ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES
US, 2005, 105 minutes, Colour.
James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, Mandy Moore, Mary Louise Parker, Ada Turturro, Christopher Walken, Barbara Sukowa, Elaine Stritch, Eddie Izzard.
Directed by John Turturro.
In the 1970s, Dennis Potter created a series for British television where the characters used popular songs to express their inner thoughts and feelings: Pennies from Heaven. He followed it up with the celebrated The Singing Detective. This was something new: a way of telling old stories eliciting from the cast different kinds of performance, eliciting from the audience their connections to the songs sung by the characters. It was a musical shortcut to empathy and understanding.
Hollywood made their versions of Pennies from Heaven (1981 with Steve Martin) and The Singing Detective (2004 with Robert Downey Jr). Woody Allen used the technique with Everyone says I Love You. Alain Resnais did it with Not on the Lips. The Spanish made The Other Side of the Bed. This style is not to everyone’s taste, especially those who prefer more realistic films.
Now John Turturro has done it with the producing help of his friends, the Coen Brothers. He began it, he notes, while the Coens were filming Barton Fink in which he played a writer. He thought that while he acted he should type something real. The opening scenes of Romance and Cigarettes are what he wrote. He wanted to overcome some of the criticisms of the fantasy aspects of this genre by making his characters down-to-earth types from Jersey (and music-loving audiences need to be warned that a lot of the dialogue – especially from Kate Winslett – is very much down-and-dirty earthy).
For most of the time, it is take it or leave it treatment of a marriage, philandering husband, odd daughters and a band, revenge. The leave-it option is at times very strong! However, it does get serious (and moral) in the last twenty minutes, including a short but effective confessional sequence.
It has a motley cast. James Gandolfini transcends the Sopranos as the builder who gets entangled with a seductive redhead with a provincial British accent, Kate Winslett. His wife is played by Susan Sarandon very affectingly (although she is in fact fifteen years older than Gandolfini). Steve Buscemi is low-key funny as a sex-focussed fellow worker on the building site and Elaine Stritch has a scene-stealing moment as Gandolfini’s mother. Then there is Christopher Walken as Cousin Bo being Walken – only more so!!
The title reminds us that life is both sweet and tar-tasting.
1.The impact of the film as drama, musical, blend of both?
2.The tradition of Dennis Potter’s Pennies from Heaven, The Singing Detective? The American interpretation of this genre? Characters, songs, situations?
3.The characters and their music, such songs as ‘Lonely is a Man without Love’ for Nick, ‘Take a Piece of My Heart’ for Kitty …?
4.Audiences accepting the musical genre, allowing for the suspension of disbelief?
5.The strong cast, their previous films and screen persona?
6.The ordinary story of Brooklyn, a couple, age, their children, fidelity and infidelity, memories, hate and love, violence, the building up of family, the other woman, illness, the mother-in-law, cousins? Hospitals, doctors? The workplace? The church? Reconciliation, repentance and forgiveness?
7.Nick and his age, the long marriage, the expectations of the marriage, at work, talking with Angelo and the frank sex talk? At home, meals, his daughters, their reactions to him? Tula and seeing her in the car, starting the relationship with her, his lies to Kitty, pretence? With the family, their attacking him? The discussions about circumcision, the visit to the hospital, his mother coming and reprimanding him? The church? Breaking off the relationship, Tula’s reaction, his illness, the cancer, in hospital? Being honest with Kitty? The reconciliation, their love for each other? His death? His nightmares and Kitty’s old lover appearing?
8.Kitty, the long marriage, her memories, her first husband and his death, appearing in dreams? Love for Nick, falling out of love with him? Her daughters, their music in the backyard? Her reaction to Nick’s relationship? The discussions with Gracie? Baby and her engagement? Her opposition? Going to the church, her song, the organist and his help? Going to see Tula in the shop, their discussions? Cousin Bo and his visit, going to confront Tula? Her listening to Nick, breaking off his relationship, the reconciliation, the visit in hospital, frightening him with the knife and their language? Her regrets?
9.The girls, Rosebud and her being passive? Constance and her music, aggressive? Baby and her singing? Fryburg and his presence, the sexual relationship with Baby, his vanity, his singing, the engagement? His relationship with his mother?
10.Fryburg and Gracie, family, singing? The engagement? His friends?
11.Tula, English, her language, attitudes towards sexuality, at work and her comments on selling lingerie, with Nick, her songs, the Underwater song, the meeting with Kitty in the shop? The break?
12.Cousin Bo, Christopher Walken’s style, singing and dancing? The Elvis fan? The stories of the past, visualising them, the clash with his girlfriend? The songs and dances, the sexual discussions?
13.The church, the choir, Gracie in the choir, the organist? Kitty and her singing with the choir?
14.Nick, his going to church, the confession after many years? His expressions of repentance and getting his life in order? The organist and talking with him? The song from the priest, the altar boys, the song focusing on confession and forgiveness?
15.Nick’s mother, her visit to the hospital, her tough attitudes?
16.The karaoke style of the songs and the cast singing with the originals? The title and Nick’s comments about love and cigarettes as being unlimited in one’s life?
