, but unlike Forrest, he ends up embittered by his experiences.

The scene where the young CSM is first recruited to assassinate JFK is reminiscent of the scene in which Martin Sheen is given his mission to assassinate Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz in the film Apocalypse Now (1979). The scene may also reference The Day of the Jackal, since CSM and the Jackal both count Rafael Trujillo and Patrice Lumumba among their successful past missions.

The Cigarette Smoking Man's hobby as a writer in this episode was influenced by Howard Hunt being described as a writer in the film All the President's Men. (The Complete X-Files: Behind the Series, the Myths and the Movies) Aside from being one of several films that had a general influence on the creation of The X-Files, the same movie also specifically inspired the series' creation of the "Deep Throat" character, the practice of an "X" being taped to Mulder's window to contact the "X" character and the design of the set for the Dallas field office in The X-Files Movie.

CSM's line about how he ensured that the Buffalo Bills would never win the Super Bowl as long as he is alive has become part of the Buffalo Sports Curse.

Chris Owens appears as the young CSM, as he had done in other episodes. In season 5 and 6 he played Special Agent Jeffery Spender, who is later revealed to be CSM's son.

[edit] Links and References

[edit] References

assassination; patsy

Previous episode:
Sanguinarium

The X-Files
Season 4

Next episode:
Tunguska


Series:	The X-Files
Original Airdate:	11-17-96
Production Number:	4x07
Date(s):	December 24, 1991; November 1996
Written by:	Glen Morgan
Directed by:	James Wong