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“The Sopranos”: Closing the door

Jim Emerson

“One” is the loneliest number.

“I’m afraid I’m going to lose my family. Like I lost the ducks.”

— Tony Soprano, Episode 1, January 10, 1999

” _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _”

— Tony Sproano, Episode 86, June 10, 2007 (TBA)

“The Sopranos” didn’t look terribly promising to me back in 1999 when I saw the first promos. Another Italian-American mob show? What could be more of a cliché? Of course, I was hooked after the first episode (the ducks, the shrink’s office), and it continued to astound me week after week with how smart and savvy and rich it was. It took the pop gangster mythology of “The Godfather” and “GoodFellas” (and “Miller’s Crossing,” though I don’t recall any characters specifically referencing it) and turned them inside out.

“The Sopranos” is about a small-time mob family in Jersey for whom “this thing of ours” is “trending downward,” and who long for the legendary status of movie gangsters. They’re shmucks, losers, the very definition of a dysfunctional family, and subconsciously they may even know it. But petty and corrupt as they are, they’re still clinging to the American Dream, right down to the characterless and strangely empty McMansion in the suburbs. In “The Sopranos,” the mob is a metaphor for contemporary capitalism and consumerism and those treasured illusions of “family” that seem like vestigal instincts. That’s why I think the final tableau of the first part of Season Six was one of the series’ most brilliant and haunting moments. All the trappings were there — the festive decorations, the lovely home, the extended clan gathered ’round the hearth — but we knew then that the greeting-card Christmas image was a sham. The tension was stomach-clenching because we (and perhaps they) could feel that this hollow moment was merely the calm before the storm of the final eight episodes. And now it’s all coming down.

Since the third season or so, “The Sopranos” may have lost much of its ability to astound, but that’s mainly because we now know anything is possible. Other shows kill off significant characters or rupture the storylines’ major arteries, too. By the time Adrianna was wacked, it didn’t seem so shocking. As with the best drama and comedy (and “The Sopranos” is an operatic tragicomedy), it seemed inevitable in retrospect. I hated losing her, but whaddaya gonna do?

“The Sopranos” made acclaimed shows like “The Wire” and “Deadwood” possible. I have friends who think “The Wire” is “better than” “The Sopranos,” but that seems like a silly and fruitless comparison to me because they exist in entirely different dimensions. “The Wire” is consistently brilliant and thrilling to watch, with its teeming cast of characters and long, tangled narrative threads. I love it. But “The Sopranos” is much bigger, more deceptively complex, because it can work a meta-metaphor, make a satirical observation about contemporary politics or history or popular culture, and keep you absolutely in the moment with these characters in this particular set of circumstances. It makes your heart race, your eyes water and your head explode. It lives up to the word “masterpiece.” And this single series has probably been more consistently excellent than all the rest of the American cinema over the last eight years. It hasn’t just made a subscription to HBO indispensible (and an unbelievable entertainment bargain for the money), it’s helped make watching television as essential as going to the movies.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but there have been times when I didn’t want to watch the next episode, because I was too fearful for the characters. I feel incredibly apprehensive about Sunday night, because I’m afraid of what I’m going to see, and how I’ll feel about it. And I don’t want it to be over. Maybe I should just TiVo it and then, when I’m feeling a little less vulnerable… Well, that’s not going to happen. That’s part of what the show is about: Having to face things you’d rather were kept out of sight (like the stashes of cash and guns around the Soprano household), and having to know that everything comes at a price.

I wonder if to say I care deeply about these characters is to say I love them, when I feel I shouldn’t. I know how horrible they are. But I guess they’re like family. And as we know from Season One, that doesn’t guarantee love, either. (I’ll admit it: for all her avarice and denial, I’m probably in love with Edie Falco’s conflicted Carmella. Hey, one of the show’s consistent themes is that you can’t help who you fall in love with. And if I ever met James Gandolfini I would want to hug him — the actor, for creating such a tremendous character, not Tony.) I’m sure they deserve whatever’s coming to them. But series creator David Chase doesn’t necessarily think that way. As he says on page 163 of “The Sopranos: The Book” (which I haven’t even begun to read) in the article called “What We’ll Never Know”: “If you’re raised on a steady diet of Hollywood movies and network television, you start to think, Obviously there’s going to be some moral accounting here. That’s not the way the world works. It all comes down to why you’re watching….”

