film, spirits and cocktails in. The very first film of an alcoholic beverage seems to have been shown by the Lumière brothers in Paris in 1895, the first public screening in the history of film. In Baby’s Meal, two bottles (whether wine or spirits is hard to say) sit in the foreground of the table while a baby eats. Just like that, simply because it was part of life, alcohol entered cinematic stories.
The Universal Language
In Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940), John Jones counts on the interruption of “the universal language” (a tray of Martinis) to rescue him from a conversation in a foreign language. Some directors have made trademarks out of drinking characters like these, whose conversation is fueled by alcohol consumption, and often close-ups of the drink being poured act as an indicator that the liquor enables the plot. Examples include American directors John Cassavetes, who portrays stumbling, often lonely characters who need to drink to go on and Whit Stillman, who depicts the social gatherings and drinking habits of urban haute bourgeoisie Americans; and Korean director Hong Sang-Soo, in whose films drinking soju leads to a higher form of truth.
Alcoholic Storylines
When alcohol explicitly takes the center of the plot, two main storylines exist. The happy drunk enjoys life and makes things fun for others; the lost soul drowns his or her despair in alcohol and disconnects from society. It is notable that female characters belong mostly to the second category, with only a few exceptions, such as the carefree character in Auntie Mame (1958). In cinematic stories, drinking women always seem to be “broken” and pose a problem to society. In any case, both comic and serious narrative arcs were represented early on. Silent films of the 1910s and 1920s staged drunks whose exaggerated gestures and off timing worked well in burlesque comedies: Charlie Chaplin and Max Linder, among others, exemplify such characters. The alcoholic downfall of doomed working-class characters could be seen in D. W. Griffiths’s Broken Blossoms (1919) or in L’Assommoir (1909), an adaptation of Émile Zola’s nineteenth-century naturalistic novel. Overall, Hollywood seems to be more interested than others in considering the dangers of alcohol, with a taste for redemption stories. However, comedies prevailed for a long time, and critics usually agree on dating the real emergence of a more socially conscious genre after World War II, with films such as The Lost Weekend (1945) and Days of Wine and Roses (1962) being landmarks in their representation of addiction.
Moreover, the distorted visions and obsessions of the drunken mind allowed filmmakers to experiment very early on with an array of cinematic techniques and strategies: blurred focus, swirling cameras, cut to dream sequences, and superimposition to name a few. The Small Back Room (1949) opts for a surrealist rendition of a man’s obsession for a bottle of scotch that he is trying to resist. To the ticking of a clock, perceptions are gradually altered; the desired beverage becomes a motif on the wallpaper, then an object of giant proportions.
The Rough Liquor
The Spirit of the Land
Metaphorically playing off of alcohol being the transformed product of the soil, some films construct a mythology that unites the land, its inhabitants, and their local liquor. For example, Western movies, which in many ways work as American origin stories, often associate long shots of the inhospitable reddish landscapes with close-ups of the glass of rye, bourbon, or other whisky ordered at the saloon. On the same note, the comedy Whisky Galore (1949) features a small Scottish island “in mourning for a departed spirit,” meaning that they are faced with a wartime whisky shortage. The opening sequence establishes the relationship of the inhabitants to their island by use of a voice-over and a montage of landscapes, fishermen, and farmers. When catastrophe hits, it is filmed as a deep crisis of identity that will only be resolved when every niche and cave is filled with the liquor.
This rings very similar to a scene in The Public Enemy (1931), when a frenzied Chicago stacks liquor in any container at hand on the eve of Prohibition. Prohibition films participate in the American myth and are a genre of their own with speakeasies, bootlegger gangsters (Scarface, 1932), and bathtub gin made in actual bathtubs (The Roaring Twenties, 1939). Ironically, historians generally note how wet the films of the Volstead era were.
Hard Characters, Hard Liquors
In the cinematic imagination, bootleg liquor is the drink of the working class, the countryman, or the gangster. Being put to the trial of the moonshine works as some sort of test of manhood. In Jaws (1975), Captain Quint, a seasoned shark hunter who negotiates apricot brandy as part of his payment, offers shots of homemade liquor to oceanographer Hopper and police chief Brody, who spits it out. Hopper is in constant opposition with Quint (they compare their scars, and Quint makes fun of Hopper’s city hands and college education). In Jaws, this stereotypical rivalry is complicated by the fact that Quint is revealed, in a stunning drunken monologue, to have survived the horrific torpedoing of the USS Indianapolis during World War II. In fact, war veterans often consume rotgut alcohol in film, as if to remind us of the internal trauma that consumes them. Freddy, a veteran who is skilled at making liquor with anything at hand in The Master (2012), is a good example of this.
French cinema, although typically more focused on wine, has its share of memorable eau-de-vie scenes. In the cult film Les tontons flingueurs (1963), old school gangsters drink an especially strong “vitriol” that, as we learn, had to be retired due to having caused blindness. In the popular comedy Les bronzés font du ski (1979), a group of tourists lost in the mountains has to politely endure some toad-infused shallot brandy, a fictional play on the real vipérine, an alcohol made with vipers.
In cinema, such strong drinks are often a man’s affair, although some films represent women who can hold their liquor. Portrayed as the opposite of damsels in distress, they often have to display a form of virility to make it in a man’s world. This can be seen in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). We encounter Marion Ravenwood as the tough owner of a Nepalese tavern where the petite young woman, surrounded by men, is winning a drinking contest against an imposing local. A more refined version of this could be Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). This character of rare strength and strong attachment to her land (who is casually reminded by Rhett Butler that she is “no lady”) is caught several times drinking brandy in secret.
