Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family
What rough beast is David Chase riding?
He seems to have understood the mood of his nation better than anyone since Mario Puzo and Francis Coppola forecast the fate of the American empire in The Godfather. And he has world leaders mouthing his dialogue, day and night. Here is Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, in The New York Times yesterday: “There are two mentalities in this region,” he said. “Conspiracy and mistrust.”
Baghdada-bing.
The rest of the world was muttering about Tony Soprano’s final blackout, but Mr. Maliki proved once more that David Chase has been battling for something worth fighting for. What do I mean, battled?
Try David Chase himself, as interviewed cathartically and perceptively by the hardest-working man in Sopranos land, Alan Sepinwall, the TV critic for Tony Soprano’s end-of-the-driveway hometown paper, The Star-Ledger: “No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God,” Mr. Chase said. “We did what we thought we had to do.”
He had completed his story, but he was giving us a gift in the last scene: He was telling us more. What happened in the four last minutes was plenty of information, and not of the conspiracy-theory type: We got to see the world as Tony does, suffused with anxiety and some amusement and apprehension. It took David Chase eight years to get Tony in and out of therapy, and he was improved about as much as a patient can be improved, maybe 2 to 5 percent.
“It felt like ginger ale in my skull,” he told Dr. Melfi in the first episode. The Sopranos ended up as it began—not with a bang, but an anxiety attack.
Only this time it was ours. This time we blacked out.
“I was shocked by the ending,” said Peter Bogdanovich, the movie director and film historian who played Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, Tony’s therapist’s therapist. Mr. Bogdanovich said he had shot another scene that didn’t make the final episode, in which he was comforting an exhausted, bereaved Dr. Melfi.
“It ends at that moment because that’s his life,” said Mr. Bogdanovich. “He’s anxious about getting blown away, the F.B.I. is going to indict him, Syl is going to die, everything is insecure and tense. It kept going, and the insert shots kept making you feel it was the last thing he was going to do. Endings, endings, endings. The little things in life are the last thing you are going to do. In fact, that’s his life.
“He didn’t give you what you expected—instead of a Hollywood ending,” Mr. Bogdanovich said, and so the viewer was left with “any number of imaginings, so you ask, ‘What the fuck happened?’”
“David has been consistent by doing everything with a vengeance he was not allowed to do on network television, so he gave you a very ambiguous ending,” he continued. “Which is not what the American audience is used to.”
The entire business history of American television has been a conspiracy toward two ends:
a) the resolved ending, generally happy;
b) destroying ambiguity.
Life and art weren’t supposed to jibe when it came to commercial entertainment. It’s not that David Chase was the first guy to come up with ambiguity and moral relativism on TV, but he may have done it with the most vengeance of any television writer since Rod Serling.
You may have noticed that the guys in the safe house where Tony was hiding were watching an episode of The Twilight Zone. It’s a 1963 episode called “The Bard,” and it was written by Rod Serling, the patron saint of television auteurs. In it, a failed playwright summons William Shakespeare from the dead to write his TV pilot for him. Shakespeare, needless to say, sells it, then is compromised and crushed. On Mr. Chase’s soundtrack, you could hear the agent lecture the writer: “The television industry today … is preoccupied with talent, looking for quality … the television writer is a major commodity.” Television writer … commodity. It is the voice of the network slaughterer.
Now the tabloid writers are mad at him. They wanted the show to splatter. As John Candy and Joe Flaherty used to say on SCTV, they wanted it to blow up real good. Mr. Chase inspired the ire of yahoo nation by bagging and dumping what he wanted to avoid: The dark bedtime-story end of The Sopranos was in great demand, and he provided it—splattt!—under the wheels of the Phil Leotardo’s Ford Expedition.
But he also provided the first really grown-up summation in the history of American television: The subjective shot of Tony experiencing the American influx of diners at Holsten’s restaurant was news, as was his inglorious humanity. The final shot of Tony before the black, if freeze-framed, is a human image more photojournalistic than dramatic. If you have that particular device, take a look at Tony, the woolly mammoth in freeze-frame before the ice age, another human in anxious abatement in the Age of Ambiguity.
