It was a small moment, but can I just point out that the use of the model train visual metaphor in that one scene was almost shockingly inept coming from a show that basically defined the genre of quality highbrow television.
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Sopranos-blogging
04 Jun 2007 11:54 am
Comments (58)
I was also really bothered by that scene. I thought it was over-directed and awkward, like something a first-year film student would have done.
It was obvious but I liked it. I especially like the close-up of that little figure that had his hand over his mouth because he's shocked by what he's seen.
I'd actually go further and say the whole sequence involving Bobby was weaker than the show's norm because it was so utterly telegraphed. The second he walked away from the car without picking up the ringing telephone, it was clear what was about the happen, and it only became more obvious the longer we lingered discussing the beauty of the model train. The Sopranos generally plays against audience expectation; here, there was literally no other reason for us to be watching the scene except to wait for an inevitable outcome.
I feel amost the same about the subsequent scene with Sil. As soon as I saw he was still at the Bing, I gured I knew what was coming.
Make that "figured I knew what was coming"
Am I a moron if I don't know what the model train is a metaphor for? I suppose it's not a "trains-going-into-tunnels" type of metaphor.
I agree though, that scene was a little subpar. With Sil, I couldn't figure out whether they would get him or not. I could have pictured him getting away. With Bobby, it was totally telegraphed from the first second of the scene.
It was almost as bad as that last scene in "The Departed" with the rat. Come on, we're not idiots.
I miss "The Wire."
It was almost as bad as that last scene in "The Departed" with the rat.
Am I the only person who that was funny? I mean the movie already makes itself ridiculous in the last 30-40 minutes. Why not throw in the visual gag?
the train is as nothing as compared to the apallingly poor way the melfi-tony "breakup" was handled, which was about as lame as the sudden intense gambling fixation earlier in the year.
i'd been harboring a theory during this season that there was no intent to "end" the sopranos, just to "stop" it after the last episode with a variety of plot lines still dangling, but clearly i was wrong about that.
but i'm not wrong that really, although there has been some very good stuff this season, the production team is clearly tired....
i thought the scene as a whole, and the train part of it specifically, was drawn-out a little too much. but it wasn't terrible.
for the characters, it's a pretty blunt metaphor: the little round-n-round routine of the Soprano's life just ended spectacularly. and it's a metaphor for the show itself: after 7 (?) years of routinely circling the same scenery, it's all coming to a crashing end - and the fact that it ended with the cheap sound of plastic hitting plastic, and not a gigantic explosion, felt like a wink ("this is just cheap entertainment, it's not momentous!")
"It was a small moment, but can I just point out that the use of the model train visual metaphor in that one scene was almost shockingly inept coming from a show that basically defined the genre of quality highbrow television."
Agreed.
I've watched all episodes more than once, I thought it was the single most inept moment since the first two seasons, back when they were still struggling to find their tone and had a bunch of moments like that. Since then, they've been fucking seamless.
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Train-gate aside, I'm still really digging the shows. The Raging Bull boxing moment was among the show's best.
And Uncle Philly's crew is looking a helluva lot like the Spurs...
I just took a brief look around the web. Unlike here, most critics have praised the episode.
our expectations can't be unrealistic. its a tv show. i found most of the episode to be quite brilliant.
One shot of the train would've played. It was only when they went back to the shot a second time, (they ended up going back 3 or 4 times), that I said, "Fuck you," to the teevee.
"Unlike here, most critics have praised the episode."
It was a kickass episode. I've thought pretty much all of season 6a and 6b has been stellar.
But the train bit was seriously fucked up.
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The Christopher and Vegas by Cab episode was the show's capper. We're all in coda now.
a lot the criticism on this blog centers on the notion that every plot turn this season has to have precedence in previous episodes (like the gambling, for example).
life often doesn't happen that way.
"a lot the criticism on this blog centers on the notion that every plot turn this season has to have precedence in previous episodes (like the gambling, for example)."
