JM; This was one of the scenes I was thinking about when I wrote the above about how lousy Chase's visual aesthetics can be. So unfortunately, I think this scene is a good example of Brian's complaint. But it is also a good example of what I think is great story telling in the show.
Chase and company set a scene in a place that is like "found art" and then they destroy the effect by lousy editing, cutting to the characters at the wrong time. Just pay attention to how he reveals the space and then ignores it for most of the rest of the scene. But also pay attention to the subtle humor (and excruciating stupidity of the characters) in this scene. The scene has potential visually, but Chase misueses the potential. But it is still an interesting scene in the story.
Soprano and Paulie get patted down and then walk into the very weird garage-space where the sit-down is going to be held. Here we get what amounts to a shot establishing the space. But pay attention to how Chase does it and look where Chase cuts.
After selecting this fantastic space that seems to extend as far as a football field -- a giant wheel mid-distance left and a dump-truck in the background and all kinds of truck parts lying around, and the incongruity of an easy chair in the foreground, and the kitchen table where the meeting is to take place -- after finding this great space for the scene does he use it for anything but this establishing shot? Do we feel that the space does anything but set a mood?
And notice where he cuts! Paulie and Tony are still in the distance, and then he cuts to "the little guy" and "the informant" sitting at the kitchen table -- a medium distant two shot of the two of them looking off screen left toward Tony and Paulie. The cut has the effect of a jump-cut because the camera had been drifting left and there was no "expectation" for the eye except the continuity of this drift. There was also no significant movement by any of the characters closest to the camera to "hide" the cut. This jump-cut was just ineptitude, not design. My suspicion is that Chase couldn't wait for the long walk to the table, so he had to shorten the walk in post-production. He created this jump-cut without intending to do so, out of simple time necessity.
Cut back to Tony and Paulie and the bodyguards walking, now much too close to the table for the time elapsed. We see this from the angle of the table, nice shot, but held for such a short time that there is no sense of the space between the table and Tony. I would think that this kind of cut might emphasize the point-of-view of the people waiting at the table, but the shot does no such thing. Again there is a sense that he is hurrying this scene, and that he inserted the cuts where he did in order to get through the scene in less time. Perhaps the show was going long.... But if this is the excuse he probably could have planned out the scene better for this contingency. The fact is that he didn't.
Then we get a series of cuts of the guys around the table and of Tony and Paulie sitting down. The cuts are at table level, and really tell us very little. Each cut is isolated from the other, and there is no sense of where exactly they are sitting at the table. Then a cut to George - the garage owner "host" - offering water, a cut to the water, and a cut to each person saying no. All of this is so damned inept. But then again... It is funny. The offer of water and its refusal is ticklishly funny in a way that is hard to define. This is an example of Chase's humor. This was the best hospitality this guy could offer!? You have to have a taste for this kind of joke in order to laugh at it, in order even to get it.
Then finally we get a cut to the table as a whole and where each person is sitting at the table, as if Chase simply forgot to orient us in this respect. The shot is an after thought. Look how he occasionally cuts away to a more distant view of the table as if he had forgotten that he had such a great (and probably horrendous for the crew and actors) location to work in. The fact is he does not use this space for the rest of this scene. The scene was obviously cut with little time, thus the sound doesn't always match from cut-to-cut. And the only time the space is put to good use again is when every one is walking away from the table. No matter how hard Chase tries to give us a sense of this space, he really doesn't. It is just background.
I suspect that the visual space of this sit-down was inspired by the scene in the first Godfather where Sallazzo talks to Tom Hayden in the Diner after the assassination attempt on Vito Corleone. A beautifully done scene and not "found art" like the sit-down scene in the Garage, but the space is put to so much better use.
But the scene as a whole works. It is full of little jokes, that are sort of meta-jokes. These guys are freezing to death and all they want to do is get out of there. The bad visual style actually emphasizes the aspect of the story that these guys really all hate each other and just want to get away from each other. The "jokes" were to some extent planned (the refusal of the bottled water) and to some extent found in editing -- (how cold these guys are) but it is the kind of strange incongruity that defines the show. The accidents of this scene show us the story. The story is shown to us in ways that I don't think that those who concentrate only on the visuals-aesthetics can "see". It might be an accident that the story of "the sit-down" comes across with a touch of excruciating humor, but that kind of accident occurred on this show all of the time.
This was visually astounding. Also: Paulie and Tony on the boat,
> etc. It's not Antonioni meets Wong Kar-Wai or anything, but they were very
> effective imo.
>
> I'd say that seasons 1-3 & 6 redeemed the soap opera-y seasons 4-5.
>
> Cheers,
> J T.
--
> j t. ramsay
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-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/