Posted on 06/15/2007 10:22:56 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
I must confess a temptation to complacent laughter at the frustration of all ''The Sopranos'' fans at the conclusion of the series. It was the most important television project ever, comparable to Don Quixote, Shakespeare, maybe even St. John's Gospel. Why did it end not with a bang but a whimper? It was also a powerful critique of corrupt capitalist American culture. Academics and intellectuals -- and pseudo-academics and intellectuals -- had searched the weekly bloodshed and vulgarity for wisdom hidden from the ages. How could the series stop without ending?
Ordinary viewers, satisfied with the violent whacking of "Uncle Phil" Leotardo, were disappointed by the conclusion, which was a stop and not an ending. The intellectuals should have been ready for David Chase's "post-modern" joke. What did the series mean? It meant that there was no meaning at all. Like all stories, ''The Sopranos'' series had no meaning because life has no meaning.
"Post-modern" literary theory holds that an ending to a story is a "fallacy." An ending tries to impose a meaning on a story, either an optimistic ending that says there was a purpose in all these pains and sufferings or a tragic ending which provides a "catharsis." Post-modernism (which can mean everything and nothing) insists that life is neither comedy nor tragedy but a meaningless series of events that stops eventually for everyone in the story when they die.
Eventually Tony will die, so will Carmella, so will Meadow, so will A.J. Maybe the thugs in the men's room will come out and kill them. More likely Tony will eventually be whacked by those who want to take over his turf or in a prison stabbing. Life is absurd. The attempts of a story to fight back absurdity by creating meaning is fallacious. The stories told through the ages are merely attempts to escape from absurdity. We foolish, self-deceptive humans are wasting our time looking for meaning.
The Soprano family, around the dinner table, know nothing and have learned nothing. Vanity of vanities, as the biblical book Qoheleth says, and all is vanity. Neither, Chase tells us, have we learned anything. He mocks our demands for an ending, for meaning, for purpose and laughs at his great joke. All that remains is more sex, violence and absurdity.
And cruel stereotyping of Italian Americans.
He has tricked us. He lured (some of) us into addiction to the series by the sex and the killing and the Italian stereotypes (and the vulgarity) to close the trap of absurdity on us. Yet he has also asked us to identify with the absurd life of the Sopranos and to re-examine our own stories.
The background song tells us "Don't stop believing." But there is nothing in ''The Sopranos'' series that gives us any reason to believe. If we gotta believe, we must blindly leap into the darkness with which the final episode ends. Chase will give us not the slightest hint of why we should jump.
I'm not a post-modernist, not even, truth be told, a modernist. If anything I am, like many of my own background, a pre-modernist. Regardless of the absurdity of life (which we of all people do not deny) we will not give up our stories, we will not yield our hope. Indeed it would appear now that evolutionary biologists are saying that humans are genetically programmed to hope.
Maybe Paulie Walnut's vision of the Mother of Jesus is a hint to be taken seriously. As is A.J.'s assertion that we gotta remember the good times.
Another book in the Bible says love is as strong as death.
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What the h*ll is a priest doing watching this kind of profane crap, anyway?? Oh, I forgot. He’s a priest in name only. The old liverspot must be running out of things to do in his dotage.
Aeons ago, Bill Buckley (I think, somebody at NR anyway) reviewed one of his early novels. Commenting on some of the more “purple” passages, the reviewer noted that Greeley had obviously never violated his vows of celibacy. I’ve noted, over the years, that Greeley’s knowledge of other subjects isn’t any better ...
I was disappointed at first, but I've totally changed my mind after thinking about it for the last 5 days. It was brilliant, and I can't think of a better way they could have ended it.
Qoheleth?
You mean Ecclesiastes, Padre?
Great set-up for a Sopranos feature film.
Why can't a priest watch America's favorite show? I thought his analysis right on...Tony Soprano's not so unlike a lot of powerful people. True, he's whacked his share but every one of them deserved it (Phil, Ralph, cousin Tony Blundetto were all ogres; and Pussy, Adrianna, and the rest were all rats). But Tony also had some good qualities. He truly loves his kids, and he's got a real soft spot for animals, just like St. Francis. And, besides, St. Paul himself was much in the mold of Tony before his conversion on the road to Damascus.
"And, besides, St. Paul himself was much in the mold of Tony before his conversion on the road to Damascus."
Tony is a fictional character. His writer can write anything he wants into Tony's personality and behavior. Greely is an actual person whose calling as a priest is 180 degrees from "The Sopranos" (or should be).
Now days, people park their 5-year-olds in front of the TV to watch everything on HBO. They be shocked if their priest wasn’t watching, too.
I know MANY priests who curse. They’re regular people.
He seems to know a lot about this show. Lucky he wasn't lured into any kind of addiction to the series or anything.
Somebody else, I can't remember if it was here or on another forum, suggested that they should take us back to the '60s, when Tony was a kid and his dad and Junior were running North Jersey.
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