The Family: CALL Discussion Notes

Giovanni Manzoni (Robert DeNiro), wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer) and kids Belle (Dianna Agron) and Warren (John D’Leo) are a family cubed. They are (i) a standard-issue American family, with two kids, a van and a dog; (2) from the Mafia, the larger Family, on whom they have snitched; and consequently (3) now identified as the Blake family. That’s how, after some 10 years in the Witness Protection Program, they are moved to a small town in Normandy, France, under the watchful eye of their handler Robert Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones). The jailed capos have put a $20 million bounty on “Fred Blake” -- in US money, yet! 
     At their new school Warren cultivates his business expertise, while Belle seduces her math tutor. But the Manzonis/Blakes just can’t leave their short fuses and reflex violence behind them. All four mete out their own justice. While Fred writes his memoir, to the FBI’s chagrin, Warren’s innocent short story in the school paper finds its way to the capo’s cell in America. That leads to the climactic shoot-out, where the gangsters kill the town cops, firemen and rose-growing neighbour, until the family offs the Family. The Blakes drive off into the darkness for their next attempt to disappear.

Here are some questions to consider:

1. To some extent the central characters function not so much as actors as personae. That is, they are exercising an image or associations collected over their respective career’s worth of films. Our response to them is affected by our memories of their earlier roles. E.g., Michelle Pfeiffer began as a sexpot but in Married to the Mob she played a Mafia widow courted by her dead gangster husband’s boss and by an FBI agent. DeNiro began as a comic actor with Brian de Palma but made his career in the violent Martin Scorsese films, especially Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Raging Bull, as well as The Godfather II, The Deer Hunter, The Untouchables, climaxing in the Fokkers franchise. Tommy Lee Jones has long played men of gruff manners and stoic authority, usually on the right side of the law.
2. Director Luc Besson made his name as a stylish director of French crime thrillers, such as Subway, La femme nikita and Leon: The Professional. He has done some US work, including The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The Fifth Element, and Madonna’s “Love Profusion” video.  How does this film cohere with that career? Consider both theme and style.
3. The film could be classified as an American in Europe story, which ranges from Henry James (e.g., Daisy Miller) down to the Chevy Chase Griswold family holiday trips. How does this film work between or at either of those poles?
4. How does this representation of Americans abroad reflect upon currrent America?
5. What is the point/effect of the lengthy reference to Goodfellas here? There De Niro plays an established gangster who mentors the hero, Henry Hill who betrays him. Goodfellas is narrated by a reminiscing Hill, as Fred writes his memoir here.
6. Why is the Goodfellas screening originally planned to be Some Came Running, Vincent Minelli’s film of James Jones’s novel about a writer (Frank Sinatra) coming out of the army and returning to his home town?
7. How are the French characterized? Consider the process by which we learn about them (e.g., what traits first, what last)?
8. What’s the point of confusing calvados and camomile?
9. Why in this day and age does Fred use a Brother typewriter?
10. Why is there a clip of Dallas on the TV (in French)?
11. What’s the function of the priest? Of Maggie’s religion?
12. What’s unusual about the brother/sister relationship here?
13. Compare the mystery of the first (back view of t-shirted gangster at dinner) and the last (car drives into darkness) shots.
14. What’s the point of the complicated route by which Warren’s story gets to the capo?
15. How does the film draw on The Sopranos (e.g., the barbecue scene, the family, the treatment of the snitch)? More broadly, how is this a film about film?
16. Given that each Blake member acts in response to mistreatment or abuse, how does this film reflect the explanation of the origin of the Mafia given in The Godfather?
17. Given how successful the Blakes are when they are true to themselves -- e.g., Fred gossiping about gangsters instead of getting into intellectual analyses of some film, not to mention getting clean water -- might this film be about staying true to one's identity, however off-kilter or media-ated?  

How are these lines important?

1. “Like Al Capone said, asking polite with a gun in your hand is better than asking polite with nothing.”
2. “The most important question a man has to answer is this. How much is a man’s life worth?”
3. Warren: “We’re playing in the minor leagues now.”
4. “We’re not in Brooklyn any more.”
5. “Try to fit in, won’t you Fred?”
6. Warren: “Can I rely on you when the time comes?”
7. Maggie: “Desire sneaks up on you.”
8. “You’re the best dad anyone could ever ask for.”
9. Le maire: “I’ve nothing against foreigners.”
10. Maggie: “Drop the Italian Stallion act, won’t you?”
11. Belle: “Love was the only thing that could have taken me out of my crazy life.”
12. Maggie: “Things went badly at the film society?”
13. Tommy Lee Jones’s last “F---."