“It is the most subversive television series ever because it makes you like the monster,” said Mr. Bogdanovich, who was still mulling the last scene. “You don’t know what you’re waiting for. It’s the perfect use of suspense. You are trapped, not wanting anything to happen, but wanting something to happen. It’s very vicious. You’re left with any number of imaginings. What the fuck happened? Which shows you’re bloodthirsty also.”
We saw the two things that were preoccupying Tony: the one unambivalent relationship of his life, the adoring Meadow, his only true believer—she decided to become a lawyer when she saw her daddy taken away in cuffs!—and the assassins around him.
The Chase Gang gave us all the information we needed in the hour: indictments, threats, business, A.J., Carmela, Janice, it was all wrapped up. I was always certain that someone was going to clue Carmela in on the murder of Ade, but it didn’t happen. When Carmela entered Holsten’s, she entered in long shot, and her friendly, reassuring smile to Tony was casual and loving, but quick. A.J. entered with what looked like a potential assassin, his effective twin. But it was Meadow who received the Hitchcockian treatment of threat: Would she be able to park? Was she about to be locked in by assassins? Would she make it across Broad Street, on which she seemed to be in as much jeopardy as was Janet Leigh in Psycho?
“Anybody who wants to watch it,” Mr. Chase told Mr. Sepinwall in The Star-Ledger, “it’s all there.”
The Sopranos could have made it in the Clinton years, but it could only have become the deeply troubling comedy it was in the Bush era. Not because of the White House so much, but because of the viewer’s complicity in the dirty brew of power that flowed from this White House. Not because of the war, but because of the public sense of responsibility for this war.
“Oh,” says Carmela when she’s trying to talk A.J. out of joining the army, “you want to get your legs blown off?”
“Always with the dramatics,” he says. But not really.
Earlier, at Bobby Bacala’s funeral, A.J., who truly did seem to relax and inhabit his own body once more after his yellow S.U.V. exploded, had a peroration for the commercial landscape the show inhabited: “America,” he said, “is still where people come to make it. It’s a beautiful idea. And then what do they get? Bling and come-ons for shit they don’t need and can’t afford?” Paulie mocked him and descended into a Norm Crosby routine.
But David Chase fought for and won a strange moment of pure insight into the American process. It was romantic, bleary, filthy, piercing. It was as much a comedy of American sobering up after 9/11 as Dallas was a comedy of America getting drunk on the Reagan years. But Mr. Chase fought a battle and won: He created a last shot on television that was one of the best close-ups in movie history, the snapshot of Tony taking in American ambiguity: the Boy Scouts, the killers, the gangstas and the one person toward whom he had little ambiguity. Like the final image of Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows, he captured all the intimate uncertainty of his age, in a room that could have been heaven or hell, but with good onion rings.
It was, so far, the best last episode in TV history—better than The Mary Tyler Moore Show or All in the Family or Seinfeld, despite all the screaming about it from plotmongers who wouldn’t have been happy with anything short of the conflagration from the end of Scarface or Tony whacking Dr. Elliot Kupferberg before he entered witness protection. Paradox, moral relativism, internality. All the stuff that network television has battled and ejected in the past 60 years—except in a very few instances—is the essence that David Chase brought to his 86 hours. David Chase’s enduring triumph in American television is that he embraced ambiguity and looked for poetry in the Bush administration.
Paulie Walnuts thought he had seen the Virgin Mary, and Tony mocked him; but in fact, Tony had seen the other side of mortality as well, and almost was cajoled by Cousin Tony—a spectral Steve Buscemi—into entering that big, well-lit house in his coma dream, after Junior shot him. But he didn’t, he re-entered the living and went on. That was, he knew somewhere, his task, and it’s why the cozy, dark ordinariness of Holsten’s restaurant in Bloomfield, N.J., was a terrifying but immensely moving way station.
