Letters to the Editor
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Ever heard of a jump cut?
Yes. The point is that the jump cut had some sort of thematic value. It wasn't by accident, or sloppy editing.
What did it mean? Why did they want it to appear that Tony was looking at himself?
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seriously
alex cutter,
I wasn't being flippant. I would say that such cuts are used when the director wants to give an impression of fragmented space and time. Maybe the most famous example of a character apparently "seeing himself" across the room would be at the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey," in the surreal bedroom with astronaut Bowman "seeing himself" rapidly age.
It's a technique of disorientation, maybe meant to create a feeling of tension or unease. I honestly don't think Tony saw himself (I've double-checked on TiVo and there's no reverse cut BACK to Tony at the doorway.) It's just a quick flash forward, a telescoping of time/space, and it shook me up too.
The entire sequence had my heart pounding in my chest.
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-- rollerboyz
Trying to create disorientation is one explanation for the cut, and it may the the correct one. But I'm thinking that Chase had more in mind -- like shifting the audiences POV/perception at that point. Things just felt weird in that scene -- Carmela acted oddly, the whole onion rings thing, a Janice look-alike entering, a Phil look-alike behind Tony, never seeing Meadow actually entering the restaurant...
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POV
You're right Alex, the shift in POV was jarring because the editing went like this:
Tony walks in, scans the room for tables
(POV Tony) Shot of empty table across the room
CLOSE UP Tony's face, considering options
(POV the viewer) Shot of Tony at the table
Both POV shots are the exact same angle and distance from the table, and that's the unusual editing choice. Typically the camera would not jump back in time to a previous position. A normal camera would follow Tony to the table and stay there.
Another plausible explanation might be to show Tony playing chess with his strategy to the very end, always planning one or two steps ahead. This is all part of demonstrating how no matter what his Fate, Tony will never be able to relax, not ever.
The jump cut could signify Tony's planning ahead the best vantage point to sit in the restaurant, and then *poof!* he's there, faster than the camera or viewer can keep up.
It could also signify Tony being able to foretell his own future, albeit not too effectively.
All these alternatives suggest Tony's life permanently screwed out of balance, and I think that's the ultimate point of the entire past few episodes.
On the other hand, we could all just be grasping desperately at any tiny clue of WTF this ending was meant to imply.
Personally, I'm still tripping out wondering what kind of crazy hospital plays "Little Miss Sunshine" to patients in ICU... unless that was meant to be Silvio's own personal Hell :)
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The Final Word "It's All a Big Nothing"
Looks like Chase channeled Livia for the closing shot in tonight's grand finale. As she was dying she told AJ "It's all a big nothing."
I think was is very appropriate to end the series with a hat tip to Livia's philosopy.
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What about this...
During the meeting in the warehouse, about halfway through we hear the rumble of a train (?). The scene continues, and the camera angle changes to a wide, and the rumble vanishes abruptly/unnaturally. What's up with that?
My brain hurts.
Regarding the POV shift in the restaurant, I'm thinking that Chase is putting us into Tony's perspective -- which would support the theory that Tony is shot (probably from behind; the bathroom guy was a meta-reference/red herring playing on the audience's familiarity with The Godfather), and the screen goes black as his consciousness ends.
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Tragic Repercussions
ha, Alex. My brain hurts too.
Another plot thread that's so sickening I hate to even bring it up... Lots of people have mentioned previously the asbestos being dumped in the lake might come back to bite Tony in the ass. Does anyone else think the safe-house on the shore where Carmela and the kids are holed up looks creepily similar to the wetlands environment where those piles of asbestos were illegally dumped?
I think this possibility was pretty clearly confirmed when Tony stops by to see the family and Carmela asks him, "Do you smell that? Meadow smells it too. I hope it's not toxic."
I think this can mean only on thing, no matter what Tony's fate (and it seems almost certain that the abrupt cut to black was "lights out") it also means that Meadow, AJ, and Carmela have been living at "safe-house" drinking asbestos water and inhaling asbestos particles for days... If they somehow survived whatever happened at the diner, the whole family can look forward to a slow painful death by Mesothelioma.
Thanks, Dad. Nice legacy.
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If anybody cares to conjecture...
..what this casting might mean, the infamous "Man in Members Only Jacket" named in the end credits, Paolo Colandrea, was not an actor... he's a REAL LIFE HITMAN!...
ha, kidding. He's actually a pizzeria owner from Philadelphia, and here's a link to his story:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/111-06092007-1360360.html
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Tony
Well said, I just did a post in response to Heather's piece about the series and your thoughts echo mine very closely.
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The American Fascination with Violence
Mr. Kamiya appears for all the world like millions of other Americans, confused adolescents, the needles of whose moral compasses are spinning around in slow-motion circles.
Those same Americans have long been fascinated and somewhat awestruck by the amoral violence of gangsters, from Al Capone to John Dillinger to John Gotti to George W. Bush.
The popularity of the fictional characters James Bond and Tony Soprano is additional testimony to that fascination and awe.
This childish fascination with violence as supreme arbiter of conflicts is intimately related, psychologically, to the observation attributed to Richard Nixon, who knew enough about Americans to get himself elected President, that "The average American is like a 12-year-old child who wants to be told what to do."
This fascination is also powerfully explanatory in accounting for the estimated 180 million deaths attributable to war in the 20th century alone.
In the age of the hydrogen bomb, this quasi-worship of physical violence should be fairly easily recognizable as being of rather dubious survival value, and if you're a member of the human species, this may be of some concern.
Ken Rogers