My 2008 best short-list

Jim Emerson

Before I do my proper “ten best” honors (in a form that is not a critics’ poll ballot), I just want to say that the best things I saw on any screen in 2008 were:

1) “Generation Kill” (seven-part HBO mini-series, adapted by Ed Burns and David Simon, the makers of “The Wire,” and Evan Walker Wright, a reporter embedded with the 1st Recon Marines in Iraq in 2003, based on Wright’s book). I don’t like the title. At some point in Episode Three I thought this was the funniest show on TV. About 15 minutes later, I still felt so, but I also felt something radically different. Susanna White is one hell of a director.

2) “Liverpool” (Lisandro Alonso; seen at Toronto Film Festival)

3) “Four Nights with Anna” (Jerzy Skolimowski; seen at Toronto Film Festival)

4) “35 Rhums” (Claire Denis; seen at Toronto Film Festival)

5) “Mad Men” (AMC, Season Two)

6) “In Treatment” (HBO, Season One)

Just because they didn’t play for a week or more on US movie screens doesn’t mean they should go unacknowledged (any more than “The Dekalog” or “Fanny and Alexander” should), and I hope to have the opportunity to write about them in depth in 2009. (“Generation Kill” was just released on DVD December 16.)

Opening Shots: ‘Withnail and I’

Jim Emerson

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From Ali Arikan, Istanbul, Turkey:

The first shot of “Withnail and I” is deceptive in its simplicity. As the camera opens on the eponymous “I” of the title, obviously depressed and downtrodden, we see a 30-something-man at the end of his tether, drowning in angst; both literally and figuratively, trying to breathe. A desk lamp, the single light source, and the books and notepads scattered over a desk in front of him betray the possibility that he is a writer. The rest of the furniture has that all-too-familiar aura of the maudlin British middle class. All this, combined with the sluggish zoom of the camera and the melancholy use of the last ever King Curtis live performance of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum, presents the audience with an irrevocable feeling of denoument. Almost as if this is the final shot of a film and not its first.

Wal-Mart and the Priory of Lyin’

Jim Emerson

“Wal-Mart? I’d like to order another copy of ‘The Da Vinci Code.'” Alfred Molina plays Cardinal Fang a bishop with a cell.

The protests against “The Da Vinci Code” are expected to reach their peak this opening weekend. And in reading some of the reactions to the movie and the book (see here), I noticed that much of the heat seems to center around whether people will mistake the book’s and movie’s fictions for historical realities. You’d think the general public would be smart enough to understand what a novel is, and that such books are different from scholarly works of nonfiction, even when they incorporate actual facts or events.

For example, one of my all-time favorite novels is Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” and it is about a bomber squadron based on the Mediterranean island of Pianosa during World War II, but to my knowledge the titular rule has never been part of U.S. Air Force regulations, nor did Clevinger actually pilot a plane into a cloud and not come out the other side. In part, that is because Clevinger, like Robert Langdon (the hero of “The Da Vinci Code” and Dan Brown’s previous novel, “Angels and Demons”), is a fictional character. World War II and the U.S. Air Force and Pianosa, however, are real. And so is the Mediterranean.

Anyway, I was surprised to find that Wal-Mart is (still) selling “The Da Vinci Code” on its web site with this false and misleading description:

Burt-Man Begins; Black History Mumf

Jim Emerson

View image Burt Reynolds, Superstar.

The Burt-a-Thon (formally known as the Burt Reynolds-a-Thon) starts today over at Welcome to L.A.. The awesome Larry Aydlette, whom some of you may know from his blog-lives as That Little Round-Headed Boy and/or The Shamus, has set himself a truly daunting, awesomely ambitious task: For the entire month of February, he will… well, let Larry explain it himself:

Obviously, Burt Reynolds didn’t get the e-mail that he was supposed to go quietly away. But that’s not the Burt Reynolds way. In his autobiography, “My Life,” he begins with a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live.”

View image Cosmo centerfold Burt, 1972.