Orson Welles once said that “Every story essentially has an unhappy ending. If you want a happy ending it all depends on where you stop telling it.” David Chase’s triumph was that he had the balls to stop telling it right h
Thanks to Peter W. Kaplan
Monday, June 18, 2007
Appeals Court Orders Chicago Mob Bosses to Stand Trial
Friends of ours: James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr., Tony "The Ant" Spilotro
Two alleged Chicago mob bosses must go to trial this week despite their claims that they already have been convicted of the charges in the indictment, an appeals court said Tuesday.
James Marcello and Frank Calabrese Sr. each were convicted of taking part in racketeering conspiracies more than a decade ago but now are charged with an entirely different conspiracy, Judge Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a nine-page majority opinion.
He said the latest conspiracy charges outlined a completely new case even though some of the same criminal acts were part of the indictments when the two reputed mob bosses previously were convicted.
''We have no basis at this early stage for thinking that the government will fail to prove separate conspiracies,'' the appeals court said in the 2-1 ruling. But it said the men could have grounds for appeal if new evidence ''differs only trivially'' from the evidence used to obtain the previous convictions.
Marcello and Calabrese are among a dozen alleged mob bosses and associates set for trial on charges involving 18 long unsolved killings, including that of Tony ''The Ant'' Spilotro, long the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas. Spilotro was the basis for the Joe Pesci character in the movie ''Casino.'' He was found buried with his brother in an Indiana cornfield.
The trial is expected to last four months and stems from a long-term FBI investigation dubbed Operation Family Secrets. It is considered one of the biggest mob trials in Chicago in a number of years.
Marcello and Calabrese have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Marcello and eight other men were charged in a 1992 indictment with conspiring to conduct the affairs of the Carlisi street crew by means of numerous illegal acts including extortion, intimidation, arson, murder plots, loan sharking, tampering and gambling between 1979 and 1990. He was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to 12 1/2 years in federal prison.
Calabrese was charged with six others in a 1995 indictment alleging a similar conspiracy involving the Calabrese street crew. He pleaded guilty in 1997 and was sentenced to almost 10 years in federal prison.
The two men noted that there was considerable overlap between the conspiracies in which they previously were convicted and the new one alleged in the Operation Family Secrets indictment involving the Chicago Outfit. Federal prosecutors argued that the Chicago Outfit was a separate criminal enterprise from either the Carlisi or Calabrese street crew.
While Posner and Judge Diane Sykes agreed that the alleged conspiracy was something new, Judge Diane Wood said in a minority opinion she would have removed the overlapping allegations against the two men from the indictment. But she said she would still make them go to trial on the allegations that don't overlap.
Two alleged Chicago mob bosses must go to trial this week despite their claims that they already have been convicted of the charges in the indictment, an appeals court said Tuesday.
James Marcello and Frank Calabrese Sr. each were convicted of taking part in racketeering conspiracies more than a decade ago but now are charged with an entirely different conspiracy, Judge Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a nine-page majority opinion.
He said the latest conspiracy charges outlined a completely new case even though some of the same criminal acts were part of the indictments when the two reputed mob bosses previously were convicted.
''We have no basis at this early stage for thinking that the government will fail to prove separate conspiracies,'' the appeals court said in the 2-1 ruling. But it said the men could have grounds for appeal if new evidence ''differs only trivially'' from the evidence used to obtain the previous convictions.
Marcello and Calabrese are among a dozen alleged mob bosses and associates set for trial on charges involving 18 long unsolved killings, including that of Tony ''The Ant'' Spilotro, long the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas. Spilotro was the basis for the Joe Pesci character in the movie ''Casino.'' He was found buried with his brother in an Indiana cornfield.
The trial is expected to last four months and stems from a long-term FBI investigation dubbed Operation Family Secrets. It is considered one of the biggest mob trials in Chicago in a number of years.
Marcello and Calabrese have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Marcello and eight other men were charged in a 1992 indictment with conspiring to conduct the affairs of the Carlisi street crew by means of numerous illegal acts including extortion, intimidation, arson, murder plots, loan sharking, tampering and gambling between 1979 and 1990. He was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to 12 1/2 years in federal prison.
Calabrese was charged with six others in a 1995 indictment alleging a similar conspiracy involving the Calabrese street crew. He pleaded guilty in 1997 and was sentenced to almost 10 years in federal prison.
The two men noted that there was considerable overlap between the conspiracies in which they previously were convicted and the new one alleged in the Operation Family Secrets indictment involving the Chicago Outfit. Federal prosecutors argued that the Chicago Outfit was a separate criminal enterprise from either the Carlisi or Calabrese street crew.
While Posner and Judge Diane Sykes agreed that the alleged conspiracy was something new, Judge Diane Wood said in a minority opinion she would have removed the overlapping allegations against the two men from the indictment. But she said she would still make them go to trial on the allegations that don't overlap.
Long Unsolved Murders Focus of Chicago Mob Trial
Friends of ours: Tony Accardo, James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr. Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Anthony Doyle, Frank "The German" Schweihs, Nicholas Calabrese, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro
It seemed like a good idea at the time. A gang of burglars decided in December 1977 to break into the home of Tony Accardo, one of the most powerful men in organized crime history, and rob his basement vault. Accardo was not amused.
Six men Accardo blamed for the heist were swiftly hunted down and murdered, according to papers filed by federal prosecutors in preparation for Chicago's biggest mob trial in years, scheduled to begin Tuesday. And that's only one of the grisly tales jurors are likely to hear at the trial stemming from the FBI's "Operation Family Secrets" investigation of 18 long-unsolved mob murders allegedly tied the Outfit, Chicago's organized crime family.
"This unprecedented indictment puts a hit on the mob," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in announcing the charges in April 2005. "It is remarkable for both the breadth of the murders charged and for naming the entire Chicago Outfit as a criminal enterprise under the anti-racketeering law."
Reputed top mob bosses head the list of defendants -- James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr. and wisecracking Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo. Four co-defendants include a retired Chicago police officer, Anthony Doyle. All have pleaded not guilty.
Another defendant, alleged extortionist Frank "The German" Schweihs, has been tentatively dropped from the trial for health reasons.
Accardo, the notorious mob boss whose home was hit by the burglars, died in 1992 at age 86. He boasted that he never spent a night in jail.
The case has already made the kind of headlines that might seem the stuff of novels and movies. A federal marshal assigned to guard a star witness was charged with leaking information about his whereabouts to organized crime. The marshal has pleaded not guilty. That witness -- Nicholas Calabrese, brother of Frank Calabrese Sr. -- knows four decades of mob history from the inside and really does have a link to the movies. He is expected to testify against his brother.
Nicholas Calabrese pleaded guilty to several counts in May and admitted that he took part in 14 mob murders including that of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, known as the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas. Spilotro, who inspired the character played by Joe Pesci in the movie "Casino (Widescreen 10th Anniversary Edition)
," and his brother were beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in 1986.
Lombardo, 78, and Schweihs disappeared after the indictment was unsealed in 2005, setting off an intense FBI manhunt.
Crime buffs speculated that Lombardo was hiding out in the hills of Sicily or enjoying a life of ease in the Caribbean. In fact, after nine months on the run, FBI agents nabbed him in a suburban alley one frosty night in January 2006. Schweihs was captured deep in the Kentucky hill country in December 2005.
The Clown lived up to his nickname later when he appeared before U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who inquired about the aging man's health and asked why he hadn't seen a doctor lately.
"I was supposed to see him nine months ago, but I was -- what do they call it? -- I was unavailable," Lombardo rasped.
In the 1980s, Lombardo was convicted in the same federal courthouse, along with then-International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Roy Lee Williams, of attempting to bribe Sen. Howard Cannon of Nevada.