The gambling business didn't bother me in the least. I don't mind a bit of randomness in my narrative.
But the train business was this ugly mawkishness, alien to the show, that was also precisely what had pissed off Melfi earlier in the episode. (And I'm not quite prepared to accept that there was meta-irony in the show's design.)
Check out the opening of the 1938 masterpiece "The Lady Vanishes" by Hitchcock. It has a toy train town and a toy car pulled by strings through the toy train town. It is entirely inept. And its ineptness is absolutely 5000% irrelevant.
Yeah, Bobby's scene was inept in its conception and in its execution, as was the handling of his character in general since the episode where he and Tony faught - major tension created, but left to die on the vine totally. It was horribly telegraphed and the train imagery was amateur-hour at best.
Silvio's scene was awful in terms of direction.
The complete lack of tension involved in offing two of the show's most important characters was a big fat drag.
On the other hand, the Raging Bull moment was perfect, as was the sequence with Tony and Carmella at Artie's restaurant. The lies and rampant denial in that bit pretty much said it all.
I didn't mind the Melfi/Tony breakup scene.
Interesting that Paulie has been targeted for future "management" by Phil's lot. I wonder if Paulie will be made aware of this fact, as a means of getting to Tony.
"a lot the criticism on this blog centers on the notion that every plot turn this season has to have precedence in previous episodes (like the gambling, for example).
life often doesn't happen that way."
Life doesn't work that way. But this is not "life." It's a serial drama that over the years has tended to avoid traditional plot devices found in regular, old television. It's avoidance of tired devices has been one of the halmarks of the show; it's why people watch. The mythical gambling problem was such a device, and it was wholly insulting to those who follow the show. It showed no creativity; it was obvious; it was boring; it didn't fit in with the story-telling of the show.
What I find interesting is how shockingly inept these gangster types are (or...are portrayed in the Sopranos).
Seriously, a mob war starts and these guys find out there are unidentified hit men out for them and they have done no advance contingency planning? Is that realistic?
It's in total contrast to the generic spy movie where when the spy knows his cover is blown he pushes a button and bugs out in seconds while everything traceable around him goes up in smoke.
Seriously, wouldn't a smart mob leader at least have some sort of contingency plans in place for this sort of thing? Its like Tony and the guys were just standing around thinking WTF do we do now? What you do is get armed to the teeth and bug out to that secret safe house you have stashed away for just this contingency. You don't ride around your usual haunts with your sidearm stashed in the glove box under papers.
Eh. This 8-episode season so far is sort of like the last section of Gravity's Rainbow: mostly dissolution, with the long fuse burning down to a wet firecracker.
Chase et. al. have emphasized the shabbiness of The Sopranos family before, but the level of Sopranos incompetence they squeezed into last night's episode begs a question: If the Sopranos family can be dismantled as easily as shown last night, why did Leotardo wait until now to drop the hammer?
One possible answer, I guess, though an unsatisfying one, is that Tony has eliminated most of the smart guys in his organization over the years, because they were threats to his authority: Ralphy, Tony B., etc.
"Seriously, wouldn't a smart mob leader at least have some sort of contingency plans in place for this sort of thing?"
They're not at the top of their game.
Season 6a & 6b has been all about the internal disintegration of the New Jersey family.
And Phil's assessment of them as a glorified crew is looking on target. As we've seen before, Tony is not prepared.
Hey, another question. I had a short interruption watching the show last night and got completely confused by the first hit where the hitmen gunned down the guy and his daughter in a staircase.
What happened there and what was the deal with speaking ukranian?
"Interesting that Paulie has been targeted for future "management" by Phil's lot. I wonder if Paulie will be made aware of this fact, as a means of getting to Tony."
There were a few episodes where Paulie made what one critic characterized as "overtures" to the New York family. I think it was based on the fact that nobody but Johnny Sack called him a lot or saw him when he went to prison for the gun the cops found under the seat of his car when he went to see Dean Martin's childhood home. Or something like that. I just can't remember what season it was.
