"Tone"
The final episode of The Sopranos—the quick cut to black that welcomed the closing credits—was, and remains, controversial cinematically, but indisputably, the slashing cut had the secondary effect of keeping the image of actor James Gandolfini in your head for moments after. The last portrait of Tony Soprano has him looking up quickly from his appetizer at the sound of a diner doorbell. We're left to wonder: Is it his daughter at the door, or somebody more menacing and in possession of ill intent?I loved the equivocal ending from the first moment I saw it. This was weeks before the blogosphere collectively and finally decided that it liked it too, and the occasion of Gandolfini’s shocking and premature death this week at the age of 51 has me thinking today about the actor’s iconic portrayal as Soprano family patriarch and the enduring memory of that last image.
It’s not the most indelible scene in the history’s run though. I keep coming back to a first season scene between Tony and his psychiatrist in which the patient laments, “It’s good to be in on something from the ground floor. I came too late for that and I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.” He’s talking about his life in la Cosa Nostra, but he could be a paid spokesperson for the United States of America as it stands today. This was not incidental to the episode's script. It was very purposeful—perhaps providing even the overarching theme for the series.
Gandolfini and his vessel on screen were a colossus atop the world of television. It wasn’t TV, as the network commercials always tried to explain. It was bigger than TV. He was bigger than TV. He was the heartbeat of the show that was nothing less than the most important piece of American popular art since the invention of jazz music. We’re living ourselves at the end of something wildly imperfect but undeniably great. The party is over and that’s why the death of this man who provided such important symbolism, as well as a character that we could so equally love and revile, feels like just another in what's become a long line of painful tragedies.
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There can be no justice from a secret court.
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Quote of the day: Facebook commenter Geoff Kirk, regarding the historical biography "Team of Rivals," "If Lincoln had followed Obama's style of picking cabinet members he would have appointed Jefferson Davis to be Sec. of war."
posted by CM @ 6:50 PM
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