A Celebration of the Italian Culture:

Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott’s Big Night

 

To an outsider, television and film are the main sources of information about the Italian/American culture. In these media the image of the gangster and mafioso has dominated public rep­resentation of Italian Americans, but we still know little of the true Italian immigrant experience. What traditions did those first-gen­eration immigrants bring with them and what problems did they face adapting to America? In his essay, “Italian Americans in the Hollywood Cinema: Filmmakers, Characters, Audiences,” Frank Tomasulo points out that no studio-era film and only one post-studio era film, The Godfather Part II (1974), depicts the Italian im­migrant experience. While Coppola does a masterful job recreat­ing young Vito’s escape from Sicily to America and his gradual corruption in New York’s Little Italy in The Godfather Part II, the experience of Vito Andolini, whose whole family was killed by the Mafia, could hardly be called typical. Finally, however, there is a film that gives us enormous insight into the culture and experi­ences of the Italian immigrants who came to America: Big Night. Co-written by Stanley Tucci and his cousin Joseph Tropiano, and co-directed by Tucci and his high school friend Campbell Scott, it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1996  Sundance Film Festival.

Stanley Tucci is a new director with an estimable record as a superb character actor (he was most recently seen on ABC’s Mur­der One). As a director who regrets the fact that Italians are so of­ten portrayed as the bad guys, Tucci clearly stands out from his more famous Italian/American colleagues, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. While Coppola and Scorsese have a love-hate relationship with their own ethnic background, Tucci has a refreshingly positive view of his ancestry. In his article for the New York Times Magazine, entitled, “How to make Roles? Make Mov­ies?,” Eric Konigsberg writes that Tucci grew up admiring his grandfather who was a stonecutter in Peekskill, New York. Tucci explains, “He made headstones and every weekend we’d visit cemeteries, and each one was a goddamn work of art” (qtd. in Konigsberg 62). Furthermore, when Tucci was twelve, his father, who is a high school art teacher, took a year long sabbatical and the whole family went to Florence. “That changed my life,” Tucci said. “I met relatives and I saw that there’s an entire culture that behaves the way we do. The focus on family, the focus on food and culture—it informs your esthetic” (62). So too did Tucci’s mother, Joan, who is an exceptional cook according to the director. In fact she helped with the all of the food preparation for Big Night, including the impressive Timpano, a drum-shaped torte filled with pasta, meatballs, eggs, and cheese, which is typical of Calabria where the Tucci family is from.

Food, indeed, is at the center of attention in this film that is a tribute to authentic Italian cooking. Two immigrant brothers, Primo (played by Tony Shaloub) and Secondo (played by Stanley Tucci) are struggling to keep alive their little Paradise restaurant on the Jersey shore in the 1950s. Despite the fact that Primo is an outstanding chef, the restaurant is failing because its few custom­ers do not appreciate his elegant (and time-consuming) risottos. However, they flock to Pascal’s Italian Grotto, a nearby competi­tor, where they can get spaghetti with meatballs, steaks, and dishes flambeed by Pascal himself. Pascal is obviously a show-off and he offers to help Secondo by getting his “friend,” the great Italian/American jazz singer Louis Prima, to come to the Paradise for dinner, thus providing some much-needed publicity. The “big night” is on and the brothers withdraw all of their savings, invite all of their friends, and pull out all of the stops to put on a feast worthy of a king. Never mind the fact that Pascal does not get around to calling Prima (he wants the Paradise to fail so that the brothers will come to work for him). They have proven that Ital­ians are capable of making cooking into an art and eating into an experience approaching ecstasy. As the camera pans the guests at the dinner table, their faces confirm chef Primo’s assertion that, “To eat good food is to be close to God.”

What makes Big Night so different from the films of other Ital­ian/American directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese is this emphasis on the artistry that the humble Italian immigrants brought with them to this country. As Secondo mixes the ingredients for the pasta, his work table becomes a veritable artist’s palette. Tucci uses a bird’s eye shot from directly above to show us the bright yellow egg yolks being cracked into the well in the white flour. Green olive oil is then added and the pasta is rolled out by hand. Next, Primo uses a small wooden block with ridges to roll out the gnocchi one by one. Just as Christ did not cre­ate the world in one day, Italian cooking does not happen instan­taneously; it is a patient and loving process.

Tucci accompanies this visual feast of colors with a lively musi­cal score composed of Italian songs ranging from traditional folk melodies to the music of Prima himself. Following the Cleveland premiere of Big Night, Tucci explained that his aim was to bring Italian music up through the centuries.[1] Each song, in fact is ex­pertly chosen to accompany the mood and action of the particular sequence. For example, when Secondo and the Cadillac salesman (played by Tucci’s friend and co-director Campbell Scott) take a spin in the latest model, we hear the old favorite “La strada nel bosco” [The Road through the Woods]. Its romantic melody and lyrics exhort Secondo to succumb to the temptation between his hands as he steers the car to the tune of the music. Another excel­lent choice is “Mambo italiano,” which accompanies the dancing preceeding the dinner. As Chubby, the rotund vegetable salesman (played by Peter Appel), sings into an empty Chianti bottle, the infectious beat of the music gets everyone on their feet. Equally effective is the sudden silence when the guests sit down to dinner and the screen blackens to show the title “La Zuppa” [the soup course] in white Roman letters. Eating, we gather, is serious busi­ness and demands complete attention.