When Lombardo got out of prison he took out a newspaper ad denying that he was a "made guy" in the mob and disavowing any role in future organized crime activities. Lombardo defense attorney Rick Halprin scoffs at prosecutors' claims his client is a powerful organized crime leader. "Those things just aren't true," he said.
Experts say the Chicago crime syndicate is so deeply entrenched that it won't be decapitated even if the government gets a clean sweep of convictions.
Gus Russo, who describes the Chicago mob in his book "The Outfit," noted that the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act has helped crime-busting prosecutors make progress against the mob. "But, regretfully, greed is such a part of our culture that you're always going to have a criminal element and it will organize," Russo said. "This will hurt the mob but it won't end it."
The trial is expected to take four months. Among the security precautions, jurors' names are being kept secret and prosecutors say they have nine potential witnesses whose names have been kept secret out of concern for their safety.
Thanks to Mike Robinson
It seemed like a good idea at the time. A gang of burglars decided in December 1977 to break into the home of Tony Accardo, one of the most powerful men in organized crime history, and rob his basement vault. Accardo was not amused.
Six men Accardo blamed for the heist were swiftly hunted down and murdered, according to papers filed by federal prosecutors in preparation for Chicago's biggest mob trial in years, scheduled to begin Tuesday. And that's only one of the grisly tales jurors are likely to hear at the trial stemming from the FBI's "Operation Family Secrets" investigation of 18 long-unsolved mob murders allegedly tied the Outfit, Chicago's organized crime family.
"This unprecedented indictment puts a hit on the mob," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in announcing the charges in April 2005. "It is remarkable for both the breadth of the murders charged and for naming the entire Chicago Outfit as a criminal enterprise under the anti-racketeering law."
Reputed top mob bosses head the list of defendants -- James Marcello, Frank Calabrese Sr. and wisecracking Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo. Four co-defendants include a retired Chicago police officer, Anthony Doyle. All have pleaded not guilty.
Another defendant, alleged extortionist Frank "The German" Schweihs, has been tentatively dropped from the trial for health reasons.
Accardo, the notorious mob boss whose home was hit by the burglars, died in 1992 at age 86. He boasted that he never spent a night in jail.
The case has already made the kind of headlines that might seem the stuff of novels and movies. A federal marshal assigned to guard a star witness was charged with leaking information about his whereabouts to organized crime. The marshal has pleaded not guilty. That witness -- Nicholas Calabrese, brother of Frank Calabrese Sr. -- knows four decades of mob history from the inside and really does have a link to the movies. He is expected to testify against his brother.
Nicholas Calabrese pleaded guilty to several counts in May and admitted that he took part in 14 mob murders including that of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, known as the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas. Spilotro, who inspired the character played by Joe Pesci in the movie "Casino (Widescreen 10th Anniversary Edition)
," and his brother were beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in 1986.Lombardo, 78, and Schweihs disappeared after the indictment was unsealed in 2005, setting off an intense FBI manhunt.
Crime buffs speculated that Lombardo was hiding out in the hills of Sicily or enjoying a life of ease in the Caribbean. In fact, after nine months on the run, FBI agents nabbed him in a suburban alley one frosty night in January 2006. Schweihs was captured deep in the Kentucky hill country in December 2005.
The Clown lived up to his nickname later when he appeared before U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who inquired about the aging man's health and asked why he hadn't seen a doctor lately.
"I was supposed to see him nine months ago, but I was -- what do they call it? -- I was unavailable," Lombardo rasped.
In the 1980s, Lombardo was convicted in the same federal courthouse, along with then-International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Roy Lee Williams, of attempting to bribe Sen. Howard Cannon of Nevada.
When Lombardo got out of prison he took out a newspaper ad denying that he was a "made guy" in the mob and disavowing any role in future organized crime activities. Lombardo defense attorney Rick Halprin scoffs at prosecutors' claims his client is a powerful organized crime leader. "Those things just aren't true," he said.
Experts say the Chicago crime syndicate is so deeply entrenched that it won't be decapitated even if the government gets a clean sweep of convictions.
