HBO Max's Sopranos MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK starring Michael Gandolfini (2021) 0

[Bosco685]

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The Sopranos focuses heavily on Tony's panic attacks. The upcoming prequel The Many Saints of Newark will undoubtedly go into the roots of it.

 

Mental illness is a major source of tension in The Sopranos. Throughout the HBO series Tony (James Gandolfini) undergoes treatment with Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) for his recurring panic attacks. She helps him uncover an enormous amount of repressed fear and anger that has contributed to his condition, and while Tony improves intermittently, the attacks never entirely subside. He occasionally blames Dr. Melfi for the fact that he isn't "cured," but they both know his issues are more complicated than that. As much as crime and violence, anxiety and depression are a Soprano family tradition that will certainly be explored more in the upcoming prequel, The Many Saints of Newark.

 

Tony's father Johnny Boy (Joseph Siravo) was a violent criminal whose exploits were widely known, while his mother Livia (Nancy Marchand) was aloof at best and abusive at worst. This explains why Tony's attacks are most often triggered by family conflict, as was the case in his first on-screen fainting spell at a family barbecue. Through therapy, Tony begins to understand how and why family conflict takes such a strain on his well-being, and a more comprehensive portrait of his dysfunctional background comes to light when his son A.J. (Robert Iler) starts to suffer from similar symptoms.

 

After witnessing A.J. faint for the first time, Tony tells Dr. Melfi that his son inherited "the putrid, , rotten Soprano gene... I remember hearing about my great great great grandfather, he drove a mule cart off a mountain road... probably was a panic attack." Dr. Melfi tells Tony that "when you blame your genes you're really blaming yourself," which he ignores tellingly. Tony was physically violent with A.J. — as his own father was with him — shortly before his son's panic attack, but he is unwilling to acknowledge his own part in perpetuating his family's cycle of misplaced anger and violent outbursts. Rather than some divine birthright or "curse," as Carmela calls it in season 6, the psychiatric illness suffered by the Soprano men results from several generations of unresolved trauma.

 

A.J.'s panic attacks also seem to be tied up with expectations his father projects onto him, even though Tony explicitly doesn't want him involved in the family business. A.J. first faints on-screen during football practice after being commended for his performance. Tony was a successful football player as a teen, and the idea of following in his father's footsteps in any way was overwhelming for him. A.J.'s suicide attempt in The Sopranos season 6 forces Tony to more seriously confront his role in creating the Soprano family "curse," something he clearly wishes his own father could have done for him.

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Bosco685

[Bosco685]

To prepare everyone in advance.

 

[Bosco685]

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Audiences will have to wait to return to the world of “The Sopranos.” “The Many Saints of Newark,” an upcoming film that serves as a prequel to the long-running HBO series, has again delayed its big-screen debut.

 

The movie will now open on Sept. 24, 2021 — an entire year after initially planned. “The Many Saints of Newark,” which is being produced by New Line Cinemas and released by Warner Bros., was originally set for September 2020 but was later rescheduled to March 12 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Traditional Hollywood studios have spent the better part of last year postponing their biggest films due to widespread theater closures and the general uncertainty over audiences’ willingness to return to the movies after cinemas reopened. But that’s not the impetus for “The Many Saints of Newark’s” latest delay since it will debut simultaneously in movie theaters and on HBO Max. Warner Bros. is taking a similar course of action with its entire 2021 slate.

 

[Bosco685]

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A new Warner Bros. sizzle reel of its 2021 slate, with all the films set to open in theaters on the same day they debut on HBO Max, includes new, though sometimes brief, footage of such movies as David Chase’s Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark, Godzilla vs. Kong, The Little Things, Tom & Jerry The Movie, Judas and the Black Messiah, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In The Heights, The Suicide Squad, Reminiscence, Cry Macho, King Richard, and Malignant.

 

All the films included in the sizzle reel will open on the same dates in theaters and on HBO Max. Included is footage from Dune, suggesting that the Denis Villeneuve will stream on HBO Max along with its theatrical release after all.

 

The Many Saints of Newark, which opens September 24, stars Alessandro Nivola as Dickie Moltisanti, father of Michael Imperioli’s original-series Christopher Moltisanti, with a young Tony Soprano played by Michael Gandolfini, son of the late Sopranos star James Gandolfini.

 

[Bosco685]

Michael Gandolfini on Playing a Young Tony Soprano

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UPON HEARING ABOUT the Sopranos prequel, Gandolfini thought, Absolutely not. What if I’m not good? But when his manager insisted he audition, he decided it was time to see the first season. “It was really hard to watch my dad,” he says. “I recorded four hours of his monologues with Melfi and walked around New York with them constantly, constantly, constantly playing in my ear.”

 

WHEN HE AUDITIONED for creator David Chase, “I had this unspoken trust that David wasn’t going to cast me if there was even a shred that this isn’t going to work.”

 

THREE MONTHS LATER, he got the offer. “It’s an origin story through the eyes of Dickie Moltisanti, Christopher’s father. The Tony Soprano we know has this beautiful vulnerability underneath and this rough exterior, but what if we flip that on its side and you watch a creative, hopeful, kind, curious kid get whittled down and formed into what he has to be?”

 

THEN HE WATCHED all six seasons over six weeks. “It transcends everything: , ; patriarchy and matriarchy.”

 

AS FOR the historically polarizing series finale? “I’m not touching that one.”

 

EDIE FALCO TOLD him to “relax and have fun on set, enjoy yourself, know you’re lucky,” he says.

