Monday, October 29, 2007

Why the final Sopranos episode is a work of sustained genius (especially the last three minutes) and a weird Highland musical coincidence...

...and if you haven't seen it, and DON'T want to have your perceptions of what happens conditioned, possibly wrongly don't watch this YouTube video. Before dismissing this explanation as the fevered imaginings of geeky obsessives such as myself, remember (1) David Chase wrote and directed the final show himself; (2) The works of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell loom large in both the Sopranos and (3)Northern Exposure, the true ancestor of the Sopranos and the series Chase cut his teeth on. Look for the number three...
HOWEVER...
It may well be rubbish - remember one of the black guys who tried to whack Tony at his mother's behest was actually killed. The 'trucker' may be more relevent for the three tubs of cream on his saucer, and the 'Nikki Leotardo' in the credits is actually Phil's daughter or grandaughter.

My take on it? I agree with the commentators who see the recurring number three and the continual opening of the restaurant door as intimations of threat - we feel that tension - and maybe there are illustrations of past attempts on Tony's life. But the cutting to black (and Bobby and Tony's previous conversation about that)is not necessarily about Tony's actual death, but about the continuing threat of death he, and indeed his entire family, face all the time, and will face in the future.

Without us watching.

The weird Highland coincidence: Last night, as Tony was choosing Journey's Don't Stop Believing over Little Feat's All That You Dream on E4 (and hey, those titles are significant, surely?) Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett from Little Feat were on stage at the Strathpeffar Spa Pavilion. Really.

No comments: