At first glance, it is an anonymous, almost insignificant face: something young/middle aged, lazy and stretched at the same time, widened but also reduced by the hair line that goes back. It is the face of your local barber, of the guy who taught you world geography or the seller who sold your first to your father Nissan. Another look is needed, or perhaps two, to notice the eyes, which at the beginning are presented as melancholy wells, until they light with joy, seduction, confusion, or a icy fury that leaves you breathless because it is the last thing you expected.
In the end, there was nothing anonymous in James Gandolfinialthough perhaps he would have wanted it to have it. Followed in the footsteps of Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson y Humphrey Bogart: character actors that, against any forecast, were catapulted to stardom. That each of them travels the path of the outlaw is not a coincidence: our culture likes the types that shake us a little, and if they do not seem someone who we would take home to introduce our parents, much better, because in our theaters and rooms of being we can visit their sordid apartments and keep them at a distance.
But what happens if the cost of that transaction pays the hard guy? That is the main theme of Gandolfinithe meticulous and deeply documented biography of the film critic and historian Jason Baileywhich seeks to recover the actor from his biggest role.
Depending on where or when you knew Gandolfinihe could be James, Jamie, Jimmy or even Bucky. Our biographer is decided by Jima name that encompasses both the boy from Jersey which stood out in basketball at high school Park Ridge as the young and determined actor who reached New York With all the charm, power and talent he had. The success did not take long to arrive: a secondary role in the replacement of Broadway of 1992 by A tram called desirefollowed by a decisive moment in the cinema with True Romance of Tony Scottwhere his mqueaning murderer of a soft smile terrifies methodically Patricia Arquette. Even then, he was worried about being pigeonholed. “If you ever make me play a gangster,” he told his representative, “I will kill you.”
Faithful to its principles, rejected secondary role in the biopic of HBO on Gotti. Nor did I want to make television, but the next proposal of HBO It was the one that could not reject: a leading role as a chief of the crime of northern Jersey besieged, who steals visits to a therapist while trying to underpin his wobbly empire, family and psyche. It is a premise that, as the film demonstrated Analyze Thislaunched simultaneously, could easily have resulted in comedy. But the creator and director of the series, David ChaseI had something else in mind: the daily erosion of a man’s soul.
The sad truth was that, for many hours of therapy that Tony Soprano It would be submitted, for many epiphanies that he would find along the way, he never became a better man. On the contrary, write Bailey“Tony He always returned to the Crime Curnche, and sought and acquired more power ruthlessly, even if that required more bloodshed. This middle -aged man was not going to fix himself, and nobody was going to fix it. ”
The surprising thing is how many of us we witness that dreary show. For half of your first season, The soprano It was the best classified cable television program, with 10 million viewers per episode, already over their eight years, the numbers continued to grow. Even the gangsters were fans. Even my parents were fans.
We did not know at that time, but the medium of television – how we thought about television, how we belittled television – had been, in the jargon of the series, liquidated. The antihero was now the hero, and Tony Sopranoin the unforgettable interpretation of Gandolfinihe presided not only a pile of bodies, but also a long and still growing row of empty men.
So if you love your Dextertu Don Drapertu Walter WhiteI gave a small prayer of thanks for his godfather. Do another prayer, since you are, by Gandolfiniwho, according to the general consensus, was not the type he interpreted. Bailey He has interviewed Hordas of his intimate and colleagues and has reached a unified theory: our Jim He was a “sweet”, “a quiet man, with a good heart, genuinely modest, a common guy,” “a big, adorable and incredibly talented man.”
It was also, for many years, a rather serious drug user, with episodes of alcohol and cocaine abuse. Under the pressure of a ruined marriage and an overwhelming production calendar, the party intensified, and for the third season, Gandolfini I was late for work or sometimes not even appeared. Perhaps the most disturbing part of seeing the complete series is to observe how an actor who was once joked as “a Woody Allen of 118 kilos ”evolved to becoming a Woody Allen of 136 kilos.
“I should exercise,” he said, “but I’m too old for that.” A second marriage and a second son offered some stability, but his death at age 51 for a heart attack was, for anyone who would have seen him mistreat his body, more shocking than surprising. In short, it is the type of death that could have occurred to Tony Sopranoassuming that he would have left alive of the last episode.
Gandolfini He had been leaving clues for a long time on the overlap between him and his alter ego. “I think some of the defects of (Tony) They are my defects, ”he told the magazine GQ. “And then you try to get away from them, and then you end up trapped a little when interpreting them.” Actor and character shared a certain self -esteem and a certain habit of hitting walls. “I grew up ten minutes from where this series takes place. I am an Italian boy from Jersey”He said in the official book of HBO About the series. “My family,” added, cryptically, “it’s a dark group. I am from this world.”
At this point, the DRA. Melfi would demand an energetic research on childhood of Gandolfinibut the inquiries of Bailey They collide with a wall at this point. The only thing we obtain, in reality, is a frugal and evil father and an “introspective, depressed, a bit critical.” It may be more fruitful to observe the end of Gandolfini: the six years of acting after leaving the world of The soprano. His projects were a disparate mixture –Surviving Christmas He was unbearable – but the joy he felt when he was an actor of character was contagious. “I don’t need to be the star,” he said. “I already did. I don’t need to do it again.”
That said, the film I choose to remember is A second chance of Nicole Holofcener2013. This intelligent romantic comedy, in which he shares prominence with Julia Louis-dreyfusallows us to listen to the true voice of Gandolfini —A soft baritone, very far from the nasal tone of Tony– And see him rediscover, in a leading role, being vulnerable and sexually vital that had always been. Hopefully our current cinema knew what to do with such a guy. I wish he would have lived to see him.
Fuente: The Washington Post
