MOB HIT
Bowman, James
Mob Hit BY JAMES BOWMAN tit l{1iO 1.1,1 1110:lth R,1' it' t113 3-,1 110 11 ri:111 :1111 1:1 (,1 i i .1 .1111 of l+ h. l: .. A]LLe] ti.;11 .31't [t1]' i liit.:hn1",3:1i cCIIIL]]'i" 11C.l,IiiI...
...Instead, we are drawn in by the assumption that even the scary and solidly established world of organized crime-mysterious and romantic and solemnly real as the movies have made it to us throughout their history-cannot stand up against the overwhelming banality of the consumer culture in turn-of-the century suburban New Jersey with which it is juxtaposed in a mock-heroic way...
...1 ,tl,l][1:17~ .lttt•]" •l ]ar[ct]ic i tit 1tih rile t[i 1111111 ic•, \' c']c 11...
...programs in "communications" everywhere...
...Or at least more seriously than we do...
...It is a reminder of the extent to which these gangsters are self-conscious gangsters, which is to say movie gangsters, but is Tony weeping because he falls short of the gangster ideal, or because the death of James Cagney reminds him of the gangster's fate, or because of the love shown the Cagney character by his mother as compared with his own mother's indifference...
...Gandolfini's character, a different kind of thug, in the new film "The Mexican" (review, Page 14...
...Another Lit ]u-,l L'11\ IC, hl• l.lrLtr C.!p).u In...
...My own search engines each offered me over 100,000 hits when I typed in "The Sopranos," and this number can only increase, to the advantage of Ph.D...
...Therefore at the same time, the object of the series' satire is also the pseudo-culture of therapy and feelings and sensitivity that has taken the place of the old honor culture represented by Tony and the boys.This is true, obviously, in the person of Dr...
...Mainstream society" might be savage and hypocritical, but in The Sopranos the savagery and hypocrisy belong to the gangsters...
...01.11 I ) tvtc: 1 .tl C: 1..t piorC•,1,r ii' f-.n l:•1, 1 }iti}=,11.t: c uln]ri" tiln1 rlj]nil .=unit tic 1:01 1" .ti N1IL1JI,' lrnnr•,it 5t]tr L'n:c•r,1n \r]OtC...
...and there 1, .1 retrl-eiLee to "stet t ork.- Naturallt...
...I don't mean to suggest that she sees no contradiction between being "a very sensitive person" and "a coldblooded killer," but at some level she must share the fundamental delusion of Dr...
...But he also says, on learning of the latter's release back onto the streets: "I just want to find that bastard and kill him with these hands...
...gill nt:t ::Iii rte \tu.Iht 1 S 4 [III 011 Rll:l\ L1'I t l ll.ltlt Il:3c 'ititi finds it and spitting out a report on the number of hits...
...about tusnh time blnn-]1 \stet- heater.., aln-,n...
...41 Hoover Institution...
...Carmela warns Tony: "Keep playing the race card and you're going to drive her right into his arms...
...Most of the other characters in the series are not, and it makes special fun at the expense of Dr...
...Naturally this episode gets even more attention than the allusion to Proust...
...lolk 1:F 111 Lit ['1t' ]'C,t0c111 rill- :171 'Cr-1 , "+11c3t' lt, al,!ua .!f tilt• t:tci ir.il' : :ua:ld,Il'l1 cl: [''l'' i,]c1:1 + ith }'i.n till :-c•t i 1i 1I1111L']:,1L•ci :(i1' :1:L• t c1o171„c 1:11...
...bust ho, kit] lr...
...When Tony's daughter Meadow comes home during her first semester at Columbia with a half-black, half-Jewish boyfriend named Noah Tannenbaum (Patrick Tully), Tony does not hesitate to warn the kid off with frank racial slurs...
...5 Sun ...8 The University of Chicago Press...
...81 Digital Power Report...
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...In time Cnn,irlrl•.•t p'd]-.ldise...
...in pa.-t at :east...
...88 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR May 2001...
