Lorraine Bracco's renaissance as an actor, with her role in The Sopranos, is a result of the huge demand for depictions of Mafia life, writes Brian O'Connell.
The last decade of the 20th century was not a particularly happy time to be in the Mafia. During the 1990s authorities in both the US and Italy made significant inroads into La Cosa Nostra, by imprisoning gangsters and dismantling their associated businesses. Though it's probably premature to declare either the Italian or the American Mafia morto, both have been severely wounded, the latter perhaps permanently. But if the Mafia is a shadow of its former self, you'd hardly know it from pop culture. In short, there's never been so many wiseguys on screen.
So what gives? The current interest in all things Mafiosa, from The Sopranos to Scorsese's latest blockbuster, The Departed, and spoof comedies such as Analyze This, is part of a long Hollywood tradition that stretches back to the 1900s and endures to the present day.
This month in New York, a packed audience of film buffs, professionals, students, and the odd wiseguy attended a panel discussion featuring some of the most influential mob film-makers in Hollywood today, to try and figure out why the gangster genre goes from strength to strength.
Included on the panel was Frank Vincent, who plays crime boss Phil Leotardo in The Sopranos; Paul Haggis, writer of Crash and The Black Donnellys, a new HBO series about the Irish mob; Harold Ramis, writer and director of Analyze This and Analyze That; and Gerald Shargel, a criminal lawyer who has defended members of the Gambino family as well as crime boss John Gotti.
I was there to speak to panel member Lorraine Bracco, the first lady of gangster flicks, nominated for an Oscar for her role as Karen Hill in Goodfellas and currently picking Tony Soprano's brain as psychiatrist Dr Jennifer Melfi in The Sopranos. But before our interview, I decided to sit in on the highly entertaining debate, which sought to examine the increasing "Hollywoodification" Mafia life.
A perfect example given was a recent episode of The Sopranos where Lauren Bacall and Ben Kingsley took cameo roles. In part of the storyline, Tony Soprano allows his nephew Christopher to leave the Mafia world to try to hawk a film script entitled Cleaver, about a mobster who returns from the dead, around California. The hawking doesn't quite go according to plan, and at the end, Christopher is forced to steal Bacall's expensive gift basket. So, quite literally, the Mafia is seen stealing from Hollywood, a practice that has been ongoing - in both directions - in iconography terms for the best part of a century.
The point made was that it is impossible to figure out where Mafia movies begin and the Mafia ends. For example, to date seven actors who have appeared on The Sopranos have been arrested and charged for criminal activity, from nightclub hold-ups to second-degree murder. Writer and director Harold Ramis made reference to this problem by saying that one of his biggest headaches casting his Mafia comedies was preventing actual gangsters from auditioning. One guy threatened to throw him out the "friggin' window" if he wasn't successful - the auditioning took place several floors up.
Ironically, perhaps the greatest Mafia writer of them all, Mario Puzo, always claimed that he never met a wiseguy. Extraordinary given that many consider The Godfather the bible of the genre.
In reality, what Hollywood has given us is a mythical, highly poetic version of honourable violence, and in particular Italian honourable violence. The gangster code, with strong family ties and a clearly defined code of honour, has always appealed to audiences, and allowed film-makers to somehow mask the criminal aspects of the organisation. It's not hard to see how actual gangsters would be drawn to these portrayals.
Yet the rules are changing. In the past, movies and TV series were dominated by conventional morality, at a time when television sets were still guests in people's homes.
Nowadays, Mafia characters are more complex, less black and white, and the Hollywood version of Mafia life is now wholly at odds with the reality. This point is reinforced by lawyer Gerald Shargel, who has been representing Mafia families for almost 30 years: "Despite what we are led to believe, in my experience the Mafia life isn't at all glamorous. There are very few employee benefits in the mob, you have to work long hours, and it is a high-risk industry. In reality, you have a mob captain, who goes into a restaurant downtown, flashing cash everywhere - $100 bills for the doorman, the waiters, kitchen staff. Everyone. Then he leaves and goes home to a two-bed dingy flat in the suburbs, where his family have no money for groceries. In my experience, that's the reality. The other thing is that there is never any guilt expressed. John Gotti was a very complex person but there is no guilt. These guys almost feel like they are forced to do certain acts. Like the phrase 'Don't make me do this'. They are never responsible for their actions."
