Re: Cavellaria Rusticana: Raging Bull or Godfather III?

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More music related trivia...
Last night I got around to my second watching of "Blue Comet" & I thought this an interesting joke (perhaps) on the writers' part.
In the scene at Vesuvio where the Buccos are asking questions about Meadow & AJ and Carm is expounding on how happy she & Tony were with Meadows decisions in regards to school & dating Partick Parisi, my ears perked up as I'm an avid Django Reinhardt fan.
That's the master gypsy guitarist playing his composition "Nuages" in the background. I understand the melancholy "Nuages" is french for "clouds", which is what Carm & Tony were casting over the whole story. Am I way off here?

Re: Cavellaria Rusticana: Raging Bull or Godfather III?

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clementine wrote:More a propos, maybe, but for my money it's use in RB can't be beat, so to speak.



Why not both? As soon as we had the Raging Bull reference I started thinking how fitting it would be for Tony to end like Jake La Motta--totally broken down, irrelevant, a bloated parody of himself, shunned by his family, unable to completely see the extent to which he's brought it all on himself by mistaking brute violence and selfishness for manliness, and with the rest of his life to ponder it. Defeated, yet not entirely so.
To which brings forward another opera reference, "Pagliacci."

Tony (Tonio in the opera) can clearly be viewed as falling so low that he's nothing more than a pathetic clown. Which is exactly how LaMotta wound up.

This could lead to a final song shoutout for Smokey Robinson's "Tears of a Clown."
bobC
---

some will win, some will lose,
some were born to sing the blues,
the movie never ends,
it goes on and on and on and on........

Re: Cavellaria Rusticana: Raging Bull or Godfather III?

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Detective Hunt wrote:To me, this was one of the most beautiful moments in the episode. Sil and Tony having one last laugh with one another to the music of a memorable film they both love.

Just a sad and beautiful moment between them. The calm before the storm.

Count me in on these comments, DH. A VERY poignant moment, made so by the power and potent suggestiveness of the music ("Cavalleria..") from GF III, for me. I can see why some would be more influenced by its place in Raging Bull and the more direct 'connect' to it as Tony and Sil did their shadow boxing.

It almost brought tears to my eyes - this scene - as it seemed to so directly presage the final show. And that POWERFUL final scene Sunday.

Re: Cavellaria Rusticana: Raging Bull or Godfather III?

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FlyOnMelfisWall wrote:When opinions strongly collide, communication is always a delicate matter.:icon_wink: But just to reprise what I wrote, with emphasis on the words that convey its subjectivity:

Goodfellas may well be the most realistic gangster film every made (although I think Donnie Brasco would give it a run for the money.) But it's not even close to being the best, IMO. Perhaps that just shows that gangsters really aren't as interesting as Puzo/Coppola, Stone/De Palma, and Chase have led us to believe.:icon_wink:
I respectfully disagree with you about Goodfellas. I think its one of the best movies made.

Re: Cavellaria Rusticana: Raging Bull or Godfather III?

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clementine wrote:

Coppola violated my own personal rule, which I call the Elephant Man rule. If a piece of music has been used so effectively in another movie that it's associated with that film, or has become iconic, then you should find something to else to use in your film. I thought David Lynch used Barber's Adagio for Strings so perfectly in The Elephant Man that Oliver Stone should not have used it in Platoon (it's now one of the most overused pieces in history, which is sad, because it's so good). Clearly I'm the only one who thinks this, as everyone associates the Adagio with Platoon, and it hasn't stopped Coppola and everyone else from recycling stuff.

Both Stone and Lynch got their cue from the death of Princess Grace when the Barber Adagio was used at her funeral in 1982. This was the first world-wide, celebrity-type function that I know of in which this so piercingly emotional score was used.


I think it's a fairly common thing to use music of a deceased composer and which music may no longer be covered by copyright. I suspect that is so with Samuel Barber (who only died in 1981) and of course with Puccini (of whom Chase also seems to have a certain fondness).

How many times have any number of (classical) composers' music (Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Bach, Puccini, et al) been used in many different movies – and TV shows? How many noticed the seemingly misplaced beautiful arias from "Madame Butterfly”" (Puccini again) in that searing sex-drama, "Fatal Attraction."?

But more importantly, the Adagio for Strings was not written specifically for "Platoon" or "Elephant Man", nor the Cavalllerai Rusticana excerpt (Intermezzo) written for Raging Bull or GF III.

Now this would a 'bull' of another color if these directors-producers used the scores or themes of living composers without permission, especially those themes written specifically for certain movies, such as the many, many beautiful, movie themes of Ennio Morricone.

Re: Cavellaria Rusticana: Raging Bull or Godfather III?

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First of all let me thank you all for your very insightful look into the phyche of the greatest TV show of all time. You are wise to look underneath the surface of things and find their metaphorical meaning as well as their practical or mundane meanings. In the case of this song refering to raging bull or GFIII, I would have to say, "boff of dem". Chase obviously had an affinity for both movies and gives tribute throughout the series for example;

-Countless times Silvio has done the "Just as I think I'm out, they pull me back in!" line from GFIII

-in the back office at the bing is a photo of Al Pacino portraying the raging bull, next to Al is a poster of the actual boxer. Coincidence?

I feel like there is more that maybe others could add to this list but there is a definite thread throughout the 6 seasons of the Raging Bull and GFIII. Maybe it has some kind of signifigance. Thaks for letting a soldier speak.
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