So, I’ve decided to honor that work ethic and use his birth month for 29 straight days of Burt Reynolds coverage. This isn’t a love-a-thon. In rewatching a lot of his movies, I’ve come to the conclusion that he didn’t necessarily deserve to win the Oscar for the films that he and many critics thought he should have won them for. And he was never nominated for what seems to me to be his one indisputable masterpiece (although I doubt many critics will agree with me). But there are quite a few of his films that are very, very good, and deserve reconsideration.

Stephen Colbert, hero

Jim Emerson

The thing about speaking truth to power is that the powerful don’t really like it all that much. That was apparent at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday night, when Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central’s satirical “The Colbert Report” (basically a Fox News parody in which Colbert plays a fact-challenged, egomaniacal character based on Bill O’Reilly — and Sean Hannity, Britt Hume, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter…) delivered a speech that cut maybe just an eentsy bit too close to the truth (or “truthiness”) for the comfort of the President, the First Lady and the ineffectual reporters in the audience.

Zombies: Time of the Season of the Witch

Jim Emerson

Zombies and vampires, zombies and vampires — sure, we’re entering Dias de los Muertos, but the undead are crawling all over popular culture these nights. “Twilight” to “Tru-Blood,” “Zombieland” to “Fox News,” the undead are back with a vengeance. But, of course, they’ve been around for a long, long time. Matt Zoller Seitz takes a bite out of the cinematic zombie corpus with his latest video essay, “Zombies 101.” He begins, (un-)naturally, with George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), flashes back to Jacques Tourneur’s voodoo-themed “I Walked With a Zombie,” and moves forward through the Romero “Living Dead” pictures to 21st century remakes and variations — “Shaun of the Dead” (2004), “28 Days Later…” (2002), “28 Weeks Later…” (2007)…

Matt writes:

You make the movie, you sell the movie

Jim Emerson

“I just think that the young filmmakers today should take advantage of the opportunities and technology that they have now, that I didn’t have, or the generations before me. ‘Cause now you have no excuse…. If you want to be a filmmaker, there it is.”

— Spike Lee, interview with Digital Camera Magazine

The means of production and promotion are in the hands of filmmakers in ways they have never been in the medium’s history. As Spike Lee, director and tube-sock salesman (anybody remember the campaign for “She’s Gotta Have It”?) has said, there are no excuses anymore. If you want to make a movie and get it seen, the tools are right there at your disposal. You don’t need massive studio resources and hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars; all you need is a video camera, a computer, some software and access to the Internet and you’ve got a whole vertically-integrated world at your disposal: production, marketing, exhibition. A few well-targeted e-mails, some YouTube clips, a Facebook or MySpace page — even an old-fashioned web site — and suddenly thousands of people know about you and your film. A service like Withoutabox allows you to enter film festivals all over the world in a jiffy, right from your keyboard — without so much as a trip to the post office until you know if you’ve been accepted or invited.

Over many years of interviewing filmmakers I’ve often asked them how they have the energy to make a film once they’ve managed to raise enough money to go into production. And I’ve wondered how they have enough stamina to work on getting their films seen once they’re finished. Specialized film publicist extraordinaire Reid Rosefelt is amazed by the power of new technologies, but asks: “What Happens to the Filmmakers Who Can’t Market Themselves?” At his blog, Shake Your Windows, he writes:

I admit that I am also ambivalent about marketing, because I am someone who loves movies first and promotes them second. I don’t want a director to tell me what a movie means. I don’t want to be saddled with the director’s insistence that the reason they made the film defines what the movie is. In a lot of ways, the reason that a director thinks he or she made a film is irrelevant. They may not fully understand themselves as human beings, let alone understand their movie. Mysterious things come into play that they don’t understand. That’s the miracle of it, really.

Some filmmakers are very skilled about how to play the game of talking to the media. They have a natural facility for giving great quotes without giving away the store. Some, like Jarmusch, have a strong image that works into the way you perceive their movies, expanding and not contracting your reactions. Some are a hoot, like Almodovar, and draw you in with their high spirits. Some invent their own myth out of whole cloth, like Herzog. Many of the people who last the longest in pop culture are shape-shifters, like Dylan, Madonna and Robert Redford–they are omnipresent, hiding in plain sight, and the more you think you know about them, the less you do.