I agree that the train sequence was heavy-handed, but it somehow seemed like an homage to the Coppola/DePalma tradition of symbolism-rich whacking scenes, and I therefore enjoyed it as such. (There's little point in complaining that we saw it coming from too far in the distance, given that the director chose to let us watch Phil giving his boys the order -- that already broke the rules of third person limited narrative, so our foreknowledge re Bobby was pretty much a given. Did we not see Silvio's hit coming, once the scene opened with him and the other dude packing up at the Bing?) Sil's hit, in contrast, was more in the grubby, abrupt tradition of Scorcese and Tarantino. This has always been a show that can be enjoyed on both straight and meta levels, and I took in the hits last night on the latter sense.
What happened there and what was the deal with speaking ukranian?
they were killed by hired guns from Italy - hired by the Sopranos organization to kill Phil. they found a grey-haired man, thought it was Phil L (based on a picture of Phil they had with them). so they killed this random guy and his daughter, assumed it was Phil, and went back to Italy. due to too many layers of delegation planning stages (presumably), they got the wrong guy - not enough info, lack of leadership, failure to take ownership of the implementation - they really needed a Project Champion. and after the execution, nobody wanted to tell the guy above him anything about the fact that the hired guns probably killed the wrong guy.
and then Paulie takes all responsibility while claiming he didn't do anything wrong.
it's a classic Too Many Managers situation.
The Wire is neorealism and it wouldn't have trains, but The Sopranos is a different genre, it's much more theatrical. Train works there, I don't see a problem.
Maybe I'm not as caught up as I'd like, but why did Leotardo target Bobby as opposed to Paulie. Didn't Tony make Paulie Underboss? Isn't that higher than captain?
"Maybe I'm not as caught up as I'd like, but why did Leotardo target Bobby as opposed to Paulie."
They're cannibals, and Bobby had the most meat on him.
Much more crappy to me than the train scene--admittedly, redolent of an NYU Film School reel, but amusing--was the utter cheapness, and wrongness, of Melfi's breakup with Tony. Totally out of character. The show's core has for nine years been in that little psychiatrist's office, and she's going to simply say to him, go to another guy down the road and get some pills? Melfi, not the stupid highlighted book pages, should have been the one to tell Tony (and us) that not only is his treatment not working, it's making him worse. Her saying it wd have served the same isolating purpose, without making her look like a coed breaking up with her boyfriend.
Finally: If whatever happens to Tony doesn't happen in the pool with the ducks coming back, i'll really be pissed.
"Finally: If whatever happens to Tony doesn't happen in the pool with the ducks coming back, i'll really be pissed."
You're really not paying attention. The last few episodes have been all about the "ducks" and the pool.
Was the whacking of the Ukranians a complete screw-up, or what Phil had in mind -- i.e., setting up a decoy to draw fire? Surely those guys, idiots though they may have been, had the right address, didn't they? And what were the chances of a guy fitting Phil's body/hair type being there just at that moment? I got the impression, from Tony & co.'s later discussion, that they took this -- as well as Phil's sudden disappearing act -- as evidence he was several moves ahead of them.
Charlie Murtaugh, just because we knew Phil had announced a hit on Bobby doesn't mean the scene had to play out so expectedly. This series has been all about confounding expectations on hits (Richie Abrile getting shot by Janice when we thought he was headed for a showdown with Tony; Ralphie surviving at least half a season beyond expectation, then going down in a flash; Christopher's demise coming out of the blue). This development was disappointingly without surprise, a fact made worse by the way the scene dragged to its foregone conclusion.
Petey, you're probably right that Phil is simply better prepared, but it feels like a dramatic letdown ending for Tony and crew to go down so easily to such a dreary scumbag. I'm hoping Chase has something to surprise me in the final scene.
The series does seem to have got a lot darker lately, doesn't? I don't mean just plot developments; I mean the laughs have been missing. I was actually grateful for AJ's self-absorbed moment near the end -- it was the only moment really keyed the show's traditionlal goofball humor.
