The Sopranos

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Re: Sopranos finale, I'm not sure why anyone thinks Tony gets whacked. There was the Members Only guy looking him over before going to the can, but really, without any other evidence, like a gunshot sound or scream, I have to say the series just ended... Tony will be getting the paper in his robe tomorrow.

One of my favorite classes in college was Intro to Film. It was amazing how much more you can appreciate movies and TV when you have things pointed out to you and you learn about cinematography and why things are shot the way they are and all that.

So I'm firmly in the "Tony's dead" camp. Here's why:

First off there's the "You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?" comment that Tony makes. Remember, in film and TV, every line of dialogue is carefully crafted and is there for a reason. It's planting the seed in the viewer's mind and it's a foreshadowing of what's to come.

Also, If you break it down very carefully from a cinematography angle, it's pretty clear that he was killed. When Tony walks into the restaurant, the bell on the door dings, he stands there, then you see the restaurant from his point of view. That shot establishes that we're going to be bouncing back and forth from seeing Tony to seeing things from his point of view in this scene.

So as the scene goes on we go from seeing Tony at the table. *DING* back to his point of view and he watches someone come in the door. On and on that goes. Tony, then *DING* then Tony's point of view. Tony, then *DING* then point of view. The director is doing some classic Pavlov conditioning of the audience. Hear a bell, and you see Tony's point of view.

Then they throw a wrench into it. You see the guy in the jacket come walking in, THEN you hear the *DING*and Tony looks up to see him walking in the place in front of A.J. So why would this guy be different than the others to walk in? Why do we see him before the *DING*. Why is A.J. covered up by this guy. He's some random dude that we don't know, and A.J. is a character we know. Why would the director obscure a character who should be the focal point of the shot with some random guy? It's because this guy is important.

There's the obvious clues too, where he's nervously tapping his fingers, and going out of his way to look away from Tony as he walks by. The camera follows the guy all the way to the bathroom. And then the shot ends with this:



See how A.J. and Carmela are together on one side of the table, and Tony is framed in that door frame with the jacket guy? That's telling you something. It's putting a separation between Tony and his family, and it's essentially putting Tony in a "box" with the assassin.

Yadda yadda, moving on...

The payoff and the key to the whole scene is that Tony hears the door *DING* (presumably Meadow is walking in) and since we've already established the pattern here - Tony, then *DING* then Tony's point of view, this says a lot. We hear the *DING* then we get 10 seconds of black. It's a long time before the credits are shown, so the director is trying to really hammer the point home that the black is part of the show. It's there for a reason. So Tony's point of view is blackness. Death.

And that, Neal, is your Skybird-length explanation of why people believe he was whacked.