Tailored Drinks as a Screenwriting Device
Ordering or serving a drink is a good way to introduce a character in a script. The first sentence Greta Garbo ever said on film (Anna Christie, 1930) was to a bartender: “Give me a whisky, ginger ale on the side, and don’t be stingy, baby!” What one orders helps define who one is; it sometimes moves the plot and unlocks poetic associations.
The Personality Drink
As the most represented cocktail in film (the most represented liquor is whisky), the Martini often works as a “neutral” drink, to the point where the main protagonist of The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) is told that it is for “squares.” However, because of the many variations in a cocktail recipe, tailoring it to one’s taste works as an affirmation of singularity. See Martini.
The James Bond films are a good example of this. We see Bond having his emblematic cocktail for the first time in Dr. No (1962). The villain makes a point of knowing the tastes of Bond, his prisoner, and serves him a medium-dry vodka Martini with lemon peel “shaken, not stirred.” In Casino Royale (2006), the spy confirms his expertise by inventing the Vesper. See Vesper. That James Bond is such a cocktail connoisseur is important for a character who often has to mix with (and outsmart) an elite crowd, including the self-proclaimed superior minds of the criminal network SPECTRE.
Groundhog Day (1993) comically exploits this trope. Phil Connors inexplicably has to relive the same day every day. He makes the most of it and tries to win the heart of Rita by pretending that “his” drink is the same as hers, a sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist (in a previous scene, we understood his drink to actually be Jim Beam with water and ice).
The Character Type
Sometimes a cocktail allows poetic associations that reinforce a character type. In the film noir The Big Sleep (1946), the femme fatale Vivian orders a Scotch Mist in a textural scene where her shiny jacket makes her stand out amidst the soft black and whites of the bar. The name of the drink is an appropriate match for this enigmatic character who dangerously blurs detective Marlowe’s insight.
A Stage of Life
Spirits can offer small indications about the stage of life of the drinker. In Judd Apatow’s comedy Superbad (2007), the underage protagonists desperately try to purchase raspberry vodka and Goldslick vodka (a fictional twist on Goldschläger, which contains golden flakes) for their girlfriends. See oro or gold liqueurs. Both drinks match the mainstream imagination of inexperienced teenage drinkers. In Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco (1998), recent college graduate Alice is shocked when she realizes that ordering Vodka Tonics makes her a bit of a cliché and ends up ordering a Whisky Sour.
A play on these age expectations can be found in the cream-based cocktail. In The Big Lebowski (1998), we first encounter the hero buying half and half at the supermarket. The Dude, as he likes to be called, famously drinks White Russians (he also calls them Caucasians) that he sloppily mixes. See White Russian. This choice of beverage is interesting for a character who is in many ways stuck in a form of adolescence (he does not work and mainly goes bowling with his friends). Another example of a deceptively innocent cocktail can be seen in Days of Wine and Roses, where the teetotaler Kirsten is persuaded to taste her first cocktail, a Brandy Alexander, because of her love of chocolate. See Brandy Alexander. The innocence of this first sip contrasts with the severe degree of her addiction at the end. Finally, the fictional Moloko Plus in Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange (1971) operates an interesting reversal of the symbolism of milk. This dairy cocktail is laced with unspecified spirits and opiates, poured from the plastic breast of a statue. The film stages a stark contrast between the innocence of young men drinking milk and their subsequent violent behavior, this being reinforced by the ambiguous role of the state acting as a sort of perverted mother in this dystopian fiction.
The Signature Drink
Sometimes an odd drink choice can be a director’s trademark. In Tarantino’s Death Proof (2007), the bartender (played by the director himself) serves shots of the French liquor Chartreuse. Tarantino was looking for a relatively unknown drink and even had a neon Chartreuse sign made especially for the film. Such unusual choice is common for a director who had a nineteenth century slave master from Mississippi order the anachronistic Polynesian Pearl Diver in Django Unchained (2012), probably an homage to Fritz Lang’s The Blue Gardenia (1953).
Lost Spirits
Finally, bars are a common presence in film, as they function as a microcosm of society. A variation on the bartender type can be seen in the film Cocktail (1988) and its flashy take on flair bartending. However, probably no film has so efficiently represented the complex poetry of liquor in its relation to the human mind than Kubrick’s masterpiece The Shining (1980). Indeed, all spirits break loose when failed writer Jack Torrance walks into the empty bar of the Overlook Hotel and sells his soul to the enigmatic bartender Lloyd for a bourbon on the rocks.
Cornes, Judy. Alcohol in the Movies, 1898–1962: A Critical History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006.
Denzin, Norman K. Hollywood Shot by Shot: Alcoholism in American Cinema. New York: A. de Gruyter, 1991.
Good, Howard. The Drunken Journalist. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2000.
James, Nick. “I for Intoxication.” Sight and Sound 7 (1997): 26–28.
Kanner, Melinda. “That’s Why the Lady Is a Drunk: Women, Alcoholism and Popular Culture.” In Sexual Politics and Popular Culture, ed. Diane Raymond, 183–198. Bowling Green, OK: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990.
Lachaud, Maxime. Redneck Movies. Pertuis: Rouge Profond, 2014.
By: Virginie Lauret