The fillet of fests

Jim Emerson

“Junebug” director (and still photographer!) Phil Morrison at the Overlooked. (Photo by Jim Emerson)

At several moments during the Eighth Overlooked Film Festival, I thought I had been transported to a time in which the greatest artists of the movies were not only familiar to all, but properly and enthusiastically appreciated and revered. That such a time would be in the spring of 2006 kind of threw me for a loop, but this was a festival in which (I swear) the two most commonly (and reverently) invoked cinematic influences were not Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino but Robert Bresson (“Pickpocket,” “Au Hasard Balthazar,” “Lancelot du Lac,” “L’Argent”) and Yasujiro Ozu (“Tokyo Story,” “Late Spring,” “Early Spring,” “Floating Weeds”). Not that any of the young filmmakers at the Overlooked were trying to claim their work was on par with these cinematic masters, but you could tell from their films that Ozu and Bresson really mean something to these guys, their influences genuinely and thoroughly absorbed into the cinematic sensibilities of another generation. It gave me hope for the future of movies as something more than a commodity.

Opening Shots: ‘Day for Night’

Jim Emerson

A bus crosses the frame from left to right and we follow a woman in red walking from right to left, who stops to get a magazine. Notice the curves and circles that establish a pattern for the shot — the curb, the kiosk, the fountain.

View image The bus re-enters in the background, driving around the circle and now moving in the same direction as the lady in red and the camera — an indication that the shot (and the movie) will loop back upon itself.

From Kathleen Carroll, co-founder and artistic director of the Lake Placid Film Forum (and “non-practicing film critic”):

I still smile at the very thought of Francois Truffaut’s opening shot in “Day for Night,” the amazingly long tracking shot that gradually reveals the film-within-the-film. I interviewed Truffaut at the time that “Day for Night” was first released in this country. This is how he explained his purpose for making the film. “I wanted to show a film to the public about the making of a film, a film that would give the most information and from which one could learn the technical aspects of movie making. The film will help those who are thinking about making films. And, as far as the ordinary public is concerned, the film doesn’t spoil anything.”

View image Still following the woman in red, a pair of figures in black appear in the background, moving forward on the diagonal, on a trajectory that just might intersect with the camera’s. Will the shot turn out to be about them instead of the lady in red? Or are they somehow connected with the lady in red?

View image The pair in black split up. The woman heads down the subway entrance — and so does the lady in red. The man in black continues toward the camera. Are we going to meet up with this guy?

During the same interview Truffaut told a funny story about “Jules and Jim” which, as he explained, he deliberately tried to make “like an MGM film.” There were those who did not see “Jules and Jim” as just another MGM movie. When the film was first released here, the then all-powerful Legion of Decency (which later became known as The National Catholic Office of Motion Pictures) threatened to give it a condemned rating. Truffaut was asked to speak to a group of priests on behalf of the film. He went reluctantly, feeling “like a little juvenile delinquent.”

View image Nope. The man in black falls out of the frame and the lady in red descends into the subway, casting a (fond?) look back as she leaves us. We fix upon another lady, one we saw back at the magazine vendor, walking a dachshund.

“Do you realize the girl in the film is behaving like Elizabeth Taylor?” asked one of the priests. “It was the time of ‘Cleopatra,'” and the Taylor-Burton affair was all over the newspapers,” recalled Truffaut. “I pretended that I didn’t know what he was talking about.” “It’s in the newspapers,” insisted the priest. “I only read film reviews,” said Truffaut.

View image Jean-Pierre Leaud comes out of the subway, and turns in the direction the camera is already moving. OK, we’re abandoning the lady with the dog. This is who we’re going to watch — he’s the star of the movie! (Yes, casting will often tell you how to watch a shot.)

JE: Oh, Kathleen — joy is right! This really may be the Ultimate Opening Shot in many ways, because we actually get to go back into it and critique it in the movie itself. The whole thing looks perfectly random and natural (I don’t want to know how many takes it really took), as if the eye (camera) were just alighting upon one thing and then another as its interest is piqued. But we soon see how carefully and precisely it’s all choreographed. Day for night. Illusion for reality. Artifice in the service of art. Notice, too the use of strong colors like red (dress, car, little girl, etc.) and white (car, overcoat, etc.) — the alternating colors of the awning in the background — and black (suits, car roof, etc.) to focus our attention. Doesn’t this just make you want to go out and make a movie?