Gus Russo, who describes the Chicago mob in his book "The Outfit," noted that the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act has helped crime-busting prosecutors make progress against the mob. "But, regretfully, greed is such a part of our culture that you're always going to have a criminal element and it will organize," Russo said. "This will hurt the mob but it won't end it."
The trial is expected to take four months. Among the security precautions, jurors' names are being kept secret and prosecutors say they have nine potential witnesses whose names have been kept secret out of concern for their safety.
Thanks to Mike Robinson
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
We Get No Such Thing as An Soprano Ending
Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family
We get a basket of onion rings, hailed by Tony Soprano as Jersey's best.
We get shifty-eyed diner customers, one of whom (whoa, look out!) just shuffled off into the bathroom.
We get a 25-year-old Journey song on the jukebox.
We get Meadow's abysmal parallel parking effort, reminiscent of a teen's first driver's test, outside the diner.
We hear the diner's front door open, and now our hearts are pounding and we're gripping our chairs waiting for what happens next.
And we got a spooky blank screen.
Did the cable just go out? Come on, who's sitting on the remote?
Nobody's sitting on the remote. The cable didn't go out. The greatest show in television history just stopped.
As it turned out, creator David Chase was just toying with us. He'd sooner subject himself to the kind of fate received by Phil Leotardo earlier in the episode (crunnnnch!) than provide a neat and tidy conclusion to the Sopranos.
Sure, we knew Sunday's much-anticipated finale wasn't going to tie up all loose ends.
Nobody should have expected the crazy Russian who Christopher and Paulie Walnuts chased in the snow a few years ago to turn up again.
We shouldn't have expected to see Tony pay a price for ordering the hit on Ade.
We shouldn't have expected to learn what happened to, say, the nutty Goth son of the late Vito Spatafore.
Fine. But let's cut to the (David) Chase: Does Tony live or die?
Does Meadow find her family dead once she finally manages to park her car? Is she killed herself? Or does she simply walk in, take a seat and enjoy Jersey's finest onion rings with her family?
And what about that psycho cat who kept staring at Christopher's picture earlier in the show? That has to come into play somewhere, doesn't it?
Of course not.
The best we can figure is, Tony will be indicted. (If he lives, that is). But what about Silvio? He's toes-up in a hospital bed. Is he a goner? Or does he make the same sort of miraculous recovery from bullet wounds that Tony did?
I liked the last Sopranos episode, but it left me empty, and because of an interruption, it took an extra long time to discover the resolution, or rather that there was no resolution.
My 5-year-old daughter emerged from her bedroom halfway through the episode, still wired from a long day at Holiday World, unable to sleep. This was just before Phil's head got smashed. Needless to say, the television had to go off and the DVR had to go on. My little girl fell in the arms of my wife, who looked at my distraught facial expression and tried hard to keep from laughing. The end of the Sopranos would have to wait until Caroline was back in bed.
But even then, we were still left waiting for an ending that never came.
Thanks to John Martin
We get a basket of onion rings, hailed by Tony Soprano as Jersey's best.
We get shifty-eyed diner customers, one of whom (whoa, look out!) just shuffled off into the bathroom.
We get a 25-year-old Journey song on the jukebox.
We get Meadow's abysmal parallel parking effort, reminiscent of a teen's first driver's test, outside the diner.
We hear the diner's front door open, and now our hearts are pounding and we're gripping our chairs waiting for what happens next.
And we got a spooky blank screen.
Did the cable just go out? Come on, who's sitting on the remote?
Nobody's sitting on the remote. The cable didn't go out. The greatest show in television history just stopped.
As it turned out, creator David Chase was just toying with us. He'd sooner subject himself to the kind of fate received by Phil Leotardo earlier in the episode (crunnnnch!) than provide a neat and tidy conclusion to the Sopranos.
Sure, we knew Sunday's much-anticipated finale wasn't going to tie up all loose ends.
Nobody should have expected the crazy Russian who Christopher and Paulie Walnuts chased in the snow a few years ago to turn up again.