"The series does seem to have got a lot darker lately, doesn't? I don't mean just plot developments; I mean the laughs have been missing."
The whole of season 6 has been all about death and disintegration. We're deep in Godfather II territory here, which wasn't a barrel of monkeys either.
Someone asked why they whacked Bobby instead of Paulie.
My theory: Paulie is going to turn on Tony. I think this for the following reasons:
First, they have been hinting on the Paulie-Tony animus for awhile,Paulie is kinda a loser (or is a loser, as one can divine from his chronic addiction to story-telling) and he basically feels unappreciated.
They didnt wack Paulie
IT was Paulies guys who made the screw-up.
Phils mob did not just want to take the Soprano's out, they wanted to absord some of their members. I think they got to Paulie.
The rebuttal to all of this is that Sopranos is, and generally has been for awhile, a fairly random show. So who knows, maybe Paulie ends up taking down Phils crew by himself. Wouldn't suprise me at this point.
ON the plus side, i liked the ending scene and music. Imagine lying in bed with a m-16 just watching a door - really cool scene. .
The train stuff did come off as a little obvious and overdone when I was watching the show, but it has grown on me since. The toy train crash was a metaphor for the show, but also for the Mafia as we have seen it in the show. The "Blue Comet," an expensive model of a flashy luxury train that ran from NYC to AC during the 1930s, represents the Sopranos' sentimental but hopelessly inadequate approach to the tradition they are part of. They feel they are keeping up the tradition without quite realizing how dysfunctional it has become, especially after Tony's generation has tried to combine it with the with the very different norms of modern therapeutic society. They have turned "their thing" into a flashy toy vulnerable to destruction in the face of any serious pressure, which is exactly what we have seen happening these last few episodes.
Phil and the Brooklyn family are past their time, too -- just like the railroads were coming to be in the era of the Blue Comet, by the way -- but they are not a toy but the real thing, as Phil's speech pointed out. Not that that makes them admirable or something -- they are real hardened criminals, not suburban dads whose jobs happen to be somewhat illegal. Phil and crew keep up some of the traditions better, but those include the brutality, bigotry, and general macho thuggishness that Tony and his guys (Paulie excepted) at least try to rise above most of the time. The Phil faction is also far tougher and more decisive. The slightly anti-climactic and one-sided killings of Bobby and Silvo, not to mention the failed hit of Phil, seemed meant to show how completely unprepared Tony and crew were for any strong move against them, even one they must have known was coming.
Agree with one of the above commenters who said that the guy Tony's Italians killed was a decoy. Phil was several steps ahead and had already gone into hiding.
He wasn't a decoy. He was Phil's "mistress's" father. It just happened that way.
"Seriously, a mob war starts and these guys find out there are unidentified hit men out for them and they have done no advance contingency planning? Is that realistic?"
Even without much contingency planning, they already knew that Phil had pushed that button, and had to have known it was for more than Tony. They had to have known that, as Tony got wind of Phil's plan, Phil may have gotten wind of theirs.
As disintegrated as this group is, it's absurd to think that they wouldn't have been in lockdown, and that they would have been out train shopping or just winding out another day at the Bing. And all that was true before they saw the article and put 2 and 2 together.
I know it's theatrical, but even these guys aren't that dumb. Illogical ...
...one they must have known was coming...
Hmm, but isn't it normally kinda against the rules, what Phil's doing there; don't they typically (at least according to the pop-culture) have a mediation process to resolve conflicts at this level?
Maybe this is supposed to symbolize the Bush/Cheney era escalation of general brutality and thuggishness. AJ character's "sick of all the violence" metamorphosis may be a hint here.
Spoiler alert!
The final Sopranos episode will be done as a joint venture with Family Guy. All the mobsters will head to Rhode Island and become animated. The Griffin family will enter 3-D life in northern Jersey and appropriate the asbestos hauling roots.