(Shot continues after the jump)

Joel Siegel helps Kevin Smith promote ‘Clerks II’

Jim Emerson

Not Very Silent Bob blows his own tooter to make some publicity noise.

Extra! Extra! It’s a match made in movie hell: Joel Siegel vs. Kevin Smith (or vice-versa). It’s ugly, but it’s perfect, because the former is to movie reviewing what the latter is to movie directing. So, when Siegel stormed out of a screening of “Clerks II” (allegedly exclaiming on his way up the aisle: “Time to go! First movie I’ve walked out of in 30 [bleeping] years!”), well, Smith saw an exploitable promotional opportunity and ran with it. Not for nothing is he considered the leading contender for Most Avidly Self-Promoting Director, neck-and-neck with M. Night Shyamalan. Smith posted a positively (or should that be “negatively”?) scabrous attack on Siegel on his blog, and went on a drive-time morning radio show to further express his outrage. Plus, he got in an indirect and gratuitous smack at Shyamalan, whose “Lady in the Water” opens opposite “Clerks II” Friday, writing: “I don’t need Joel Siegel to suck my d–k the way he apparently sucks M. Night’s, gushing over his flick before he’s even seen it…”

(WARNING: If you follow the link to Smith’s blog above, be prepared to scroll down through various merchandising offers before getting to the posting itself; and, of course, you should expect lots of profanity and comments about donkey shows and mustaches and ejaculate — that incorrigible Smith je ne sais quois!)

If Siegel’s own account of his outburst on that radio show is correct, it was unnecessary and unprofessional. He could have just walked out and chosen not to review the picture. If he did write anything about the movie (he couldn’t review it because he’d only seen 40 minutes), he was indeed ethically obligated to tell his readers/viewers that he had walked out in the first hour. But, somehow, I find myself having just a tiny bit more respect for Siegel than I ever had before, simply because I didn’t think he was even capable of caring enough to be offended. I remember leaving a studio screening of some Christopher Lambert turkey in LA about 15 years ago (after the movie was over) and the publicist saying to me: “Yeah, I think we’re gonna have to rely on Joel Siegel for this one” — referring to Siegel’s Peter-Travers-like reputation for pumping out ad blub copy to promote just about anything.

Full disclosure: I once liked a Kevin Smith movie (“Dogma”), and I haven’t seen “Mallrats” or “Jersey Girl.” Others, however (especially “Clerks”), have been painful experiences for me. I feel like an accused Communist writing this, but it is my full confession. Indeed, when an aspiring indie filmmaker (who has since had considerable success) once asked me for some directing advice, I told her to watch Smith’s films to see exactly how not to shoot a movie, especially a comedy. She recently wrote to say she had heeded this advice, and to thank me for it. She is more than welcome. You can learn a lot from watching bad movies, and Smith’s are every bit as hacky as Michael Bay’s. The only difference is that the budgets are generally a bit smaller.

At the Independent Spirit Awards this year, Smith did his aw-shucks self-deprecating act and belittled his own directing skills, but apparently critics are not allowed to do their jobs and scrutinize his work. What puzzles me is that Smith and his fans openly acknowledge they know his movies aren’t particularly well-made, but they don’t care because they think they’re funny. Smith himself writes: “I recognize that brand of whimsy might not be for everybody. Film appreciation is very subjective…” So, why not leave it at that? Smith can’t. Witness, for example, the following stories from Mark Caro, Scott Foundas and David Poland:

The Return of the Movie Answer Man

Jim Emerson

Roger Ebert has published first Answer Man column in a year. Topics include: Ousmane Sembene, Scrooge McDuck, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” Phil Spector, Blood-Sucking Monkeys, Cormac McCarthy, “Marie Antoinette,” and President Bush’s stolen watch. Go ahead. He’s got your answers right here.