We shouldn't have expected to see Tony pay a price for ordering the hit on Ade.
We shouldn't have expected to learn what happened to, say, the nutty Goth son of the late Vito Spatafore.
Fine. But let's cut to the (David) Chase: Does Tony live or die?
Does Meadow find her family dead once she finally manages to park her car? Is she killed herself? Or does she simply walk in, take a seat and enjoy Jersey's finest onion rings with her family?
And what about that psycho cat who kept staring at Christopher's picture earlier in the show? That has to come into play somewhere, doesn't it?
Of course not.
The best we can figure is, Tony will be indicted. (If he lives, that is). But what about Silvio? He's toes-up in a hospital bed. Is he a goner? Or does he make the same sort of miraculous recovery from bullet wounds that Tony did?
I liked the last Sopranos episode, but it left me empty, and because of an interruption, it took an extra long time to discover the resolution, or rather that there was no resolution.
My 5-year-old daughter emerged from her bedroom halfway through the episode, still wired from a long day at Holiday World, unable to sleep. This was just before Phil's head got smashed. Needless to say, the television had to go off and the DVR had to go on. My little girl fell in the arms of my wife, who looked at my distraught facial expression and tried hard to keep from laughing. The end of the Sopranos would have to wait until Caroline was back in bed.
But even then, we were still left waiting for an ending that never came.
Thanks to John Martin
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The Sopranos Don't Stop Believin'
Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family
The songwriters of Journey's power ballad "Don't Stop Believin"' were "jumping up and down" when they learned a few weeks ago it had been licensed for use in the final episode of "The Sopranos." But even they couldn't believe how it would prove so integral to one of the most memorable final scenes in television history.
"It was better than anything I would have ever hoped for," said Jonathan Cain, Journey keyboard player, who watched at home with his wife and family.
Tony Soprano chose the song after flipping through a jukebox at a New Jersey restaurant where he dined with his family. The song played in the background as ominous characters flitted about and, right as Steve Perry was singing "don't stop," the HBO series did exactly that, for good. The ending infuriated some fans, amused others and intrigued all.
Cain, who wrote the song with Perry and Neal Schon, didn't know how it would be used when they agreed to the licensing. Cain kept the fact that it was going to be in at all a secret, then watched the episode with his family.
"I didn't want to blow it," he told The Associated Press on Monday. "Even my wife didn't know. She looked at me and said, 'You knew that and you didn't tell me?"'
Journey released the song in 1981, and it reached No. 9 on the singles chart. It has taken a life of its own since then, often reflecting the attitude people had toward Journey itself. "Don't Stop Believin"' brings back fond memories for many, is unbearably cheesy for others.
It's easy to imagine Tony Soprano, back in the day, taking a young Carmela to a Journey concert.
David Chase, creator of "The Sopranos," has an eclectic musical taste. He's curated two songtrack albums for his series, and made music a key part of the stories, particularly as the ending credits rolled. It's possible "Don't Stop Believin' " was part of the elaborate inside joke he made of the final episode.
It's also possible he found the end of the last verse too hard to resist: "Some will win, some will lose," Perry sings. "Some were born to sing the blues. Oh, the movie never ends. It goes on and on and on and on ... "
"Don't Stop Believin' " has been featured in a several television and movie scenes. It crept onto an iTunes top-10 list when, during the same week, it was on Fox's "Family Guy" and in a romantic scene on MTV's "Laguna Beach."
Sports teams have adopted it, too. After the Chicago White Sox used it in 2005, Perry sang it at the parade to celebrate the team's World Series victory.
Cain, who has a 13-year-old and twins aged 11, said the songwriters are careful about how they license the song, and have resisted several advertising campaigns. They debated its use in the film "Monster" with Charlize Theron but, in the end, "she's too cute to say no to," he said.
He was a little nervous Sunday when, as he watched with his children, the mob boss Phil was shot and viewers heard his head crunched as it was run over by an SUV. But he loved the final scene.
