Soprano Home Movies

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"Soprano Home Movies"
The Sopranos episode
Episode no.Season 6
Episode 13
Directed byTim Van Patten
Written by
Produced byDavid Chase
Featured music"This Magic Moment" by
Ben E. King and The Drifters
Cinematography byPhil Abraham
Editing byWilliam B. Stich
Production codeS613
Original air dateApril 8, 2007 (2007-04-08)
Running time51 minutes
Episode chronology
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The Sopranos season 6
List of episodes

"Soprano Home Movies" is the 78th episode of the

television drama series The Sopranos and the 13th episode of the sixth season. It served as the midseason premiere
to the second part of Season 6, which HBO broadcast in two parts.

The episode was written by supervising producers Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, series creator/executive producer David Chase, and executive producer Matthew Weiner, and it was directed by frequent series director Tim Van Patten. The episode first aired in the United States on April 8, 2007.

Starring

* = credit only
** = credited for archive footage

Guest starring

Synopsis

In

Lupertazzi crime family
that he is ready to settle down and "enjoy [his] grandchildren."

A flashback

Neil Mink, easily secures his release on bail. The gun charge is soon dropped, and no longer hangs over Tony's approaching birthday weekend. The FBI later includes this charge in a RICO
case being built against Tony.

Tony and

Bobby's father
, who according to Tony, was a notorious hit man in his time. Bobby replies that he has come close, but that his father never wanted it for him.

Carmela phones

Blanca
. A group of friends also come for a party.

After dinner, Tony, Carmela, Bobby, and Janice play

their father
. He makes a crude joke about her in return, insincerely apologizes, but then makes another, provoking Bobby to punch him in the face. There is a messy and ferocious fight. Tony ends up on the floor, bloodied, unable to rise. Panicking, Bobby tries to drive off drunk and backs into a tree; he returns and apologizes. Janice is enraged with Bobby, fearing retaliation from Tony. In the morning, Tony and Carmela are persuaded to stay, but Tony fixates on his loss in the fight.

In the afternoon, the women apprehensively watch Tony and Bobby leave, ostensibly for a game of golf. In reality, the two men are meeting with a pair of

Québécois. In exchange for a large amount of expired prescription medication at a heavy discount, Tony agrees to a hit on the brother-in-law of one of the Québécois and asks Bobby to personally take care of it. Bobby has to accept. They return to the cabin and Carmela and Tony leave for home. Bobby immediately sets off for Montreal for the hit; he kills the man at point-blank range, drops the gun and walks off. He returns to the cabin, picks up his daughter, and hugs her. Back home, Tony watches a "Soprano Home Movies" DVD given to him by Janice as a birthday present: it shows himself and Janice as children, playing together.[1][2]

First appearance

Deceased

Title reference

  • Janice's birthday present to Tony is a DVD of old home movies of them and their
    sister
    during their childhood.

Production

Writing

"Soprano Home Movies" was written by four of the show's five principal season six writers: supervising producers and writing team Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, series creator and showrunner David Chase and executive producer Matthew Weiner, who had been promoted from co-executive producer before the production of "Soprano Home Movies" began. The four developed the episode's story outline along with executive producer[3][4] Terence Winter.[5][6] "Soprano Home Movies" is Frolov and Schneider's fourth and final official writing credit for the series; it is Chase's twenty-seventh and Weiner's ninth. Chase and Weiner collaborated on two more of the season's episodes: "Kennedy and Heidi" and "The Blue Comet."

Filming

"Soprano Home Movies" was the first episode of the final nine episodes to be produced, following a six-month-long production hiatus, partly due to Gandolfini's knee surgery.[7][8] In preparation for shooting the episode, series creator/executive producer David Chase held several rehearsals with the lead actors.[9]

The scenes at the lakefront vacation home were filmed over two weeks in June 2006 in Putnam Valley, New York. Additional interior shots were filmed six months later at Silvercup Studios, New York, where a replica of the cabin had been built in a sound stage. The lake seen multiple times in the episode is Lake Oscawana. The scenes of Tony and Bobby fishing were filmed on location on the lake but much closer to the shore than it appears in the episode. The scenes set in Montreal were actually filmed in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. Filming of the scenes set in New Jersey and the Soprano residence took place on location in Essex County, New Jersey, and in Silvercup Studios.[9] While filming the cabin fight scene between Tony and Bobby in Silvercup Studios, Steve Schirripa accidentally headbutted James Gandolfini. The fight scene was choreographed but Gandolfini did not step out of the way in time. The real headbutting was kept in the episode.[10]