Much hilarity will ensure.
I, too, thought the Ukrainian daughter was Phil Leotardo's squeeze - wasn't she with him when the Sheepshead Bay place blew up?
I thought it was particularly funny that daddy looked like the Shah of Persia too.
Kent says @ 1:35pm:
What I find interesting is how shockingly inept these gangster types are (or...are portrayed in the Sopranos).....
Seriously, a mob war starts and these guys find out there are unidentified hit men out for them and they have done no advance contingency planning? Is that realistic?...
Seriously, wouldn't a smart mob leader at least have some sort of contingency plans in place for this sort of thing?....
I think you're so wrong. Two major points:
1) Big picture, the whole series has been praised as realistic by cops and real mafioso types precisely for that reason. In reality, these folks are mostly petty criminals who know how to spot a mark and are willing to use violence to get what they want, but not the brightest tactical lights in the earthly constellation. Who have to gang up in an ancient rite to give them some clout and power.
Rather, it's something like the "Godfather" series that is very unrealistic, going for the mythic emphasis as it does. You'll find the same dichotomy between real spies and fictional ones if you actually read about real ones.
2) Within the episode itself, the Sopranos' incompetence is also addressed. When Phil announces his decision, he calls the Sopranos family a "pygmy" family that somehow wrongly sprung out of their family, one of the five major families. He complains that the are an anomaly that never should have existed and that they derisely describing how they don't even know how to properly induct members, and basically implying that they are an incompetent joke that is an embarassment to the East Coast/New York family. That they should not be a separate family but that the heads must be destroyed and the rest of the dumb crew in Jersey should be back under the direction of the supposedly more capable fold of the New York family.
I guess this is asking for it in a thread full of fans, but do you seriously think The Sopranos represents "quality highbrow television"? Why?
"Was the whacking of the Ukranians a complete screw-up, or what Phil had in mind -- i.e., setting up a decoy to draw fire? Surely those guys, idiots though they may have been, had the right address, didn't they? And what were the chances of a guy fitting Phil's body/hair type being there just at that moment?"
I'm not sure and won't know until tonight, when I hopefully watch the episode again, but I think they said last night that the young woman was Phil Leotardo's mistress.
I think the Sopranos is not only quality highbrow television, but the best dramatic television series I have ever seen. The stories, the characters, the dialogue, the acting, the richness of it all.
I had a question about the scene where Phil's talking to his guys about taking out Tony and his crew. He ridicules the Jersey crew and says that they don't even prick the finger or put something on the table. Did somebody else catch these lines more clearly than I did, and can you explain them?
e-dawg,
That's all part of the ceremony of becoming a "made guy." Remember in Season 3 or whatever, when they made Christopher? He got all dressed up, and they pricked his finger and he sort of become blood brothers with everybody, or with somebody, and Tony told him, "this family is now the most important thing in your life."
The Sopranos represents "quality highbrow television"?
I don't think it's "highbrow" at all. Just like no one thought of Charles Dickens as "highbrow" in Victorian England and no one today who has any sense does either. It's a quality pop culture offering in the vein of realism, like Dickens was.
but I think they said last night that the young woman was Phil Leotardo's mistress.
i'd like to watch it again, to verify m'self (but i can't, cause we didn't DVR it). but i was under the impression that the only reason they thought she was Phil's goomar was because the Italian guys who killed her assumed she was - but they didn't actually know, right? they just shot a guy with gray hair, and the woman who was with him.
Meh:
The Sopranos is good TV, but I think it's a little over-rated. Some of what passes for sophistication is simply lazy writing, IMO. I like Showtime's Brotherhood better.
"I don't think it's 'highbrow' at all. Just like no one thought of Charles Dickens as 'highbrow' in Victorian England and no one today who has any sense does either. It's a quality pop culture offering in the vein of realism, like Dickens was."
Leaving aside my feelings on "The Sopranos" and Dickens, what in your opinion is "highbrow" material?
