James Gandolfini died like his
last lines in the final scene of The Sopranos, remembering the good times, but
this world class actor deserves far more accolades than just his role of Tony
Soprano, for many thought that what he brought to television was what Brando
brought to movies ~ himself: Allen L Roland
"I have lost a brother and a best
friend. The world has lost one of the greatest actors of all time." - Musician Steven
Van Zandt, who played Silvio on "The Sopranos."
James Gandolfini was a deep and complex
man who loved his acting craft and left a legacy of work that some have
compared to Brando at his best. Owen Glieberman, Movie critic for
Entertainment Weekly, was one of those who thought as such as
he recently wrote on EW.com;
" For on The Sopranos,
Gandolfini’s artistry was personal in the highest sense. His performance as
Tony was a kind of ongoing everyday torn-from-reality gangster-as-normal-guy
Method psychodrama. Gandolfini put his demons out there, and used them, and
fused them with the character he was playing in a way that made Tony seem as
large as a planet, as rich and interior as any character in a novel…. And that’s how his performance as Tony
heightened the canvas of what acting on television could be, in much the same
way that Marlon Brando, starting in the early ’50s, turned his brooding brand
of confessional Method performance into a one-man acting revolution that
changed Hollywood ~ and, in an Elvis-like
way, the very rhythm in the Western world…As
Tony, Gandolfini spilled his guts and then some, so it was no wonder that in
doing so he changed the landscape of television. Gandolfini’s emotions
spilled over the sides of Tony as a character, and he scorched the earth with
those emotions….He made it the role of a lifetime, and made the role so
large that that was enough to make him the Brando of television. It was his
The Wild One, The Godfather, and Last Tango in Jersey all rolled into one."
See
full article: http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/06/22/gandolfini-was-the-marlon-brando-of-tv/
Here are some
wonderful interview videos of Gandolfini discussing his life and work
with James Lipton ~ taken inside the actors studio and surrounded
by adoring fellow actors and mentors. It's well worth 44 minutes of your viewing time, but Gandolfini's tip to the acting students in
the last four minutes is especially meaningful to me because it's the same
message that I impart to my clients ~ Believe in yourself and above all,
don't sell out on yourself .
David Chase's
brilliant and controversial last
scene of the Soprano's was an
understated masterpiece for it was filmed from Tony's visual perspective
~ for indeed the ultimate fade to black
is death. Think of death like falling into a long black tunnel ~ a tunnel
that leads to a point of light and singularity where all notions of time and
space break down and we become one with the
Unified field and a blissful state of love and soul
consciousness.
But
I digress
~ obviously the customer with the jacket who passed Tony's table on the way to
the men's room was his killer, who was waiting for the whole family to be
together before he struck, so when Meadow hurriedly entered the restaurant and
Tony looked up in recognition ~ the assassin's bullet was just entering his brain and from Tony's perspective
everything went black.
Instead
of showing a table spattered with Tony's blood and brains
with his wife and children screaming in horror as the gunman brushed aside
Meadow and ran
out the door having accomplished his retaliation ~ Chase chose to take it
from Tony's perspective and left the rest to our imagination.
So
once again, watch the final scene of The Sopranos and admire the end of a
finely crafted David Chase masterpiece as well as a brilliant actor
prophetically suddenly fade to black at the peak of his career.
Final
episode / The Sopranos / 4 minutes
"He
was a genius. Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows
that. He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time. A great deal of
that genius resided in those sad eyes. He was my partner. ... He was my brother
in ways I can't explain and never will be able to explain." - David Chase,
creator of "The Sopranos."
Allen
L Roland
Freelance Alternative
Press Online columnist and transformational counselor
Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and
private Skype consultations (allen@allenroland.com )
Allen
L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and
lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a
monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
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