Re: The Paris Trip: Carmela's "Join the Club"

21
No, it's not from a movie. I knew it was made famous by the French singer Edith Piaf (1915-1963). I just looked her up on Wikipedia. Coincidentally, she was born in Belleville, which is where Ro's 26-yr-old acquaintance lived.

Piaf had an interesting life. Here's an exerpt from the bio:

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Her signature song, "La vie en rose" ... was written in the middle of the German occupation of Paris in World War II. During this time, she was in great demand and very successful. Singing for high-ranking Germans at the One Two Club earned Piaf the right to pose for photos with French prisoners of war, ostensibly as a morale-boosting exercise. Once in possession of their celebrity photos, prisoners were able to cut out their own images and use them in forged papers as part of escape plans. Today, Piaf's association with the French Resistance is well known, and many owe their lives to her. After the war, she toured Europe, the United States, and South America, becoming an internationally known figure. Her popularity in the U.S. was such that she appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show eight times. She helped to launch the career of Charles Aznavour, taking him on tour with her in France and the United States.<hr></blockquote>

</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p098.ezboard.com/bthechaselounge ... eayebee</A> at: 5/22/06 3:47 pm

Re: The Paris Trip: Carmela's "Join the Club"

22
Thanks for that, peeaybee.

I'm familiar with the name "Edith Piaf". A very pretty Elton John/Bernie Taupin song (from the Blue Moves album) called "Cage the Songbird" was based on her life. The song doesn't really spell it out, but it's implied that she either committed suicide or sort of recklessly overdosed on something:

Sober in the morning light
Things look so much different
To how they looked last night
A pale face pressed to an unmade bed
Like flags of many nations flying high above her head

The cellophane still on the flowers
The telegram still in her hand
As whispers circulate all day
Their back-stage baby princess passed away

(chorus)
And you can cage the songbird
But you can't make her sing
And you can trap the free bird
But you'll have to clip her wings
`Cause she'll soar like a hawk when she flies
But she'll dive like an eagle when she dies

Promises of no more lies
Fell flat upon an empty stage
Before the audience arrived
A return in time to the cheaper seats
She never knew what lay beneath
Just a dated handbill they found between the sheets

Let down before the final curtain
A shallow heart that left her cold
She left in rouge upon the mirror
A circled kiss to the faithful fans who'd miss her

</p>

Re: Rosalie

23
<blockquote>Quote:<hr> Am I the only one whose dislike for Roe kept growing and growing during this trip?<hr></blockquote>

I think you kind of missed the point. Ro is a person who lost her son and husband; we've seen her as a friend to Carm et al. talking about food and clothes and other trivial bullshit, but we've also seen her more shaken with grief than basically any other character on the show. I think it's safe to assume that Ro acts the way she does because she has literally NOTHING left in her life but simple pleasures; her soul is all sadness.

Carm was soul-searching, but more than that she was seeking the dead, wanting to get a grasp on Ro's grief for her son and the lingering mystery over Adrianna. She, like Tony, pondered all those millions of dead people that came before and will come after. And I think, like the ducks and the horse and other targets of Tony's redirected human emotions, those people are surrogates for other people -- specifically those that the Sopranos themselves have killed, all those bodies under the boat.

She was pondering both Tony's "where am I going" comment while comatose and AJ's "bone-chilling" existential aloofness. I think the light she saw, like Tony's, represented death, and I think both characters have the potential for "decompensation," or to face that final unexplained stage of Freudian psychoanalysis -- Thanatos, the urge to die.

I may need to make a thread about Thanatos, since I don't particularly understand it myself.

</p>

Re: Rosalie

25
Ha, I don't know if I'm up to the task! I'll start it or jump into a discussion when I have a free moment this week.

I think it's one of those theories that Freud just kind of put out there like it was a truism, when to most people it doesn't make rational sense. If it exists, it's in the darkest recesses of the mind, that place we went in the Test Dream. To me, that's what that episode was all about -- not necessarily killing Tony B or leaving the mob, but seeking death/non-existence -- trying to look it in the face and falling short. That's also what I interpret the Finnerty and Paris sequences as.

Maybe the people more familiar with psychiatry can enlighten me, but I believe Freud largely fell into disfavor for a while; despite that, he is all over this show, especially in its exploration of Tony's psychosexual development and his unconscious. And in the show's most mysterious moments, there is a profound struggle between life and death, Eros and Thanatos.

Perhaps Thanatos is the "something else" Melfi spoke of; Tony not only wants to please his mother and surrogate father, but to consistently put himself in harm's way, seeking a way out of his own existential despair.

</p>

The Thanatos thing

26
Yeah, he put it out there as part of his drive theory, but he didn't develop it as he did the more familiar primitive drives, such as libido. I think when the object relations people came along, drive theory was overridden by the notion of the primacy of attachment as opposed to primal urges. I agree that thanatos has played a big role (more accurately, the leading role) in the form of self-destructive behaviors that are constantly in play: addictions, aggressions, impulsivities, intimidations, "needing to die," etc.

There is a lot of commentary about Paris being Carm's flirtation with death. I saw the lateral experience for Tony, of course, in the Kevin Finnerty dream sequence. But, with Carm her Paris sojourn felt like more of an awakening: light, art, texure, vitality and all. She seemed reborn. Maybe curious about death, but not really seduced. Rich topic.

</p>

Re: Rosalie

27
<blockquote>Quote:<hr>I think it's safe to assume that Ro acts the way she does because she has literally NOTHING left in her life but simple pleasures; ... her soul is all sadness. <hr></blockquote>

De Novo,

A very profound observation. I certainly admit that Ro has been a 100% true and loyal friend to Carm. She is one of the very few characters who has never had a bad word to say about Carm behind her back and has always stood by her.

When you put Ro in those terms (that she has nothing left but simple pleasures and her soul is all sadness), it hit me like a two by four right between the eyes.

Thank you so much for a valuable life lesson. I now feel much compassion towards Ro and have washed away all my feelings of contempt towards her.

I can also see that I need to find some of that compassion in my real life towards others. I never thought I'd achieve this kind of growth in an online forum. It feels like I really am in Melfi's office. You should think about sending me a bill.



</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p098.ezboard.com/bthechaselounge ... plishak</A> at: 5/23/06 8:59 am

Re: "We'll Always Have Paris"

29
Princess Diana will always have Paris, as well.

For what it's worth, in "The DaVinci Code,"
Tom Hanks' character, Robert Langdon, stays
at the Ritz, where Dodi and Diana, began their
own Death Journey into the tunnel of the City
of Lights.

Viva, la GAY Paree!
www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gay+paree

As for "The Sopranos," Casablanca, which translates
into White House, may be a clue to what's actually
going on/in Chase's mind. Far-fetched? Yes. But I'm
counting on DC (!) to unveil contemporary hypocrisies
on every level of society these days.

</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p098.ezboard.com/bthechaselounge ... Monadax</A> at: 5/24/06 8:07 am

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