...Like the Don, he is a deluded anachronism whom we nevertheless love for his devoted attachment to the old ways, the ways of honor and chivalry and patriarchal family arrangements-a devotion that would be pathetic if it were not, intermittently, so dangerous (to say nothing of illegal...
...ti' 1:1011 c LiiO]]i • .t, i hi]] .t 1,1 11 clt }+ra,::uttil tin- Hill ' L01•r.1110 )•]]0i, (r,;11d1iltini t 17.1: tilt• ;]]1 l, i]lc =n...
...At one level this means nothing more than that nobody messes around with Tony with impunity...
...And rightly so...
...IltII]fI{ l\ til'I.i:I \Tint %1;Li I mil give us no twinge because the barbarians are also criminals and do horrible things to people...
...till 1[1•:,1]'1...
...15 YottaYotta...39 "Do you know who I am...
...1iotlrneoi, C ~envlh(lnune...
...Dr...
...But if Chase and company share even so much nostalgia for the putative golden age of honor as Cervantes (or, a fortiori, Balzac), they keep it pretty well hidden...
...Melfi, at least, is aware of a selfcontradiction that is almost universal among the respectable folks who are shocked at or contemptuous of the gangsters...
...But neither would we find him sympathetic in the least if it weren't for a tiny but ineradicable residuum of respect of our own for the idea of a life lived, however imperfectly and, indeed, brutally, according to honor...
...1 Iet-t...
...Most critics have assumed the last, as it best fits with the therapeutic bias of the culture, but the authors are as usual careful to preserve the uncertainty which is so much a part of Tony's appeal...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR May 2001 87 Indeed, after this person has been let go through a police mistake resulting in a break in the "chain of custody," she becomes almost obsessed with the idea of her own power-and with the horror she feels at the fact that she wants to exercise it...
...For the show is not social criticism like Balzac or Zola, but something like its opposite...
...Whatever else we may say about Tony, we know he is not living the life of easy comfort and selfindulgence we are, and we envy him for that even more than for his outsized water heater or his champagne glasses...
...That is, indeed, the point of their being gangsters...
...But it is a tribute to the genius of Chase & Co...
...We wouldn't buy Tony Soprano as the pat gentil knight he occasionally sees himself as being...
...The I toli,h n 1,nd i, overhe,lni tlliriL her llu'b.lnd that slit i, tcal:iLe ell.nnpa nr pla„r,-ana n:•nbe other ]-bite...
...lee :made in the new In the ope]1]n epi tide of C1I1, for exanlpie_ 1.111 h'ellts (l) t•liI1 a ";teak and peek" order trim] a luau• to plant II,Cei1]]1g det-]C e, Ill the 111" CAC' ,t!burball ,-ill, tt ]uieh tillltSop)1'•hl]() SIT •aI'e...
...Stunned, the boy replies after the manner of his age: "What's your problem, man...
...but C .Lnnel.l replic,:"I titnl t hate :IntiyILe'L 111,_- house i, tr,l(htio]).I1: are with -I-( ]:1t , n] am n1.IL1p](I] in• anti m)ther ,]'I1, of ]-nt)ranee p1 )r, lle]ti even has tol erpl•un ,vl:ml II...
...107 Island ECN/Datek...
...You can't help thinking that maybe Tom Shales is missing the point a little bit here...
...I ii1i 1, rhi .I tic .1• h c'l:CL:lc...
...So what if Tony is not a prostitute out of Balzac but a mobster out of David Chase's imagination...
...I't7icl,t...
...Even he would risk conforming to the hated Italian-American stereotype if it gave him Tony's powers of being revenged on his enemies...
...Gandolfini's day job...
...Carmela, I didn't hurt nobody," he cries triumphantly while pumped full of booze and Prozac, perversely (for a gangster) proud of a tender-heartedness like that of his wife and the genteel culture he envies in spite of himself...
...Its permanence and inevitability are everywhere assumed...
...IIMMLILIC~, over the Internet...
...to 11155...
...0 r, to put it another way, what makes the series compelling is not its criticisms of "society" vis a vis the mafia, though there are some of these...
...Zctbc]Li\- told us u]:rII the ti1!,' n](l.]]:, Lnele lu]:ior...