Lorraine Bracco knows more than most what it's like to try unravelling the psychological complexities of a Mafia figurehead. Her character in The Sopranos, Dr Jennifer Melfi, has the task of psychologically disarming intimidating New Jersey crime boss Tony Soprano on a weekly basis. So what's it like being alone in a room with Tony Soprano every day?
"It can be quite intimidating, but he's an unbelievable actor, almost like Muhammad Ali in the ring. He's a heavyweight," says Bracco, sitting in the green room of the Florence Gould Hall on East 59th Street.
At 52 years old, Bracco has undergone a renaissance thanks to her role in The Sopranos. Ten years ago she was bankrupt, having gone through a messy custody battle with ex-husband Harvey Keitel, and while Goodfellas had brought her critical acclaim, her career had stalled and she was suffering from clinical depression. She describes it as a "hellish period of my life" where "I felt over the hill, all used up".
Along came The Sopranos, and the financial struggles, mediocre roles and broken relationships faded into the past. Having paid off her divorce lawyers, she is now solvent again, in a new relationship, and last June she published her memoirs, On the Couch. More importantly, when The Sopranos finishes early next year, she will have options.
Initially Bracco auditioned for the part of Carmella, Tony's wife in the hit HBO series. Yet early in the auditioning process she became drawn, understandably, to the role of psychiatrist Melfi.
"I actually read for Carmela. But when I saw the script and read Dr Melfi, that role appealed to me more as an actress. Besides, I already did Carmella in Goodfellas." Since The Sopranos first aired in 1999, the show has become a cultural phenomenon due to its groundbreaking approach to Mafia life. It has been nominated for countless awards and has spawned commercial spin-offs, including a cigar line and pinball machines. The final season, which beings filming shortly, is expected to air next March. Yet the cast is as much in the dark as the show's fans about how the series will be resolved.
"It's the last season, but aside from that we don't know any more. We get pages of the script three days before we film. We do a read through and then we have to give them back. We know nothing more than that.
"I've heard that if your character is to be killed off you get a call the day before, but that's about as much warning as you get - kinda like in real life, I guess."
Having spent the best part of a decade together, Bracco says she is not looking forward to leaving the cast and crew, who she now regards as extended family. But she recognises the importance of ending the show while it is still at the top.
"We have one more year of work, probably until February or March 2007, and then it's over. I am not looking forward to it at all. It's gonna be hard. The whole thing has been an incredible creative endeavour and it's also been fun. Getting recognition by your peers, whether it be actors, musicians, writers or directors, and of course the public, that's not so easy to let go of."
Does she remember the exact moment when she thought 'I'm on to something here'? "I always said when I saw the pilot I was like, 'Oh my God, this is fantastic.' I loved it. Out of everything I'd seen, I'd never seen that before. That was terrific to me." Bracco has undoubtedly left her mark on the series. In one of the most tension-filled episodes, Dr Melfi has the opportunity to tell Tony the identity of the person who has raped her, so that he can exact revenge. In the end, better judgement prevails, and she decides not to.
Was that a decision Bracco would have gone along with? "Honestly? I kept asking if it were one of my children who had been raped, would I have told him who did it. And the answer is I probably would. For my character, though, she had to maintain the moral right. For me I'm not so sure."
HER MEMOIR HELPED Bracco assert that moral right, eroded by years of dysfunctional relationships. Published in the US last June, they have been well received for her honesty and openness in dealing with some of the darkest periods of her life. Writing, though, is not a process she intends to return to in the near future.
