Saturday,
March 24, 2007
Farewell Tony: The Sopranos Finally Gets
Whacked
The
ANNOTICO Report
The
final, nine-part series of "The Sopranos" begins on April 8 in the
This
article gives us a little insight to the "twisted" nature of it's creator, David Chase's (De Cesare or DeCaesare) mind, and perhaps his willingness to portray
Italian Americans in the Negative Stereotypical manner. Chase claims that
many characters are based on his family, including that of Tony's mother, Livia. "My mother was so downbeat, so relentlessly
pessimistic," Chase said, "and that, in Livia,
all [came] from her." Chase often told people stories about the
troubled relationship he shared back in
Curiously,
Chase's only child uses her original family name: Michele DeCesare
as an actress, and appeared in a couple of the episodes .
While
the soap-opera domesticity of the Sopranos has an air of reality to it - the
mafia family is cartoonish. From the names - Sal
"Big Pussy" Bompensiero, was one early
character who now "sleeps with the fishes" - to the dress-sense, to
the ice-cream cone hairstyles of the mobsters, all is not real in the world of
the Sopranos' "waste management consultancy". The show's frequent use
of dream sequences, adds to the atmosphere of
unreality, a trait that sometimes annoys critics.
The
programme has been assailed by the Italian-American
Defamation League and leading Italian-Americans, including the critic Camille Paglia, who called it "a debased characterisation
of Italians" and "a travesty".
Even the people
it claims to be based on have taken exception to some of the depictions, which
are far from the lovable ruffians of the
When the FBI
bugged alleged members of a mafia family in 1999, during the show's first
season, they recorded Joseph "Tin Ear" Sclafani
asking: "Hey, what's this fucking thing Sopranos? What are they? ... Is
this supposed to be us?"
Tony
was thinner, Uncle Junior still had most of his marbles and
Eight years,
plentiful deaths, multiple accidents, weird dreams and therapy sessions later,
the Soprano family is preparing to leave the
One of two
trailers for the new series features the silhouette of fictional mob boss Tony
Soprano, played by James Gandolfini, outlined against
one of the show's
The end of the
saga will most likely be met with equal parts relief and regret - regret from
those hooked on the story of the dysfunctional don and relief for those seeking
closure. Some of those will include cast members. While the series has
propelled the leads - notably Gandolfini and Edie Falco, who plays his wife - to
professional highs, there have also been tensions on set.
Although Gandolfini now earns a reported $1m (?510,000)
an episode, in 2003 he sued HBO for breach of contract when it turned down his
pay demand (the company counter-sued). Production of the fifth series was
postponed until Gandolfini agreed to accept the
original offer.
While ostensibly
the story of the tribulations of a mafia boss, the Sopranos has secured its
success by telling the stories of two families: the mafia business
"family" run by Tony from the back room of the Bada
Bing club, and the family installed in the Soprano mansion, racked by the
problems and insecurities common to
Unlike most crime
boss anti-heroes, Tony Soprano has vulnerabilities. The first episode of the
pilot for the series, made two years before the show was picked up by HBO,
opens with Tony staring at a statue of a naked woman. He is sitting in the
psychiatrist's waiting room, where he has come for his first session following
his collapse from a panic attack. The tone for the 77 episodes that have followed
was set: Tony was a modern wise guy, shackled by the responsibilities of both
families, and caught at home between the demands of mother, wife, mistress and
shrink.
While the
soap-opera domesticity of the Sopranos has an air of reality to it - so real
that the plans for the Soprano mansion were sold to potential homeowners - the
mafia family is cartoonish. From the names - Sal
"Big Pussy" Bompensiero was one early
character who now "sleeps with the fishes" - to the dress-sense to
the ice-cream cone hairstyles of the mobsters, all is not real in the world of
the Sopranos' "waste management consultancy".
The show's
frequent use of dream sequences, sometimes extended as in the current episodes
airing in the
Sopranos'
creator, David Chase, responds by pointing out that the programme
is about that most American of specimens, the patient in therapy. "I know
people complain about [the dreams]," he told an interviewer last year,
"but we come by them honestly. This is the story of a therapy patient, and
dreams form a lot of that."
Chase claims that
many characters are based on his family, including that of Tony's mother, Livia. "My mother was so downbeat, so relentlessly
pessimistic," Chase said in a 2001 interview, "and that, in Livia, all [came] from her."
The intersection
of the two families, as well as the portrayal of a modern American Everyman,
have turned the programme into a source of
fascination for everyone from academics to, well, mobsters.
Academic interest
includes Glen Gabbard's The Psychology of the
Sopranos; the series has inspired self-help tomes such as Tony Soprano on
Management; and of course there is Italian food, a centrepiece
of the show, covered by the best-selling Soprano Family Cookbook.
The series has
also spawned debate about its depiction of Italian-Americans. The programme has been assailed by the Italian-American
Defamation League and leading Italian-Americans, including the critic Camille Paglia, who called it "a debased characterisation
of Italians" and "a travesty".
Even the people
it claims to be based on have taken exception to some of the depictions, which
are far from the lovable ruffians of the
When the FBI
bugged alleged members of a mafia family in 1999, during the show's first
season, they recorded Joseph "Tin Ear" Sclafani
asking: "Hey, what's this fucking thing Sopranos? What are they? ... Is
this supposed to be us?"
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