...O TIC noti e, dial Iomv 11,1, die "]lilt IiLLCk mti ] )e(ker p0l, Cl- 111(,], lie h.I...
...u-rlmel:I•s te111:I, a ,Cruet( )r AT article tt-[I]e]l 1, It.tie]f do 'ICLf1:ICt-e:11et]t tlf the :iTIL!'LYrC a I I I I ] 1nee, that I I C ], ]11Ln-1]:0 tl C:.ll:tilrnia where hi, tt-ife ha...
...Thus we both despise Tony as a failed suburbanite and admire him as an avatar of a culture that seems as remote to us as that of the ancient Greeks and that we can hardly help but see on a similarly heroic scale...
...American Spectator Online...
...covet Tony', oversized „-alter ile,lre...
...In one of the show's best moments, she confronts her own therapist, played by Peter Bogdanovich, who has been gently chiding her for her flirtation with evil: "The justice system is screwed up, Elliot...
...Melfi and to listen, however reluctantly, to her counsel...
...It is to extend the highest praise to the series itself that, so far at least as we can tell from the new season, its creators do not share that delusion...
...In this sense the professors are right...
...In any case, we like that society and its benefits too much...
...As in Cervantes's time, reality has undergone one of its periodic shifts in the direction of the familiar, the mundane, the domestic, and the unheroic...
...F,i, .beLnp L:ltaed tt+ l•Ltip11 al the •Vl Lal preten,torl, ut these tlnCOtlth b.irh.Lrl.!n, f[-,h Ir0111 mile ,tieehtcu- tt hc*]n t!-.L,lition.Ll n1e.u1, the trek betiare last -hut Our L' alit.Lri.11: l•rin, ]pie, 86 1111...
...It is just a sign that "far from avoiding the compromises of series television, in which flawed characters get flabby and lovable over time, `The Sopranos' dares to make its hero more reprehensible...
...that the process also works in reverse, as it were, since their ignorance about the word "traditional" is made up for by their deep knowledge of a traditional reality that is much older than any antique...
...101 Thomas Aquinas College...
...As in Don Quixote, the absurdity of the hero's chivalric delusion cuts us off from supposing that it is meant to represent to us any kind of genuine alternative to the "society" we actually have got...
...Chase's brilliance...
...23 Volera...
...Pi •:1.i}iN it .t clad 1', 17.1: ,.i]1...
...T hat's why he's on TV instead of being, like other recent therapyseeking gangsters, in the movies...
...We tell ourselves that it's OK to despise their vulgarity because they're also evil...
...I :il: ill- "ii1111 1, •:111 c..t...1 [[•, .3:1 11:R•r:lt•: kind - 11011i1 lo lm.lkc 1,11 [ it...
...Let's hear it for the reprehensible hero...
...Like all mock heroic tales, the series depends on our knowledge of the heroic tradition it is sending up-in this case that of the gangster movie...
...a job "vi t11 a dot-Ctm] Co1nhp,am ,clip...
...64 Storage Alliance...
...If either of them could be truly outraged at anything Tony does, there would be no family and there would be no series...
...It nn1,t be 1-,•n r.iti ]LI]-T to tile•]]] [cl know act [liil" aren't hi in= t.tlki ti cicnl n LO l+hile .[ [171 ,,tmc• rill [l:c'IF Iii [[i 1", .711 " t7-T•• 71, t' I]hl:•110kv .111111icm, ro I'rcnl,tI Mit]]]t:• I'icIc1,[s CN}~, ith tilt• :11.ICICir1]]L i, l,iacrri n.1:.1 rt'i mull['.] br I )1-- \lc'lti I.or:-A117r lira[ t cl to To ]i Soplinn i.ur1r• { ndcl.[int not •cl [l:i (:un7nnt n1 the .LtiO]L]]cL c.lil DC N'.•}'[ (111 l-h:, i, i. [i:alll th 1Ca,[ •Lli i C•,1L1...
