Ghosts in the Sopranos Universe

[Music] well it was then that i decided to go on a bloody all meat diet which um you know if i have if i have a vegetable i can't sleep i'm terrorized by demons really the key to this whole thing is just wearing a beanie at all times that is part of my image and i really uh i think the beanie is essential i i suppose the trouble started when i dumped all of my money out of the stock market and invested in an nft aboard ape after which my wife left me that's me video sas david stockdale back in the day i had a youtube channel called nightmare masterclass i started every video by saying i'll be your host on this excursion into the dark unknown things were simpler back then iron my stripes perform in what they call a close reading of a web series about a made up video game but that was much later this story's about when i was in high school see back in the early 2000s before things went south there was a show everyone was talking about called the sopranos [Music] hey pipe down i'm working on a video essay over here i'm cooking dinner for you sorry ass while the cultural importance of this so-called golden age of television is often overstated by critics i must admit that the sopranos is my favorite tv show of all time i mean is there really any competition its rewatch value is unbeatable and the works generative potential is obvious for those willing to do some poking around on the internet the discourse surrounding the sopranos is multifaceted especially on youtube with various video essays essentially making it their hobby horse and a fruitful hobby horse it is indeed if you haven't gone down the sopranos rabbit hole you're in for a treat there's a veritable plethora of fan theories and broader discussions focusing on select characters this one on ralphie is quite insightful and then there are of course the guys who unironically worship tony soprano in a manner similar to tony montana from scarface subtext isn't for everyone i guess anyway in this installment i'll be analyzing the sopranos specifically i'm interrogating the role ghosts play in the narrative in relation to one very important scene within the series i found that there isn't a whole lot of discussion about this particular topic and i find it to be odd because well it's pretty clear to me that ghosts spirits the supernatural whatever you want to call them these things are quite real within the fictional universe of the sopranos this in and of itself is an interesting creative choice on the part of david chase and it makes me wonder why it is undeniable that there's a supernatural aspect to this show at face value it's a strange confluence mobsters and ghosts yet it's clear that the broader work is consistently invested in the concept why include ghosts in your series about a new jersey mobster i have a few points of speculation to offer on the matter but before we get into that i'd like to provide some more context the many saints of newark begins with a monologue by the late christopher maltasanti christopher is tony soprano's nephew well technically he's carmela's second cousin and he's also related in some distant convoluted manner to tony as well but tony refers to christopher as his nephew due to his relationship with christopher's father dickie multicenti the titular saint in the many saints of newark i won't be talking about the movie all that much in this video but i do think the manner in which the story is framed is significant this is the way the movie begins we the audience are taken through the rolling hills of a cemetery and each headstone we pass is accompanied by some disembodied voice gradually the realization hits you these are the voices of dead people we've been invited to listen to the various ramblings of the dead spirits residing in this cemetery and then we get to christopher's plot no pun intended the many saints of newark is christopher's story it's a story he's telling from beyond the grave and it's not a coincidence that david chase decided to frame the movie in this way it's certainly true that christopher was a and a goon i mean he sat on cozette what else do i need to say yet christopher did possess one quality that made him unique in comparison to the rest of the goons on the sopranos it's a quality that made him a bit more endearing even despite his many flaws see christopher had a certain creative ambition he wanted to be a screenwriter an unthinkable proposition for a man in his line of work this is an avenue that the writers of the sopranos explored in a playful fashion occasionally christopher's hollywood connections would play a role in certain c or d level plots there is of course john favreau's notable appearance i must say this material isn't terribly captivating relative to the other subplots within the sopranos but it is interesting that christopher is one of the only mobsters with ambitions such as these sure there's bobby and his trains but that's just a hobby christopher is one of the only made guys to dream of a life beyond la cosa nostra but alas it just wasn't in the cards it's true that christopher eventually got to see one of his creative endeavors come to life but it wasn't the passion project he originally conceived of cleaver has another function in a sense cleaver is a low-rent hyper-exaggerated version of the sopranos it's similar to invitation to love the soap opera that appears on twin peaks invitation to love is a perotic depiction of twin peaks a sort of twisted funhouse mirror version of the show we can think of cleaver in a similar way it's just not quite as on the nose as invitation to love [Music] they say that ghosts have unfinished business that what is keeping the dead from leaving the realm of the living is a desire to fulfill something that was tragically unfulfilled during the time they spent alive the many saints of newark is the screenplay christopher never got to write when he was alive it's his unfinished business this is why the film is exceedingly dumb in one sense but also simultaneously the stuff of unwitting genius in another i was delightfully surprised to hear michael imperioli reprise his role as christopher even if it was just a voice over while the movie itself is extremely flawed i appreciate the idea that dead people all have their own various stories to tell and i should note that this is not the first time in the sopranos universe that apparitions have been well present active forces in the work let's take for instance paulie's experience with the medium paulie is plagued with recurring nightmares which prompts his gumar to recommend paying a visit to a