 

[▫️]

Man, imagine the other poor guys auditioning for the role of young Tony and then wtf, is that his son? 

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]

 

[vheflin]

oh Ray Liotta is in this thing

he grew up in Newark

Authenticity! 

[jsilverjanet]

I never watched the Sopranos until after seeing this trailer.

I started maybe a week and a half ago.I'm on season 5.

Really surprised the show is more about mental health than I expected

Season 5 has been very strong especially since I thought 2 and 3 were a little weak but i suspect much of it was setting foundation for the final 3 seasons

 

[Bosco685]

On 8/18/2021 at 11:38 AM, jsilverjanet said:

I never watched the Sopranos until after seeing this trailer.

I started maybe a week and a half ago.I'm on season 5.

Really surprised the show is more about mental health than I expected

Season 5 has been very strong especially since I thought 2 and 3 were a little weak but i suspect much of it was setting foundation for the final 3 seasons

 

What did you think of 'Pine Barrens' (Season 3, EP 11)?

[bentbryan]

On 8/19/2021 at 5:18 PM, Bosco685 said:

What did you think of 'Pine Barrens' (Season 3, EP 11)?

He thought it was the best tv episode ever! 

[Bosco685]

On 8/19/2021 at 7:15 PM, bentbryan said:

He thought it was the best tv episode ever! 

"He's an interior decorator..."

 

[Bosco685]

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During an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers (via THR), Bernthal shared his excitement for audiences to see Many Saints of Newark on October 1, but he also warned the prequel film will be different from the HBO series that inspired it. Read what Bernthal had to say below:

 

"I will say that it’s different. I think people are going to go in expecting The Sopranos — it’s not that. I think that it was very smart that they set it in the past and it’s a genuine prequel. You will see that when [Chase] was writing this show, he clearly understood the full history of who these characters were. And for the real super-fans, I think it is going to be so much fun."

 

Bernthal did note that "real super-fans" will have a lot of fun with the film, but he was also made sure to temper expectations for those expecting the film to be in the same vein as The Sopranos.

 

[Bosco685]

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Chase, who scripted the Alan Taylor-directed film with with writing partner Lawrence Konner, summons up aspects of his own 1960s Newark youth: the largely Italian North Ward, and its conflict with the Black working class Central Ward, which erupted into terribly destructive and deadly racial violence in the summer of 1967. Threaded through this are the often startling internal eruptions of assorted Italian crime families that eventually led to the emergence of a kid named Tony Soprano. Very fortuitously, young Tony is played by Gandolfini’s son Michael, who, now in his early 20s, bears something more than a passing resemblance to his father.

 

Just about everything here is well and no doubt accurately observed — the family-owned stores, the simmering animosities, the braggadocio of the men, the short tempers and, something new, the increasing unwillingness of the women to automatically accept and kowtow to the men’s whims and egos, even if they remain subservient to them.

 

Although the Mafia could scarcely be more male-centric, Chase has always focused considerable attention on the women of that world. Tony’s wife and shrink remain far in the distant future at this point, but it’s interesting to see his mother Livia, so trenchantly played in the series by Nancy Marchand, depicted more warmly here, before she’s been warped, diminished and excluded by male-dominant attitudes. Watching Vera Farmiga’s take on this beleaguered character is one of the delights of the film.

 

Fittingly, it’s The Sopranos theme song that comes on at the end of The Many Saints Of Newark. Chase’s characters and this material always satisfy just as they leave you ready for more.

 

[fantastic_four]

Looks like the review embargo lifted today, reviews so far are decent.

[Bosco685]

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Creator David Chase has largely remained mum on the subject, of course. Alan Taylor, the director of the new Sopranos prequel movie out Oct. 1, The Many Saints of Newark, notes Chase has told him the idea is that “every possibility is alive in that room.”

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The last moments of the series, directed by Chase (and credit goes to this blog post for its breakdown of this scene), establish a clear recurring pattern: We hear the bell ring on the restaurant door, Tony looks up, then Chase cuts to Tony’s point of view and we see a person coming in the door. This happens four times in a row amid rising suspense and shots of other characters in the restaurant — particularly a shady fellow in a Member’s Only jacket going into the bathroom behind Tony — who may or may not represent a threat. The fifth bell is when Meadow enters the dinner and the pattern breaks to Tony looking up, and then the camera cuts to black instead of showing Tony’s point of view. So it’s specifically Tony’s perspective that has suddenly gone dark. Then the credits play in silence.

 

Given all the “you don’t hear it when it happens” breadcrumbs and during the season, Tony being shot becomes the most logical conclusion — if forever unofficial.

 

 

[Bosco685]

WarnerMedia must have seen all the Sopranos rewatches going on in advance of Saints of Newark and rushed to contract Chase.

[vheflin]

On 10/1/2021 at 2:21 PM, Bosco685 said:

WarnerMedia must have seen all the Sopranos rewatches going on in advance of Saints of Newark and rushed to contract Chase.

Well then why didn't they make a series instead of this movie??

There's at least a full season of good tv crammed into this movie.

[Bosco685]

On 10/1/2021 at 6:21 PM, vheflin said:

Well then why didn't they make a series instead of this movie??

There's at least a full season of good tv crammed into this movie.

Not sure why they did a movie. Other than the Newark director noted it was easier to achieve this story without Chase feeling like every element needed to be cleared by him in advance.

But there is already talk of the follow-up.

Terence Winter Sparks To David Chase’s Invitation To -script Another Formative Film On ‘The Sopranos’ To Follow ‘The Many Saints Of Newark’