...tilt• nut ,• n', ]e„ thin 1 ].]epos \l,Lr\ An FBI .Dent CO nrlpLull,~ 111ut one thin, •Lute]- ,!1](1111eu- [11.3\ })roCl.nni, tilt uotulin,)n Cc)n:nlltnlel]t :n Cnn,tin]eri,nl...
...Melf and Tony himself in going to her-that the two things can be reconciled...
...They freely commit violence and fornicate, the very things men still do best but are most vigorously denied by contemporary codes of acceptable conduct...
...I17[11771'[1T or '11C i1C11 •iIIC~" tL SCL'17:, i(7 lilt...
...Of course we get a vicarious thrill from him, as we do from all gangsters, for his swift way with his enemies...
...Everyone secretly likes the idea of commanding respect through fear, and the authors are as ruthless as Tony himself in exploiting this secret wish of our hearts, and using it to mock the liberal pieties extolled by those who look down on Tony...
...Like Zola's Rougon-Macquart series or Balzac's "Comedie Humaine," "The Sopranos" defines a particular culture (suburban New Jersey at the turn of the century) by using complex individuals...
...She knows that she has only to mention to Tony what has happened and she can wreak the most horrible revenge on the punk who raped her...
...33 BlueArc...
...27 Blackstone Audio Books...
...Fdie Fall-o: and null children.Anthoi -It-- Robert lien anti \le,idon ii.nn]eL,-]ln pier .11'I1e11 :he, Ldo ,o, Ilowe,er...
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...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR May 2001 85 .•1 liI1 .111 L{ a •ii11 ;III)] lr point...
...Tony himself fitfully aspires to join the aristocracy of feeling, as in the moment when he congratulates himself for not killing a child-molesterthough most of all, of course, in his continuing to see Dr...
...Quite what it has to do with criticism as it has traditionally been understood, I don't know, but it does have the advantage of making a lot of work to keep the professoriate happy...
...SL,ICh(1,t..]O e]l,nleer firon] L(x{z '11, 110 1, t.-r]n, Cc) beCUrllt• •: tithe...
...It) ri.:d 11:u,•1] e7: .'11,1t ha, :, c•n V, !-ItrL'll kill 111C 11_1 ICI 11 h,tt ] rt.1...
...But I can't...
...n, one OtrhC .LOetit, ,•udorl]t•1II"l but the jclke 111 then] t, hen Ilit' n.11 L- heater ,fee...
...Thus I; 1)0]: Quixote traa;rorn]ed into MI...
...I o...
...Melfi, but also in the mindless liberalism of the Soprano children or the New Agey claptrap spouted by Tony's ne'er-do-well sister, Janice (Aida Turturro), who announces at her mother's wake: "Most of you will probably remember that I have an extraordinary visual sense...
...ri rl.]tn'rr,I [ai liikc...
...1 3-(l I1...
...Hence the deep ambiguity of one of the most critically acclaimed moments from the new series when, after his mother's funeral, Tony is seen watching the final scene of Public Enemy as a tear rolls down his cheek...
...loo bad tte C.Ln-t trarn llinl...
...1,1111' tI"c111: hi]11 T ui iti;(i,l']li 1'.l[lt opi]iltni" 1X:1],1...
...We naturally envy a man who commands respect...
...And who would not secretly wish to make life's annoy ances go away as Tony often does...
...The movies can still take seriously the heroic pretensions and the high style asso ciated with the world of honor and duty, loyalty and revenge...
...His outlaw status offers a way of assessing mainstream society in all its savagery and hypocrisy, even while the series creates a unique family history...
...It I• .1 L CI1'nnn, ,()t't ()f ]-ever],]--hke that nt the wilier Itllc) ,pt[, 111 11 ILL ,oup-AInd like the n'allet- It 1-elllillLi, u, of the o1 )IV 11 .'-h 11', 1liaae:i e 1.L„ 1:n]en,furl tLl the \to...
...lint tile •1L:Ih(It-' are !10:- 11o1-t•11LLt' All IOII e.lll.is .111 To )11, LIT e 1L•,t o; u,.I, ulo:-e likely to be a n1.Ltterof exec...