Rescued by M. Night! Four pieces of Unbreakable…

Jim Emerson

A bleak January moviegoing week was rescued for me by an eight-year-old film from M. Night Shyamalan: “Unbreakable,” which I just happened to run across on Starz HD On Demand (via Comcast — also available through Netflix On Demand), finds just the right tone for its comic-book tale of a depressed and disillusioned man (Bruce Willis) discovering who he really is. Virtually every composition displays a cool use of space, and some revealing piece of detail, that makes it exciting to watch. The movie draws you in, piques your curiosity, zaps your senses and engages your rapt attention.

(NOTE: I don’t recommend watching the Starz HD version, because it has been chopped down from anamorphic widescreen [2.37:1] to generic 16×9, resulting in cropping and panning-and-scanning of some crucial images, which drains them of some of their compositional voltage. Get/rent the DVD or Blu-ray disc. See examples after jump.)

“I’m F***ing Matt Damon”: A critical analysis

Jim Emerson

Sarah Silverman stands against an overexposed white background, addressing the camera (and her boyfriend of five years, talk show host Jimmy Kimmel). “Hey Jimmy,” she says, “It’s me.” It’s the quintessential Silverman line delivery: faux-awkward, sweet and self-consciously cute, but so sharp and precisely targeted that it almost hurts a little. Of course it’s her. But where is she?

Well, she’s in some netherworld hotel, neither here nor there — been on the road so long, you know, she’s not even sure what city she’s in, to be honest — and she has something on her mind, something she’s been meaning to tell Jimmy, that she’s been carrying around with her like excess baggage. Dressed in a snug, lipstick-magenta/pink shirt, she stands out, flush and ripe, from the soft pale light that envelops her. She strolls to the right, from one lush, clean-green tropical split-leaf philodendron to another, a sexy and innocent Eve in the unspoiled Garden of Eden (or a hotel lobby facsimile thereof). Her delicate fingers stroke a wistful figure on her guitar, again and again, as she works up the backbone to expose her true feelings. (Insert what we imagine to be a typical candid photo of the happy couple: Silverman draped adoringly over the shoulders of a drunken, blurry-eyed Kimmel.)

View image In the primeval Garden: The moment of first release, the revelation of Knowledge in the Biblical sense.

The segue, if you call it that, is abrupt, jarring. Cut to a close-up of her guitar (“Here it goes…”) and a crunching electric riff begins. Medium shot of Silverman as she sings the first line (and the title), with an expression of “Omygod!” on her face, like a teenage girl at a slumber party confessing a crush on the cutest boy in school: “I’m f***ing Matt Damon!” This is inappropriate. Not only is she singing this to her boyfriend, she’s doing it on his fifth anniversary show on network TV. She has not only swallowed the forbidden fruit, she has swallowed the serpent: Matt Damon!

Cut to… Damon himself, in tight black t-shirt (like snakeskin!), arms stretched cockily over the back of a white couch as if in post-coital repose. He’s been seated just outside the frame, all the time, and he gives the camera a knowing, testosterone-fueled smirk: “She’s f***ing Matt Damon!” He’s got the cat-with-the-canary grin. The knowledge that he’s avenging Kimmel’s repeated, disrespectful scheduling slights is written all over his face. He is no longer the butt of the joke, he gets to deliver the punchline. Repeat. Silverman shoots him a naughty-girl look, then shifts her expression to one of rue and sorrow for: “I’m not imagining it’s you.” Next, in an instant, she grits her teeth and turns into Joan Jett. On cue, Damon launches into a Henry Rollins punk growl and threatens to lunge at the camera, seizing it the way we imagine him grabbing Silverman’s waist before they do the nasty title phrase. It begins in a two-shot, with Silverman cheerily bending down into the frame:

On the bed, on the floor

On a towel by the door

In the tub, in the car

Up against the mini-barOne can’t help but recall Theodor Geisel’s seminal “Green Eggs and Ham,” in which Sam I Am pesters an increasingly exasperated, unnamed character who does not like the titular dish. In this case, however, Damon and Silverman are turning the tables: The song is an expression of rapacious appetite, and the way Damon delivers it — with a mad glint in his eyes and a leer on his lips — is a volatile mixture of lust and vengeful glee. He likes them apples….

It’s a feature!

Jim Emerson

Hey, Scannersers: We’re trying out a new Moveable Type threaded comments feature that should allow you to reply directly to individual comments. Just click the “Reply” to the right of the date and time. Will it work? We’ll see…