In addition to Tucci’s effective use of music, this director stands out for his ability to develop the character of his protagonists. In speaking with Konigsberg, Tucci criticized films like Pulp Fiction, Resevoir Dogs, and Fargo saying, “And then it’s all about style, and in the end what do you learn about the characters? Nothing. You learn you wasted two hours. You learn nothing” (qtd. in Konigsberg 62). In Big Night, on the other hand, the difference between the two brothers’ personalities is crucial to the plot of the film. Of the two, Chef Primo is the easiest to understand; he is clearly an Old-World Italian who will never adapt to American ways. In the beginning of the film, for example, one client is dis­appointed with her risotto and wants a side of pasta with her main course. To order two starches is an unthinkable affront to an Italian chef, and Primo furiously launches a pot just to the side of the camera before Tucci cuts to the next scene. We also learn that Primo has a wry sense of humor when it comes to American tastes. At one point, Secondo delicately suggests taking risotto off the menu, and Primo replies in mock earnest that maybe they should replace it with hot dogs. Another endearing facet of Primo’s character is his shyness with women. Although he ad­mires Ann, the florist who delivers to the restaurant, he can never manage to put two words together when in her presence. The scene in the flower shop where Primo literally steps inside her cooler and hands her a plain carnation is one of the most memora­ble of the film. Primo is quite the opposite of the stereotypical Latin lover; he is an honest, humble, and hard-working guy who nevertheless wins his girl over in the end.

Secondo, on the other hand, is a more complicated character. He clearly admires his brother’s abilities and knows what real Italian food should be like. In fact, in the beginning of the film he says to an irate customer who expects meatballs with her spa­ghetti, “Sometimes spaghetti likes to be alone!” However, Secondo desperately wants to achieve the American dream of success, and some measure of compromise and sacrifice will be necessary to be able to do this. Unfortunately, Secondo’s hands are tied by his brother, who is a purist when it comes to Italian cooking.

Indecisive about which way to turn, Secondo goes to visit Pas­cal for advice. As he walks through Pascal’s restaurant towards the bar, the camera takes his point of view and we see a customer savoring his plate of spaghetti piled with meatballs. Pascal’s for­mula for success is, “Give to people what thay want,” and it is ob­viously working. Back in Pascal’s office, where the walls are lined with autographed photographs of celebrities, Secondo explains why he came to America. He says that in this country, with hard work, one goes up, up, up (his fingers climb an imaginary ladder), while in Italy one may go nowhere even with hard work. Part of Secondo’s problem, it seems, is that like many immigrants, he ex­pects this country to be the land of opportunity for all, and of course for many it is not.

Secondo’s financial problems are also affecting his relationship with his beautiful, American girlfriend named Phyllis (played by Minnie Driver). In the beginning of the film, they kiss in the back seat of his car, but Secondo resists her by saying that the time is not right. Later he upbraids her for cutting the eggplant too thick when she volunteers to help with the preparations for the big night. Finally Secondo betrays her when he sleeps with Pascal’s mistress, Gabriella (played by Isabella Rossellini), who can help him get a good deal on cheap liquor. In his quest for success, Secondo is starting to loose the honesty and integrity that fortu­nately Primo has maintained both in the kitchen and with his girl­friend, Ann.

Secondo’s problems come to a climax in the scene on the beach at night. Phyllis has run here to swim after seeing Secondo and Gabriella kiss in the bathroom of the Paradise. She emerges from the water in only her white undergarments as if she were trying to wash herself clean of Secondo. Without saying a word, Phyllis walks past him and leaves his life for good.

In the same scene, Secondo must also face the very real possi­bility of loosing his brother. There is a job waiting for both of the them back at their uncle’s restaurant in Rome, and Primo will ob­viously go back, but what will Secondo do? Insults lead to a brawl on the beach between the brothers, but it is apparent that neither one really wants to hurt the other. They are fighting their own emotions more than each other as they battle with the specter of separation. In the Italian culture family ties are strong, and as much as Secondo feels tied down by his brother, leaving him would be very hard to do.

In keeping with Secondo’s indecisiveness in the face of his dilemma, Big Night has a somewhat inconclusive ending. The morning after the party, Secondo enters the kitchen and deftly prepares an omelet for himself, his brother, and their assistant Cristiano (played by Marc Anthony). The brothers sit down to eat in silence and slowly they each put an arm around the other. Tucci ends the film at this point with a black out. Many viewers might object to this apparent “lack of closure.” They might, for example, have preferred to have seen a favorable restaurant review from the writer who attended the “big night” and the phones ringing off the hook in the final scene. But would this have been a realistic ending? The fact is that Primo and Secondo were way ahead of their time in terms of American culinary trends. Today they would have been a hit, but not back in the 1950s. Tucci should thus be praised for resisting a facile ending. In her review entitled “About Honor, Integrity and a Memorable Meal,” Janet Maslin notes,

What’s most affecting here, beyond the vast charm of the two main characters, is the film’s absolute faith in artistry and independence in a world that may not necessarily respect either one. The beauty of Big Night is that it can express all this in a wordless, eloquent coda devoted to nothing more monumental than the cooking and eating of eggs. (B3)

 

While Primo and Secondo bravely exhibit their artistry and independence in the kitchen of the Paradise, Stanley Tucci exhibits these same qualities in this low-budget, independent film. Big Night was made with only four million dollars and Tucci spent eight years on it from the time that he started writing the script with his cousin. The result is as satisfying as the beautiful food that Primo and Secondo produce.

 

Sarah Iammarino

John Carroll University

 

Works Cited

Konigsberg, Eric. “How to Make Roles? Make Movies.” New York Times Magazine 8 Sept. 1996: 60–62.

Maslin, Janet. “About Honor, Integrity and a Memorable Meal.” New York Times 20 Sept. 1996: B3.

Tomasulo, Frank. “Italian Americans in Hollywood Cinema: Filmmakers, Characters, Audiences.” Voices in Italian Ameri­cana 7.1 (Spring 1996): 65–77.

 

 

 

 


[1]Stanley Tucci graciously answered questions from the audience after the Cleveland premiere of Big Night on August 26th at the Cedar Lee Theater.