"It took me forever to write that book, and I hated the whole process to tell you the truth. I worked on it for about three and half years, maybe four, little by little. And it came out in June. We hit the big cities and I had a lot of national press. I think the difficult thing is including people who are living. You have to pay attention. I didn't want to hurt anyone, so sometimes I was very aware, let's put it that way. I hated the process - it was very difficult. I did work with a writer, but it was really hard to go back and remember things and live through them again. The good times were good but the bad times were bad. I did have certain diaries that I went back to, but I still found it very difficult. I have a huge admiration for a writer who sits with a blank sheet of paper at a typewriter or computer or whatever."
Of her future plans, Bracco says at the moment there aren't any. She intends to visit Ireland some day, given that her sister is married to Aidan Quinn and she hasn't been since her early 20s.
"It's a long time since I was there so I have a feeling it has changed a lot," she says. "I now have Aidan and his family from Ireland so I'd be curious to go back. I hear it's exploding."
In place of any far-reaching career guide, she will rely on luck and trust her instincts, traits that have served her well up until now. With the continuing audience appetite for the gangster genre, she will always have offers, yet one suspects her next role may be a departure.
"There are a whole bunch of things going on, so I can pick and choose at the end of this," she says. "I know I'm lucky. There are a lot of things I'm offered that I don't want to do though. You always wanna grow as an actor; you don't just want to stay in one place. But you know I am clueless at what is going to come to me. I've been lucky and I feel that I've had a good life. I don't have a set career plan and nor do I want one. I'm banking on the fact that my luck and success will continue. I've worked with some of the great directors such as Scorsese, Gus Van Sant to David Chase and Ridley Scott so I've been very fortunate."
The ageing process is not something Bracco fears either. She has always been outspoken on the fickleness of Hollywood when it comes to ageing stars.
"I love women such as Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep, who look and act their age. I like that. Even though I'm 52, I'm not trying to be something I'm not. I wanna play Leonardo's mother again [she acted alongside DiCaprio in 1995's The Basketball Diaries], and age-appropriate roles for myself. I want that. I don't want to be 69 and look like I'm 30. I've always been a strong advocate of being your age but not acting it."
Finally, has Bracco any views on the present political climate in the US? "I have views about our country, which was definitely divided this last election. I feel Al Gore would have been a very interesting president, I still do. I think we're in a f***ing mess in the world and I don't know if we really should be there . . . It's a rough time. Having lived in Europe for many years when I was younger it's sad to hear how everybody f***ing hates us and thinks it's just this materialistic, imperialist, individual society. Remember half the country didn't vote that way."
AFTER WE ARE led out to rejoin her entourage, doors are suddenly opened, autographs signed, cameras flashed. Workers shout across the street: "Hey doc, don't take any stick from the big guy, ya hear."
"You know me," retorts Bracco, before sitting into the back of a blacked-out limo and heading into the Manhattan traffic.
I decide to head for Little Italy and some late lunch. On Mulberry Street I pass Cafe Biondo, a regular haunt of John Gotti. Up the street sits Cafe Roma, run by the family of Genovese underboss Eli "Joe the Baker" Zeccardi, a loan shark who disappeared in 1977.
I manage to get a window seat at the famed Umberto's Clam House, which still serves the scungilli salad that Crazy Joe Gallo ate before being shot dead there in 1972. Any minute I expect to see a group of wiseguys being led into the back room, to try on stolen furs.
Just as the food lands, a guy taps me on the shoulder. "Hey, you want some of this?" I peel around in nervous anticipation. Behind me stands an Italian youth in a NY Yankees T-shirt. He's holding up an assortment of tacky gadgets, from illustrated Mafia tour guides to car licence plates spelling GODFATHER 1 and BADA BING 2.
"Two for five bucks, it's a steal," he entices.
"Fuggetaboutit," I retort, before tucking into the finest scungilli salad this side of Sicily.