edited by Jonathan Doyle

Classe tous risques (The Criterion Collection, 6.17.2008) Claude Sautet is best known for subtle interpretations of French bourgeois life in such films as Un coeur en hiver and Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud. Yet the director began his career with genre films. Classe Tous Risques, released in 1960, is considered the best of his early work and it's a fascinating companion to similar crime movies made around the same time by Jean-Pierre Melville. (continued)

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Hancock

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The Whackness

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Diminished Capacity

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson

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Full Battle Rattle

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A Man Named Pearl

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Eight Miles High

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Hellboy II: The Golden Army

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July 18

A Very British Gangster

Before I Forget

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Boy A

Will Tony Soprano Die?

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"Another problem with killing Tony Soprano [at the end of the about-to-start final season] is how likable he is, despite his pathologically long list of misdeeds and murder. We like him, that's why we watch the show, and doing him in more than the writers and the audience can bear. Indeed, they want to believe he can change.

"'Arthur Miller used to say, you don't go to the theater unless you see your- self onstage,' says Glen O. Gabbard, a psychiatrist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who wrote The Psychology of the Sopranos: Love, Death, Desire and Betrayal in America's Favorite Gangster Family. 'The audience thinks that maybe, just maybe, this bad man can be transformed into a good man. That's what [Dr. Jennifer] Melfi thinks, that's what the audience thinks.'

"And yet, something more powerful than the demands of storytelling may dictate Tony's final fate -- Hollywood. Although Chase is ending the series because he's mined the show for all he can on television, rumors persist about a possible Sopranos feature film. A Sopranos movie without Tony? As the Bada Bing! boys might say, not gonna happen." -- from Martin Miller's 4.1.07 L.A. Times piece.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 31, 2007 at 04:45 PM

comment #1

Devin Faraci says ...

Tony can't die because killing him is not satisfying... not from a 'we like him' POV but from the same POV that meant Michael Corleone couldn't die until he was an old man. He needs to survive and live with the knowledge and guilt of his crimes.

Posted by Devin Faraci at March 31, 2007 05:46 PM

comment #2

Jack Price says ...

I recall hearing years ago how Livia Soprano was supposed to set a series of events into motion that would directly lead to Tony's demise. Of course, this storyline was dropped after Nancy Marchand succumbed to lung cancer in 2000. This was also when the show was originally going to last only four or five seasons, supposedly.

I wish I could find some past articles to back this up. Anybody else remember hearing this?

Posted by Jack Price at March 31, 2007 06:27 PM

comment #3

Hallick says ...

Tony Soprano dying in the finale wouldn't mean much dramatically, no matter how he went. This has been a series that marks the eventual death of one thing and one thing only - his soul.

Posted by Hallick at March 31, 2007 11:10 PM

comment #4

ROTC says ...

I'm ambivalent about whether Tony will, or should, die. But I've got a nagging hunch that either Christopher or Little Anthony are headed for the Soprano family plot - or someone's sausage grinder.

Just as long as they don't kill off Meadow on the steps of an opera house.

Posted by ROTC at March 31, 2007 11:15 PM

comment #5

Dublin101 says ...

If Little Anthony is whacked, I'll be hollering with joy. That character is a loathsome little waste of space. Personally I hope that Tony is either whacked or imprisoned. It's the least he deserves.

Posted by Dublin101 at April 1, 2007 03:45 AM

comment #6

Jake Gittes says ...

David Chase has always shaken his head at the affection the audience has for Tony and his crew.
Each season he has ratcheted up the violence against the unfortunate, the beating death of the Bada Bing girl, Drea DeMateo, Annabella Sciorra's character. None of these deaths have diminished Tony's appeal. Tony should die in a hail of bullets just like Edward G. Robinson and Cagney in the Warner movies Chase has referenced. Instead I think the end will come to Tony indirectly, Carmellla or one of the kids. Tony will be left mouthing the scowling words of his mother "Poor Me".

Posted by Jake Gittes at April 1, 2007 07:58 AM

comment #7

delbomber says ...

just guessing...tony lives, christopher dies.

Posted by delbomber at April 2, 2007 06:17 AM

comment #8

TL says ...

I'm ammending my previous theories about how it all ends (Tony goes to the can trying to protect AJ or Meadow dies as the result of Tony's decisions). Now I think that it will end with Tony having the option to make a clean break, without needing to betray anyone, and choosing instead to continue on with a life that makes him miserable (although comfortable).

Posted by TL at April 2, 2007 01:22 PM

comment #9

christian says ...

"David Chase has always shaken his head at the affection the audience has for Tony and his crew."

what bullshit. then let tony talk the way real wire-tapped gangsters speak, using the n--word endlessly. most real gangster recordings sound like neanderthals learning how to grunt.

Posted by christian at April 2, 2007 01:36 PM

comment #10

kimi98 says ...

In an effort to curb malicious comment posting by abusive users, I've enabled a feature that requires a weblog commenter to wait a short amount of time before being able to post again. Please try to post your comment again in a short while. Thanks for your patience.