...The Sopranos is able to walk the line between the serious and the comic, the honorable and the farcical, without ever becoming wholly one or the other...
...As no single film or ordinary television series could, "The Sopranos" has taken on the texture of epic fiction, a contemporary equivalent of a 19th-century sequence of novels...
...Tom Shales of the Washington Post takes a similar line when he notes, as it were with a sigh, that "Tony can be very hard to love, and it's apparently going to get harder"-and then he boldly ventures his only words of criticism, saying that Chase "should make much more of this incident than he does...
...I may be wrong, of course, but I think this is nonsense...
...In somewhat the same way, Caryn James at times seems almost not to understand or even to notice the ironies she elsewhere praises: "You know, you're a very sensitive person for a coldblooded killer," Julia Roberts tells Mr...
...h.1,-ILL p•1anteti it, 111e li1-,t [Mini they heir i, Iinn- [.ilk[I' .!p1•i]-erttlr about a mob hit: "It n]in]lt -,L•t a little nle„r: he ,a...
...Meanwhile that employee of the month c- r is back on the street, and who's going to stop him, Elliot...
...C Ll' L; t;i:n-, lint \l...
...That's how messed up things are...
...She adds that "I'm not going to break the social compact" by referring the rapist to Tony's tender mercies, but she cannot but mention the "satisfaction" she derives from the consciousness that, if she chose, she "could squash him like a bug...
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...Melfi is raped by a man she later recognizes as "employee of the month" at a local fast food restaurant, it is the first thing she thinks of...
...The grand themes of mob life, at least as we have learned to see it from the movies, are ambition, betrayal and revenge, but these things are rarely presented unironically in The Sopranos...
...r.u,c• Oil it 1, o t]+.] in rhi r.[,-[ [Lilt tai , 11t1...
...Back Cover Legato...
...the potentially hero, I, Con ,t al]tly iil, :o]t ill,-, into the blrniel L:onle,r]C...
...It is also possible to imagine that The Sopranos will do for the gangster film what Cervantes did for Ariosto and Tasso, that is, make it almost impossible for us to appreciate them except through the eyes of their parodist...
...117c -:1( ,_.• ,hi,' . rtir:•: 11Ll L,:'I c •c• IlclS t.'lc• 1il.i„c•" l+cn:id rillrk io it...
...As Bill Tonelli of Rolling Stone wrote in the New York Times: The men on "The Sopranos" do what most men, in their hearts, wish they could do: spend time with one another out and about, idle and unrestrained by the civilizing presence of women in their workplace, free to drink, smoke, curse, eat thick sandwiches of meat and cheese and carry guns and fat rolls of large-denomination bills...
...1ourt:aiil,.lolicrt...
...to 1110;C out or the gt!Cter C)11L geiLe!'atloln .]head or lii!11- In (lire of the neat epi,ot:L•,, full ex:unple...
...nv]1•it !irott,L•, our ]lot much revenge a]at-n]e)re a, e:1ev YOU can detect rile L{l,t]]1Ct ]mote 4 1, a; the FBI agent...
...Even the sensitive soul, Janice, cries out when she is attacked by Russian thugs seeking her late mother's companion's artificial leg, which she is holding hostage: ADVERTISER INDEX By patronizing the companies and products posted in this issue, your positive response rewards them for advertising in one of the gems of American publishing, The American Spectator...
...deel)1I11Ll ne1I(,lI the rl1.LI iow i' ?n, min...
...the l.]:nent clf U ii( !C ]u!1i(l]' il)o:ni]1]e {:hiane>C .It the limer.ll Of Ii)I]t , 1r1(xhei ti•lIIL t 1LIreh.mci;: that "thee'l-e drc)ppirl, like i--- in, fIie, elicit, trcnu ii 31 the rent :"It\ ill that C1lar brnilrci nle.it you cue' ate...
...Perhaps a career spent perusing the sentimental liberal pieties-particularly on the subject of race of network TV has taken the edge off of Mr...
...That line is so perfect for Tony Soprano that it could sweep viewers right out of "The Mexican" by reminding them of Mr...
...Superficially, the women on the show seem beleaguered, but they too yell and curse and rage and hit and smoke and eat lasagna and cannolis, even later at night than nutritionists advise...
...though the problem is clearly and very emphatically his own...
...blc,tt;' thu, t.LL!,ir]C then] to h i e to Ibort their lint .utenlp)t to pit LI tile]]- bun ltler the...
...dr.il it thi C-1-3111 A...
...Thus the essential ridiculousness (especially, as it turns out) of one lot of suburban bourgeois breaking into the house of another lot of suburban bourgeois is hinted at on the sound track as the FBI's cloak-and-dagger, precision operation to plant the bugs is introduced with the Peter Gunn theme, which gradually gives way to and intertwines with "Every Breath You Take" by The Police...
...65 Sarkes Tarzian Inc...
...tr.!u!in h1, p•1, tot ,n1 biro iin-oujh the, k:tehel] ,tind,nr\k hut .h()t!I,i then tt o 10111 11.LtCI,, tht'r IL ,p•.ued :I1e 11eee„1n ,1...
...the eat, of the li,tel,in FBI •heir, ;Jerk up u]]ril theta ieml ize• that he i, t•llkine to hii, n].]id', lhusbanti...
...tiler fill,] n,lt Cri!nin,ll Letnitt r11ouLi11 Inn]-', I)k1One, h.ne been bupgeil for tollWar...
...l n] kidL{ir]n' T(ule...
...television with its anti-heroic and post-modern bias naturally undermines them...
...Do you know who my brother is...
...The "rage" that he is so confident Meadow "would really feel" is what she, like her mother, has been hiding from all her life...
...They'd put me in jail...
...He ,tinge,:, that he eau: pet I la u)I11L' b.irg,un, In exeh.!r]Oe• for ,(1u]e :reuninlenll.ltio]:, to ,hrnr 111' ILeLL'): C:.liifc)r:li,l:l ]rent...
...Melfi's husband, Richard, who is so comically obsessed with the bad name that gangsters like Tony give "Italian-Americans" like himself that his first reaction to his wife's rape is to notice that the culprit, though Hispanic, has an Italian-sounding name...
...to(l...
...the ,h,}n ]!•1• hull tLrr:1 instead AIM urinate in Tonr's .trill] ]I111), pool...
...Thus...
...That, indeed, is the secret of Tony's attractiveness...
...This is to umlt• extent an attitude ]].mica h,' I ).n ic{ Caha;e ant{ tale <er]C, Crc°uors-.:nil, of entire, the point -:leaded pltltesOr, n-ieidin" their "intertex CUahn' c I I IIme,-The ehar:II of I.cIII n Iinn for !ik'li] 1, pretty obviously - that he .!lhm, thC]n to feel st:perlnr Cesalise tile\- i-eiopnll7e due allusion, he teas created...
...25 O'Melveny & Myers LLP...
...When Meadow finds out about it, she barely registers anger much less the rage she would really feel...
...When in Episode Four of the new season, for example, Dr...
...So an understanding of the references and allusions to that tradition are important in the way that some knowledge ofAriosto orTasso was important to the first readers of Don Quixote...
...Tony Soprano, that is, is a reactionary and not a progressive hero, a sort of Don Quixote...
...nor ,o much bemuse lie killed people a, heeat1,e he was rutit nouveau...
...Shales's taste for more robust televisual realities...
...Instead of using the "outlaw" or outsider to point up the evils and injustices of"society," Chase and his colleagues are assuming the bland and comfortable decency of the most prosperous and egalitarian society the world has ever known and using it simultaneously to criticize and to express a sneaking admiration for those who persist in living their lives under assumptions and according to rules that ceased to make very much sense to most people in the dominant culture approximately half a century ago...
...Killing and disposing of the bodies of those who offend or betray one is an old forbidden thing, but the gangsters can also do the new forbidden things-things calculated to make liberal critics squirm with discomfort much more than they do when it is only a matter of murder...
