I can’t explain what possessed me to start doing this but, similar to the things I find on City of Milwaukee sidewalks and our view of Lake Michigan, I started noticing the cinematography in some of the things I was seeing on TV and in movies, and freeze-framing and taking pictures of them with my iPhone.
A few weeks ago as I was watching the “Cold Stones” episode of “The Sopranos,” it struck me how similar one scene in it is to some elements of one of my favorite stories: “The Awakening,” written in 1899 by Kate Chopin.
In “Cold Stones,” AJ continues acting like a jerk; Vito comes back to town; Vito is killed; Fat Dom is killed; the ghosts of Adriana, Tony B, and Big Pussy appear; and Carmela and Rosalie go to Paris.
In Paris, Carmela and Ro are consumed with restaurants, shopping, smoking, and travel guides. But at one point on a walking tour, they turn on to the Pont Alexandre III bridge over the Seine and Carmela’s arm holding the travel guide drops to her side. She is in awe of the statues there. “Oh my god,” she says. “Who could have built this?” And then she can’t say anymore. The rest of the scene plays out in silence save for ambient sound and Ro’s rumblings. Carmela slowly and surely realizes that the world at large is much bigger than hers back in Jersey. And, as IMDB puts it, she wonders about her place in that bigger world. The whole thing runs maybe one minute.
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The scene that immediately follows is Sil instructing someone who’s cleaning the sign outside the Bada Bing. It reminds me of how John and I felt upon returning to the States after our trip to Scotland.
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