Cast notes

  • Butch DeConcini
    on the show, is promoted to the main cast and billed in the opening credits, but only for this episode.
  • Dominic
    , one of the members of the Lupertazzi crime family who greets Phil upon his return from the hospital.
  • The role of
    Domenica Baccalieri
    was recast with twins Avery Elaine and Emily Ruth Pulcher replacing Kimberly and Brianna Laughlin.
  • Vince Curatola is credited in the opening sequence, although his only appearance in this episode comes in the form of an unused take from the Season 5 episode "All Due Respect".

References to previous episodes

Other cultural and historical references

  • Doc Santoro sings the opening line from "The Girl from Ipanema" when he sees Phil Leotardo at his party.
  • The line, "Take the yellow ribbons down, everybody. Our boy's come home" is an allusion to "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree."
  • When Tony sees Bobby wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt at the lake house, Tony exclaims "National Lampoon's Vacation!" in reference to the 1983 movie starring Chevy Chase.
  • When Janice tells Tony he has changed and is "different" since the shooting, Tony responds: "Different how? How am I different?" a homage to Joe Pesci's character Tommy DeVito in the famous Goodfellas scene: "Funny how? How am I Funny?"
  • Monopoly's distributors, the Parker Brothers, are mentioned by Bobby when he disagrees with digressing from the game's official rules.
  • Casualties of the Iraq War are mentioned in a radio broadcast.
  • Janice mentions tricking Tony into eating a Milk-Bone.
  • Bobby gives Tony an
    AR-10
    .
  • Phil says he broken his gazz' in Florida on a
    recumbent bike, using a variant of the Italian slang cazzo
    , "penis."

Music

Reception

Ratings

"Soprano Home Movies" drew an average of 7.66 million viewers when it first aired on

Guy Walks Into a Psychiatrist's Office...", which drew roughly the same number of viewers as "Soprano Home Movies" (7.64 million viewers).[11][12]

Critical response

The episode was critically acclaimed. Tom Biro of

TV Squad gave the episode a favorable review, writing "All in all, big thumbs up from me."[13]
Marisa Carroll of PopMatters called the midseason premiere "stellar" and wrote that "David Chase repeatedly re-imagines ordinary family scenarios—like a weekend trip to the mountains—in brutal, gangster terms. [...] Such signature exaggerations remain both hilarious and unsettling." She awarded the episode a score of 9 out of 10 (shared with the following two episodes).[14] Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle praised the episode, writing "the series remains as vital and interesting as ever [...] There may be no better (or realistic) way to go forward into this Sopranos swan song."[15] Kim Reed of Television Without Pity gave the midseason premiere an A−, writing "...while, on the surface, not much happened, I think there were a ton of callbacks to previous episodes and that familiar Soprano tension was used to good effect."[16] Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune wrote "this is loose, contemplative Sopranos storytelling at its best."[17] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly was impressed with the midseason premiere and wrote that, despite not being a very eventful episode on the surface, "everything happened".[18] Alan Sepinwall of
Bobby Bacala in a more prominent role, writing "The hour was largely a refresher course on Tony, Janice and their history, but it also gave Bacala the dignity he's so often been deprived by the writers."[19]
Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times gave the episode a mixed review, calling it "solemn" and wrote that "even before last season the series had started to sag in places, a creative fatigue that matched the main characters' weariness and also the audience's."[20] Brian Zoromski of IGN awarded "Soprano Home Movies" a score of 9.5 out of 10, citing the calm, subtle storytelling as a great strength.[21]

Awards

In 2007, "Soprano Home Movies" was nominated in four categories for the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards. The episode was submitted for consideration in the category of Outstanding Drama Series. This led to a nomination and the show—which was judged by six episodes from the second part of the sixth season, including "Soprano Home Movies"—won.[22][23][24] It was also nominated but failed to win in the categories of

Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series (William B. Stich), and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Aida Turturro).[25][26]
The episode was also submitted for
Emmy consideration in the categories of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Steve Schirripa) and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (David Chase, Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, and Matthew Weiner); however, it was not nominated.[27]
In 2008, Tim Van Patten was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series, but lost out to Mad Men's Alan Taylor, also a director for The Sopranos, who happened to win the Emmy Award for directing "Kennedy and Heidi" at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards.[28][29]

References

  1. ^ "HBO: The Sopranos: S 6 EP 78 Soprano Home Movies: Synopsis". HBO. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
  2. ^ O'Connor, Mimi (2007-10-30). "The Sopranos: Episode Guide". In Martin, Brett (ed.). The Sopranos: The Complete Book.
    ISBN 978-1-933821-18-4
    .
  3. ^ Sepinwall, Alan (2010-09-09). "Interview: 'Boardwalk Empire' creator Terence Winter". Hit Fix. Retrieved 2010-09-21.
  4. ^ The Sopranos – The Complete Series: Alec Baldwin interviews David Chase (DVD). HBO. 2008.
  5. ^ Lee, Mark (May 2007). "Wiseguys: A conversation between David Chase and Tom Fontana". Written by.
    Writers Guild of America, West. Archived from the original
    on 2007-11-16. Retrieved 2010-09-23.
  6. ^ Lee, Mark (May 2007). "La Famiglia". Written by.
    Writers Guild of America, West
    : 22–31, 54–55.
  7. ^ "Knee Surgery for 'Sopranos' Star James Gandolfini Will Delay Final Season's Premiere". foxnews.com. July 13, 2006.
  8. ^ "Gandolfini undergoes knee surgery". upi.com. June 2, 2006.
  9. ^ a b Schirripa, Steve (2007). "Soprano Home Movies" commentary track (DVD). HBO.
  10. ^ Clarke, Norm (2007-04-11). "NORM: Schirripa tackles Imus appearance". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Archived from the original on 2008-03-29. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  11. ^ Huff, Richard (2007-04-27). ""Sopranos" ratings slip again". The Denver Post. Retrieved 2009-09-26.
  12. ^ Ryan, Maureen (2006-03-14). "The comeback". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  13. ^ Biro, Tom (2007-04-09). "The Sopranos: Soprano Home Movies (midseason premiere)".
    TV Squad
    . Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  14. ^ Carroll, Marisa (2007-04-25). "No Turning Back". PopMatters. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  15. ^ Goodman, Tim (2007-04-02). "A tidy finish? Fahgeddaboutit". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  16. ^ Reed, Kim (2007-04-10). "The Sopranos – "Soprano Home Movies"". Television Without Pity. Archived from the original on 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  17. ^ Ryan, Maureen (2007-04-05). "Ari Gold and Tony Soprano return, and we can't look away". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  18. ^ Schwarzbaum, Lisa (2007-04-09). "Lake Effect". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  19. ^ Sepinwall, Alan (2007-04-08). "Sopranos Rewind: Livia's legacy, Bacala's broken heart". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
  20. ^ Stanley, Alessandra (2007-04-08). "This Thing of Ours, It's Over". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  21. ^ Zoromski, Brian (2007-04-09). "The Sopranos: Soprano Home Movies Review". IGN. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  22. ^ O'Neal, Tom (2007-06-30). "Report: Top 10 Emmy finalists for drama & comedy series". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  23. ^ "Emmy winners". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  24. ^ "Sopranos scores hat-trick at Emmys". RTÉ. 2007-09-17. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  25. ^ O'Neal, Tom (2007-07-24). "Finally! Your official Emmy episode cheat sheet!". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  26. ^ "The 59th Primetime Emmy Awards and Creative Arts Emmy Awards Nominees are..." Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  27. ^ Boomer (2007-07-26). "2007 Emmys Confirmed Episode Submissions". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2007-08-22. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
  28. ^ "DGA Announces Nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in All Categories for 2007". Directors Guild of America. 2008-01-10. Archived from the original on January 28, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  29. ^ "DGA Award Winners and Special Award Recipients". Directors Guild of America. 2008-01-26. Archived from the original on January 31, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-20.

External links

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