If its paltry box office receipts should be any indication, you (yes, you) never got around to seeing Not Fade Away, both the feature debut from Sopranos creator David Chase and, in my humble opinion, one of the best films released last year. His coming-of-failure story — to some extent, the anti-Almost Famous — displayed the kind of filmmaker even devoted fans of his HBO series wouldn’t suss out from six-and-a-half seasons: an eagle-eyed, atmosphere-oriented stylist whose unconventional methods of scene-by-scene momentum — occasionally jumping from one year to the next with no more than a single cultural mention to serve as our signpost — elevated the familiar into the sublime, all of which is to say nothing for its (speaking professionally) bitchin’ soundtrack.
Given the business and acclaim it had failed to inspire, I feared that picture would be our only chance to see a near-70 artist plunge into the world of cinema. But, fear not: bringing him back into their fold, Paramount have reportedly snatched up rights to Chase‘s spec screenplay, Little Black Dress, which he’s expected to next direct — better yet, on a fast track. Deviating from both the mob and rock narratives of his two most recent works, this next title concerns “a twentysomething female war veteran who comes back from Afghanistan grappling with a disability.” Should that initial description evoke any sense of surprise, the next bit may serve as a more sufficient reminder of his talents: “While working a potentially lethal investigation at a post-war job, she gets involved with a superstitious NYPD detective who helps bring her back from a personal precipice.” Odds that Gandolfini would’ve played that character?
By this point, Chase has shown himself a master of assembling authentic psychological profiles in short order — something few (if any) movies concerning this current generation of veterans can claim to have — so that much, here, is almost a given; as long as his sense of narrative construction also retains itself in Little Black Dress, we might be right to expect a film both unique and, even, important. This is fine news — but, really, I’m just glad Not Fade Away won’t prove an anomaly.
How do you feel about Chase going back to features? Did you see his most recent work?