Letters to the Editor
kenkapkk
Published Letters: 117 Editor's Choice: 13
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Terrific article
[Read the article: Dick Cheney's least favorite TV show?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Many years ago, Pauline Kael wrote a seminal book of film criticism, "I Lost it at the Movies". One of her most unique and truly perceptive talents, in this and subsequent writings, was understanding the role media (particularly cinema) plays as a reflection of the cultural unconscious-how feelings, thoughts, reactions, issues of the society were played out in the waves of films that emerged year after year. She has always been exalted as one of the greatest critics who lifted her work to cultural commentary in the modern era.
Juan Cole's piece here is similarly incisive. One might say television has become the greater mirror because mainstream cinema has become so infected with the virus of the big dollar that sequels, "franchises" and disconnected fantasy and mindless action have come to rule the day. The spate of TV dramas about alien invasions a few years ago, for example, were perfect metaphors for the deep fears and anxieties of the new, unknown, potentially invasive post 9/11 world.
There is rarely a "Godfather", but in its place we have "The Sopranos" and with its influence, television, at its best, has has expanded and incorporated a literary form undreamt of by current film (except for Jackson in "Lord of the Rings").
As a storyteller and folklorist who has promoted this line of thinking often on these boards in response to various articles, I applaud Juan Cole for a tremendous and original analysis. His breadth of global understanding coupled with his ability to synthesize disparate elements along with an astute cultural and political awareness, make his essay one of the most satisfying critiques of a media show (and our society) I have seen in Salon.
This is why I subscribe. Thank you for expanding my understanding of a show I found extremely rewarding to follow this year.
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??
[Read the article: Inside the Creation Museum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, what can you do? The country has an amazing primitive streak. Always has. Keep on truckin' and hope for the best. Sure glad I live in a relatively progressive blue state area.
40%? That's rank.
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Mattwa 33186 nails it
[Read the article: "The Sopranos" goes dark]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think Mattwa sums it up beautifully:
"It was a brilliant final scene no matter what. For the first time I really understood how stressful and fraught with peril the world seemed to Tony."
I took two things from the final scene, which I thought was a great way to go. First, Chase deliberately, and maybe a little too obtrusively, played off all those traditional mob movies including the Godfather. The rising tension, heightened by Meadow's parking problems (would she get whacked with the family, miss the carnage and escape?), set up a dialectic which Chase was Chesire Cat like not going to fall into.
But I saw the fade out in the same way as above. Maintaining his existential approach, Chase ends the Soprano's at the core of the Universe it has portrayed at the beginning. Family comes first, no matter what. And what has always been the quintessential duality of the show, the ordinary schmuck who just happens to be a violent sociopath (mirroring our national leadership by the way, so Tony Soprano is not so far off from the American center), is at the end again on display.
Because surrounding this very ordinary family outing with its seeingly normal and bland talk, is the violent and dangerous Universe this man inhabits and has made his own. The fact of the matter is, for Tony Soprano , who has always lived in a volitile, uncertain world, death and upheaval lurk at every corner.
So Chase leaves us with a tableau, almost as if we are looking at a primal moment frozen in time, or a moment from a dream. This is Tony's world, in his "nest", yet beset by the law, again, with the possibility of violence and violation of his sanctuary always in the periphery of his field of vision.
Whether he is killed here is not the issue. It is the freeze frame, the essence of the show, character, and life that is represented. This is how it was, is, and will be. (With A.J. speaking for Chase to the audience, "Remember the good times".) Tony is a survivor. But for how long is a mystery because his life was always a tightrope dance.
I agree. It was a truly self conscious and referential, yet brilliant way to go.