As referenced in a previous blog, there is, oddly, a sudden glut of Hollywood films being released which have either Italian American characters or Italian American themes.
The first one was Air, a look at how NIKE cut their famous shoe deal with a then-unknown, future phenom named Michael Jordan. Actor Matt Damon plays Sonny Vaccaro, the energetic salesman who helped snare MJ. I haven’t seen the film, but it’s gotten good reviews and Damon plays Vaccaro as a normal person, not as a loud ethnic caricature.
I have, however, seen the next big release: Somewhere in Queens. Written, directed and starring Ray Romano, the stand-up comic who rose to fame with his popular late 90s TV show Everybody Loves Raymond, it’s about a working-class Italian American couple (Romano and Laurie Metcalf) and their relationship with their teenage son, an anxiety-ridden introvert who blossoms on the basketball court.
Although I would have rewritten a few scenes, sharpened a few characters, and avoided the rather obvious plot mechanism which Romano employs, the film, to my astonishment, is not horrible.
Yes, it’s still set-on-the-East-Coast. (In Hollywood’s eyes, Italians never moved beyond the Hudson River. Hello! I’m writing this blog from Chicago.). Yes, it shows an Italian American family still sitting down every Sunday for a family meal. (Where? Somewhere in Queens, indeed. Not in most Italian American households anymore, sadly). And yes, it parades the usual idea that Italian Americans are basically a blue-collar people, prone to F bombs and a disdain toward education. (In real life, Romano studied accounting at Queens College).
But tone is everything, and Romano’s is almost wistful. As he related in a recent issue of PARADE Magazine, getting older has inspired him to return to his Italian American roots. He treats his characters with dignity, not disdain. Considering how Hollywood usually treats us, Romano’s take is near-revolutionary.
Up next? A biopic from Romano in which he portrays one of his childhood heroes: Jimmy Valvano aka “Jimmy V”, the fabled North Carolina state basketball coach whose “Never give up” speech — given when he knew he was dying of cancer at age 47 — still ranks as one of the most inspirational moments in American sports history.
Also still to come:
a) The Book Club: The Next Chapter. It sounds like a Golden Girls‘ version of Girls’ Trip (2017): A quartet of elderly women — Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, Diane Keaton, and Candice Bergen — vacation in Rome and Venice.
b) Adam Driver makes a second attempt portraying an Italian business icon: After House of Gucci, he stars in Ferrari, a biopic about Enzo Ferrari and his car empire.
c) It Ain’t Over: This 90-minute documentary profiles one of America’s most beloved personalities: baseball catcher Yogi Berra. Honored with a U.S. Postage stamp shortly after his death in 2015, Berra’s colorful life gets the full-screen treatment.
But it might take a film from la bell’italia to truly restore our dignified cinematic image.
The Eight Mountains (“Le otte montagne“), an adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s popular 2017 book, is about to begin its national distribution. The story of a friendship between two Italians stretching from childhood to middle age, Le otte montagne won the top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and has received glowing reviews.
In Italy, at least, Italians have climbed way past the mountaintop of misery which still encircles Italian Americans in Hollywood. -BDC
I haven’t seen it yet, but I felt intuitively he would step up to the plate with this project. I always marveled when Amos & Andy was removed from the air decades ago. It just seemed like a normal 50’s sit-com of the usual guys of that time trying to hustle with mother-in-law problems. By the standards of that time I thought an Italian American show of this kind would be an oasis. In a way Everybody Loves Raymond brought us to that level. Not an inspirational show but I took the crumbs despite Ray’s non-Italian wife was portrayed as the only voice of reason. Kudos if he’s upped our heritage somewhat. I agree with you that we all could use someone who could portray our heritage with the sweeping narrative Streisand did with Yentl.
I had written a spec screenplay A Brownstone Generation and was represented by an NYC signatory agency. One of the production companies where it was pitched was Lion’s Gate. One of their producers had an Italian name and was the one who informed me that “they were all Italianed out” after recently producing the film Two Family House. Tribeca also pa$$ed on the script and that is Bobby DeNiro’s company. It is a cutthroat business and realizing that stereotypes sell, well, follow the money. Along my journey, I was told there are enough screenplays floating around New York and Hollywood to keep the fires of Hell stoked for …. eternity. It took Oliver Stone a decade to get Platoon sold and when finally made, it would win the Oscar (pre-Woke days) for Best Picture. Who knows how many good stories we are truly missing out on….
Re: the Hollywood roller-coaster: Your summary is an excellent expose of our film industry’s baked-in hypocrisy. The MeToo Movement performed a valuable service in finally pulling the back covers, as it were, on Tinsel Town’s casting couch ways, where innocent actors (both women and men) were often forced to sleep with producers or directors to either get a role or get funding for a project. Sick stuff.
The way Hollywood routinely disses quality or art is the next bit of hypocrisy that needs to be exposed. The industry worships money, not art; and, as noted by the Platoon example, they’ll turn around and honor a film they rejected for over a decade and say, “We’re so proud! Look what Hollywood supports! We make art!”
As a Film Study teacher, I routinely noted to my students that the three men who were basically responsible for creating American film – D.W. Griffith, Chaplin, and Orson Welle – were all tossed aside by the industry once they showed any sort of independent streak or demanded to make more quality films. Sobering lesson.
Stereotypes sell well, not just in Hollywood but in the media/news too.
I just finished reading the autobiography of Southern-Italian fashion genius Santo Versace (brother of Gianni). In his book, he mentions that the Versace corporation had to defend itself from absurd mafia connection allegations a few times, including those brought up by renowned journalists from the Anglo-media like Fiammetta Rocco (who is a Senior Editor at the Economist).
As I said a few times here, the endless negative stereotypes cause real damages to Italians all around the world.
The “M” letter sticks to us more tightly than the Scarlet Letter of yore (A for Adultery). It is truly amazing–and depressing.
What you write does hit the nail on the business end of making films for sure. However, since you were good enough to obtain an agent on what is a spec script, perhaps you need to revisit trying to sell the script again. Good stories just don’t do a McArthur and “fade away.” I am sure there are some folks who are readers of this site that could ante up and get a positive film made.
The Streisand comparison is interesting. She embraced Yentl back in 1981 out of a sense of ethnic pride. But, unlike Romano, Streisand wasn’t in her mid-60s (Romano is 65); she was a year shy of middle age (39 years old). Bottom line: Everyone except Italians derives inspiration from their heritage. They don’t wait until they approach what the late Gore Vidal called, “the Stage Door Exit Sign” before they get reflective about it.
I do, however, give Romano credit. Can the same be said for our beloved “mob-stars”?
Other than the upcoming About My Father with Robert De Niro (who nonetheless plays an Italian American father like a mob guy!), Joe Pesce and Al Pacino aren’t playing any Italian surnamed characters. The late Ray Liotta was still playing heavies before he died. Even Sylvester Stallone decided to taint the gritty dignity of his Rocky Balboa hero by playing a fictional mobster in the current HULU series, Tulsa King. What a sad litany.