I had a question about the scene where Phil's talking to his guys about taking out Tony and his crew. He ridicules the Jersey crew and says that they don't even prick the finger or put something on the table. Did somebody else catch these lines more clearly than I did, and can you explain them?
Phil was complaining that when the Jersey crew swears in a new made man, they don't put a sword and a gun on the table, as is--I suppose--customary in the better Mafia circles.
Is anyone else sort of miffed that the show seems to feel the need now to show every member of the Sopranos family who's to get killed first killing someone else? It's like they want to make sure we remember everybody's a bad guy before they die. I liked it with Christopher, but it felt completely manipulative with Silvio.
Melfi, not the stupid highlighted book pages, should have been the one to tell Tony (and us) that not only is his treatment not working, it's making him worse.
Lorraine Bracco couldn't have pulled it off. It would have been worse.
Hey, good non-star cast, decent (if somewhat soapish) writing, what more can one ask for these days.
"Is anyone else sort of miffed that the show seems to feel the need now to show every member of the Sopranos family who's to get killed first killing someone else? It's like they want to make sure we remember everybody's a bad guy before they die. I liked it with Christopher, but it felt completely manipulative with Silvio."
I actually think that was supposed to reflect well on Sil. That New Jersey guy he killed wanted to make Sil the leader of a band of guys that would off Tony and negotiate peace with New York. Sil stayed loyal to Tony.
I don't the criticism of the Melfi/Tony breakup scene. It was brilliant. As others have pointed out, the season is all about self-preservation, and Melfi's dinner party intervention laid out for her what the stakes were -- she can either retain the respect of the professional therapy world or be tossed out. And when she responds self-righteously to the "big nose" comment, she's immediately cut down in a way that demonstrates that she's lacking in cultural capital (she doesn't even get wine). It's humiliating, just as not being aware of a particular article that everyone at the table knows about is humiliating. Giving up that world -- which she has invested her life in -- is not worth maintaining a relationship with Tony Soprano.
As for the train scene, there is the issue of Phil talking about pygmies in Jersey, and of course the figurines in the "Newark" train set fit the bill. The scene doesn't comport with the dominant aesthetic of hyperrealism that posters here seem to adhere to. I liked it, but then again I like guitar solos, not just-the-facts-ma'am minimalist punk rock.
I don't the criticism of the Melfi/Tony breakup scene. It was brilliant. As others have pointed out, the season is all about self-preservation, and Melfi's dinner party intervention laid out for her what the stakes were -- she can either retain the respect of the professional therapy world or be tossed out. And when she responds self-righteously to the "big nose" comment, she's immediately cut down in a way that demonstrates that she's lacking in cultural capital (she doesn't even get wine). It's humiliating, just as not being aware of a particular article that everyone at the table knows about is humiliating. Giving up that world -- which she has invested her life in -- is not worth maintaining a relationship with Tony Soprano.
As for the train scene, there is the issue of Phil talking about pygmies in Jersey, and of course the figurines in the "Newark" train set fit the bill. The scene doesn't comport with the dominant aesthetic of hyperrealism that posters here seem to adhere to. I liked it, but then again I like guitar solos, not just-the-facts-ma'am minimalist punk rock.
For those wondering about the general level of competence of the Jersey mob and the pin prick issue, here are your answers. The bottom line: the show is pretty damn close to reality.
http://www.nj.com/sopranos/ledger/index.ssf?/sopranos/stories/mafiosi_20030509sl_decavalcante00.html
http://www.nj.com/sopranos/ledger/index.ssf?/sopranos/stories/mafiosi_20030516sl_decavalcante01.html
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Comments closed June 18, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Really? What was so shockingly inept about it? Do you mean, like, in a technical sense? Like it wasn't realistic or something? I rather thought at the time it was one of the best scenes the show has given us in quite some time. Or are you saying it was too obvious and heavy-handed a metaphor?
Posted by Jasper | June 4, 2007 12:02 PM