...Mob Hit BY JAMES BOWMAN tit l{1iO 1.1,1 1110:lth R,1' it' t113 3-,1 110 11 ri:111 :1111 1:1 (,1 i i .1 .1111 of l+ h. l: .. A]LLe] ti.;11 .31't [t1]' i liit.:hn1",3:1i cCIIIL]]'i" 11C.l,IiiI h .A1:h11u,lt it .i;ItC1-' ti-nln tilt tn,rl ,11,.11{1-.ill \ 1:L 1771111[ 'cell) ~:c•rt,ull (11' it, LUV:1 [ci He .3rtl,cl ally lrtl].]'" tit ar:]lL hci[h ,l I'1 ,11•;l' inert n.l .i -cil k or n-luni,l, it un72''acin 1a.u]a i tci c(1lnhlrIL thCl 11 '0 .t, [(1 hc'= n:iic Thc' ~_Irc•.tt1 \t tit tc cvi 1011 ,[1,l}1 opc•r,l,• i •a n: -k 0t ; °,t 111tH] r1: , I7it h a1,c1 .] lrurk 'tl'ho'd 17.1+1 :ho...
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...I ~> time ta1luL[1•lr ercne, of can nartarr...
...But at a deeper level we know that, unlike Don Quixote, he really is functioning as part of a world that takes honor seriously...
...lull tern] t]ix l Litnll:L[ I:,e(1 to be thol!0ht of as the uh"[eI "]]remit.' Thu, the nlost likely reaction of the 1ititenin, authorities to ..-hat they beau- in Tom-, b•I;en]rnr i, neiehborh concur] rather C11.111 am-mill'- Ckc their Could elicit- 1:1!ieen-ve•I:--old .\nth(mt ]1-- i, nb,errrti ,niokin= Out,i(iC .I eontrrliCMCC store uai p•lottn l_~ you ue 11111 . el)iet VI-it11 .1 friend...
...That, at any rate, seems to be how Lavery understands the critic's role...
...But he is also attractive to us on the level of sheer wish-fulfillment, because of the things he can get away with...
...For we know that, ultimately, he and his way of life don't stand a chance against the onward march of progress and therapy and niceness...
...Lavery, perhaps from necessity, confines his intertextual scavenger hunt to pop-cultural allusions, but Caryn James is clearly carried away with the Proustian theme: And while the series's reference to Proust is funny [she goes on], it is not frivolous...
...99 F L.A.M.E....17 Gilder Publishing...
...Mainstream society" might be savage and hypocritical, but if so, we see very little of that in The Sopranos, where almost all the savagery and hypocrisy belong (as we almost might have expected) to the gangsters.That, indeed, is the point of their being gangsters...
...Not if I cut off those f---ing arms," says Tony...
...Still, there is just enough of the traditional drama of gangsterdom to prevent Tony from becoming a figure of fun...
...Caryn James notes that, "After he has warned the boy to stay away from his daughter, he tells Carmela, `I had a frank conversation with Buckwheat,"' but even this cannot dampen her enthusiasm for the series' and Mr...
...Zot to, ,pall [lie ; ner.ll defl.l hCl( m.l t t('il(ie!1C t i'i...
...tttO ,Lent, di,;11L,L'Ll .l, p(11,t'r et)1t1p).1nt' llnel]1e11 (lb,t'r1'C IT] L' of Ioil\ ai,,ruotleti ",oldie]-•: ss h( + 1•tct,',-ipilt], 'i]I,u ]role ordered 11 )C trued\ r o: k]1, in LL1 biullle...
...If he weren't, like Don Quixote, doomed by the delusion that he is living in a different time and according to different rules than he actually is, we would not find nearly so much comedy and pathos in his attempts to cling to an anachronistic Mediterranean honor culture at odds with everything around it, or in his own intermittent yielding to the same forces of progress and therapy and niceness-as when in season one he is proud of having refrained from "whacking" his daughter's high school soccer coach who had molested one of the girls on the team...
...1:, c -rl.ti01-],:: IF( *,n :.•:•I :1...
...The best thing about the series is that it is able to walk the line between the serious and the comic, the honorable and the farcical, without ever becoming wholly the one or the other...
Vol. 34 • May 2001 • No. 4
