Large dog taught to smoke in WW1 field hospital....
A large dog, of uncertain breed, is rescued from a life of scavenging when he wanders into a French field hospital during World War 1. Before long he is adopted by an experimental ward treating shell-shock patients. The presiding doctor is a young man named André Breton, soon to become the founder of the Surrealist movement. A beautiful Chinese nurse teaches the dog to smoke . After the war, Breton returns to Paris, the dog and the nurse join a small travelling circus .... one day the circus is visited by the great Belgian painter James Ensor ....
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POZIBLE CAMPAIGN 2012Click on the image above of 'Le Chien qui Fume' in 'Lonesome Dog Blues' and see the Crowd Funding trailer - which reached its target in 2012. The production of the film 'The Chien qui Fume - A Smokey Life', began on the basis of this support, the film has since entered the next phase of its production.
… official trailer coming soon… 
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This is the painting Dr. Sylvie Gaspard inherited from her father believed to be by the Belgian painter James Ensor
It features both the Chinese acrobat Peony Mei and Le Chien que Fume
It features both the Chinese acrobat Peony Mei and Le Chien que Fume
Truth is in the eye of the beholder
The time is the final months of World War 1; the place, northern France. A beautiful Chinese acrobat, suddenly abandoned by her lover, is left stranded without papers. Seeking security and anonymity, she enlists as a nurse with the French army and is posted to an experimental field hospital on the Western Front. She works alongside, and falls in love with, a charismatic young doctor named André Breton. One day a large dog "from who knows where?" wanders in from the battlefield. Summoning her almost forgotten circus skills, learnt long ago in Canton, she amuses the forlorn and damaged soldiers by teaching the dog to smoke a pipe. Eventually he is also taught to wear human clothing and to stand on his hind legs. After the war, the two join a small travelling circus while Breton returns to Paris, soon to found the Surrealist movement. The Smoking Dog joins a group of other trained dogs in a tent-show that makes him a popular curiosity, but he grows to dislike this newfound status more and more. Gradually, the act of smoking becomes less a trick and more a need. He loses whatever common feelings he shared with other dogs and becomes aware of a more human sensibility separating him from his origins. And yet the world of humans remains beyond his grasp and comprehension. As his identity crisis deepens, his performances become more distracted and lethargic and his smoking more addictive. The dog’s attempts to fit into human society end in failure, so he decides to set out in search of some kind of understanding. Stoically, the dog continues his journey, uncertain of what he is looking for but determined to find it all the same. He becomes forever the outsider.
The time is the final months of World War 1; the place, northern France. A beautiful Chinese acrobat, suddenly abandoned by her lover, is left stranded without papers. Seeking security and anonymity, she enlists as a nurse with the French army and is posted to an experimental field hospital on the Western Front. She works alongside, and falls in love with, a charismatic young doctor named André Breton. One day a large dog "from who knows where?" wanders in from the battlefield. Summoning her almost forgotten circus skills, learnt long ago in Canton, she amuses the forlorn and damaged soldiers by teaching the dog to smoke a pipe. Eventually he is also taught to wear human clothing and to stand on his hind legs. After the war, the two join a small travelling circus while Breton returns to Paris, soon to found the Surrealist movement. The Smoking Dog joins a group of other trained dogs in a tent-show that makes him a popular curiosity, but he grows to dislike this newfound status more and more. Gradually, the act of smoking becomes less a trick and more a need. He loses whatever common feelings he shared with other dogs and becomes aware of a more human sensibility separating him from his origins. And yet the world of humans remains beyond his grasp and comprehension. As his identity crisis deepens, his performances become more distracted and lethargic and his smoking more addictive. The dog’s attempts to fit into human society end in failure, so he decides to set out in search of some kind of understanding. Stoically, the dog continues his journey, uncertain of what he is looking for but determined to find it all the same. He becomes forever the outsider.
JAMES ENSOR ~ PAINTER OF THE CARNIVALESQUE
James Ensor (1860–1949) was a major figure in the Belgian avant-garde of the late nineteenth century and an important precursor to the development of Expressionism in the early twentieth. In both respects he has influenced generations of later artists. His innovative and allegorical use of light, his prominent use of satire, his deep interest in carnival and performance, and his own self-fashioning and use of masking, travesty, and role-playing. James Ensor was a socially engaged and self-critical artist involved with the issues of his times and with contemporary debates on the very nature of modernism.
James Ensor with mask