"It was very smart writing," he said. "I always love movies where you don't see the guy whacked. You wonder whether he's going to get whacked."
It could help Journey's visibility, too, as it did for singer Nick Lowe when his song "The Beast in Me" was used over the closing credits for "The Sopranos" very first episode. There had been some speculation that Chase would return to it for the finale.
"A lot more people knew Johnny Cash's version (of 'The Beast in Me') and this put Nick's version on the map," said Jake Guralnick, Lowe's American manager. "Nick's version is a lot more vulnerable."
Cain said it indicated that a wish he and Perry had -- that their songs would have a long life -- was coming true.
"It puts our feet in the cement," he said. "We're a staple in the American music culture. Like us or not, we're here to stay."
The songwriters of Journey's power ballad "Don't Stop Believin"' were "jumping up and down" when they learned a few weeks ago it had been licensed for use in the final episode of "The Sopranos." But even they couldn't believe how it would prove so integral to one of the most memorable final scenes in television history.
"It was better than anything I would have ever hoped for," said Jonathan Cain, Journey keyboard player, who watched at home with his wife and family.
Tony Soprano chose the song after flipping through a jukebox at a New Jersey restaurant where he dined with his family. The song played in the background as ominous characters flitted about and, right as Steve Perry was singing "don't stop," the HBO series did exactly that, for good. The ending infuriated some fans, amused others and intrigued all.
Cain, who wrote the song with Perry and Neal Schon, didn't know how it would be used when they agreed to the licensing. Cain kept the fact that it was going to be in at all a secret, then watched the episode with his family.
"I didn't want to blow it," he told The Associated Press on Monday. "Even my wife didn't know. She looked at me and said, 'You knew that and you didn't tell me?"'
Journey released the song in 1981, and it reached No. 9 on the singles chart. It has taken a life of its own since then, often reflecting the attitude people had toward Journey itself. "Don't Stop Believin"' brings back fond memories for many, is unbearably cheesy for others.
It's easy to imagine Tony Soprano, back in the day, taking a young Carmela to a Journey concert.
David Chase, creator of "The Sopranos," has an eclectic musical taste. He's curated two songtrack albums for his series, and made music a key part of the stories, particularly as the ending credits rolled. It's possible "Don't Stop Believin' " was part of the elaborate inside joke he made of the final episode.It's also possible he found the end of the last verse too hard to resist: "Some will win, some will lose," Perry sings. "Some were born to sing the blues. Oh, the movie never ends. It goes on and on and on and on ... "
"Don't Stop Believin' " has been featured in a several television and movie scenes. It crept onto an iTunes top-10 list when, during the same week, it was on Fox's "Family Guy" and in a romantic scene on MTV's "Laguna Beach."
Sports teams have adopted it, too. After the Chicago White Sox used it in 2005, Perry sang it at the parade to celebrate the team's World Series victory.Cain, who has a 13-year-old and twins aged 11, said the songwriters are careful about how they license the song, and have resisted several advertising campaigns. They debated its use in the film "Monster" with Charlize Theron but, in the end, "she's too cute to say no to," he said.
He was a little nervous Sunday when, as he watched with his children, the mob boss Phil was shot and viewers heard his head crunched as it was run over by an SUV. But he loved the final scene.
"It was very smart writing," he said. "I always love movies where you don't see the guy whacked. You wonder whether he's going to get whacked."
It could help Journey's visibility, too, as it did for singer Nick Lowe when his song "The Beast in Me" was used over the closing credits for "The Sopranos" very first episode. There had been some speculation that Chase would return to it for the finale.
"A lot more people knew Johnny Cash's version (of 'The Beast in Me') and this put Nick's version on the map," said Jake Guralnick, Lowe's American manager. "Nick's version is a lot more vulnerable."
Cain said it indicated that a wish he and Perry had -- that their songs would have a long life -- was coming true.
"It puts our feet in the cement," he said. "We're a staple in the American music culture. Like us or not, we're here to stay."
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