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 US. Farewell, don't let the Door hit you in the Ass!!!!

 

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 New Jersey with his mother. which undoubtedly caused him nightmares, (and his fascination with dream sequences), and involved him with Psychiatry,  All which played a large part in this series. Chase was supposedly raised as a Baptist, which may account additionally for his mental torment.

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 Hollywood versions of mobster life seen in films such as The Godfather and Goodfellas.

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?"

 

Farewell Tony, a Modern Everyman
After nine series, dozens of deaths and countless weird dreams, The Sopranos finally gets whacked

Guardian Unlimited, UK
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Saturday March 24, 2007

Tony was thinner, Uncle Junior still had most of his marbles and Bill Clinton was president. As the publicity for the first episode of The Sopranos, broadcast on HBO in the US on January 10 1999, said: "It's enough to make you want to see a shrink."

Eight years, plentiful deaths, multiple accidents, weird dreams and therapy sessions later, the Soprano family is preparing to leave the New Jersey wise guy scene. The final, nine-part series begins on April 8 in the US.

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 New Jersey landscapes. As the camera pans around the motionless figure, voices from his family's past and present can be heard. One is Tony himself, shouting: "I'm supposed to be the boss, for Christ's sake." The clip ends with his wife, Carmela, declaring: "Everything comes to an end."

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 middle America.

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 UK, adds to the atmosphere of unreality, a trait that sometimes annoys critics.

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 Hollywood versions of mobster life seen in films such as The Godfather and Goodfellas.

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?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

usa/story/0,,2041841,00.html
 

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