psychic paulie is reluctant at first but he really wants to get rid of these nightmares so he goes in the course of a session with another client in the group paulie cracks a joke to fill the silence he says the spirit put him on hold despite paulie's tendency to take supernatural matters extremely seriously he feels compelled to put up a front in the company of strangers yet just moments later paulie is taken aback when the psychic relays to his client a message from his late father in this moment the medium seems to be interrupted by another spirit he moves towards paulie but gazes beyond where paulie is sitting paulie attempts to interject but the medium urges the spirit to continue the scene cuts to an empty shot the medium comforts the spirit he can't hurt you you don't have to be afraid the spirit reveals himself to be charles sunny pagano he also relays that he was paulie's first as in the first person he killed the medium then directs his attention towards another spirit this one asks paulie if the poison ivy still itches this is very clearly a reference to the execution of mikey palmise a soldier in junior's crew who was killed by paulie and christopher in the first season during the chase paulie ran into some poison ivy this is not information that could have been fed to the medium through any source other than the spirit of mikey pomice and this is really what does it for me as far as confirming that spirits are real within the sopranos i mean how would this guy know about mikey pumice here's where things get really interesting the medium knows fully well the extent of what paulie's done over the course of his decades-long existence as a murderous mobster when paulie becomes aggressive and asks the medium what the spirits are saying about him the medium replies with a question gesturing towards the other people in the room he asked do you really want me to say it the idea that murderers are haunted by their victims is certainly not a new thing but this scene stands out as one of the more surreal moments in what is admittedly a fairly surreal television series overall yet most of the surreal moments in the series occur within the context of dreams in this case it would appear that the occurrence is entirely real within the context of the sopranos universe if we are to seriously consider the idea that the sopranos universe has some kind of supernatural element this moment stands out as one of the most convincing note that this scene is shut so as to suggest the presence of ghostly apparitions whenever the medium speaks to a dead person the scene cuts to a shot of an empty room presumably where the spirit is standing the direction of the scene is clearly suggesting that a spirit is indeed standing right in this here spot the sopranos is a strange show it has extended dream sequences and sometimes it seems to allude to the possibility of parallel universes but what role do spirits actually play in the series when something abstract happens on the show it usually has something to do with the psychological state of one of its characters typically the show's protagonist tony so why is this scene important what does it say about the broader work the sopranos is not didactic in the sense that the work very decidedly does not cast judgment on its characters in a manner that is explicit it's not an after-school special its function is not to dictate any particular morality or social responsibility to the audience that would get old pretty quick but the show also does not romanticize the lifestyle as it were in fact if one takes many saints into consideration if you consider that part of the whole soprano's body of work it becomes clear that the perspective being convinced is not hearkening back to a time when men were men when mobsters more faithfully adhered to a code of conduct or any like that in fact it rather explicitly undermines this general sentiment the titular saint in many saints murders his girlfriend in cold blood dickie's not a good guy junior hasn't murdered for completely trivial reasons and as we know junior is a piece of work in his own right johnny soprano tony's dad is a complete dud not much going on there none of these people are shining examples of righteousness the title of the work is an implicit reference to olivia soprano's constant refrain that her husband johnny was a saint the title is implying that there are many such saints in other words there are a lot of frauds thieves and stone cold murderers out there if the show didn't make that clear enough this little bookend certainly does that was a long tangent but it's all connected to this momentous occasion with paulie and the medium it's a funny scene but i don't think comedic relief is the sole function of this scene in terms of its thematic content rather the medium is the show's way of telegraphing to the viewer a standpoint that is not often represented over the course of the series the scene is precisely the moment paulie's repressed sense of morality is laid bare yet this same guy is perhaps the most beloved soprano's character and it's because well he's a character he's charismatic this duality is something the show grapples with in an almost literal sense the nature of identity is explicitly linked to the way you treat other people the scene is significant because it's the one moment in the series when paulie is recognized by a normal person not as some italian goofball with silver wingtips but rather is the kind of person he truly is see a mature audience should be able to recognize the irony that we've been endeared to these characters by mere virtue of their human qualities yet we know all too well these people are ruthless killers who consistently exploit and coerce nearly everyone around them the show doesn't beat you over the head with this but demystifying the gangster trope is certainly its most consistent function it just so happens that the work employed a supernatural element in this case that wraps it up for this installment of nightmare masterclass if you enjoy my work please consider supporting me on patreon.com forward slash nightmare masterclass thank you for watching and good night [Music] you

Channel: Nightmare Masterclass

Views: 14,835

Keywords: the sopranos, sopranos, tony soprano, soprano, the sopranos ending, the sopranos new, sopranos ending, the sopranos funny, livia soprano, the sopranos best scenes, soprano theories, #sopranos, sopranos vito, sopranos words, sopranos intro, sopranos essay, sopranos analysis, sopranos ghosts, sopranos supernatural

Id: HvA5LIV2uPA

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 02 2022