Exactly.. all of the main characters try to be better than their flaws and ultimately fail I think that’s sort of the major theme of the show (& what makes it so interesting to watch imo)
@@Activated_Complex No. a person is who they are. Fundamentally people don't change, barring literal brain damage or dementia that alters personality. Claiming thats some kind of narcissistic statement is ignorant and shows you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about
To be fair, I don’t think Christopher mistook Paulie’s wisecracks for insults, I think he knew they were jokes. I think that it was a moment where he realized that none of them actually cared about him or his happiness, like when Tony S and Tony B were giving him shit for his sobriety and we see him crying in the car after. Here he was telling them how happy his kid made him, and it was all a joke to them. He realized how little he actually meant to them. We get a similar moment with Tony earlier in the series where we get a slow-mo shot from his perspective panning around the room of people laughing at him, as he realized he was in the snake pit
Idk man those joke's were outta line regardless of the situation. Remember Johnny wanted Ralph killed for making a fat joke about his wife in front of other associates. Chris was married and that was his little girl Paulie had not right to get that personable like that. What was worse was that everyone was partaking in his said humiliation after they knew he had struggled with addiction. And only joined in because they had broken his balls time after time. This is why I feel Tony was a terrible leader there's no way Carmine would have allowed such a joke to even be uttered around him. That's exactly why the rest of the family's never viewed Jersey as nothing more then a glorified crew.
Tony feels like a joke when he gets to go with Dr Cusamano on that golf course. When Tony tells a joke and all the guys laugh in slo mo is where Tony knows that no one respects him, they fear him. I think Carmela says it to him earlier in that episode
Christpher's arc is the cautionary tale of idolizing a life of crime, wasting your life and doing terrible things to just end up accomplishing nothing.
@Clint Hardnips I think it was more so of him missing the point of Chris not having a traditional arc. He did have an arc, but the arc was one of stagnation due to his actions for Tony.
He was a huge pessimist, which are prone to addictions and creative endeavours. But he chose the line of work that didn't give him any satistafction, and while trying to holding on to it, spiraled out of control multiple times. It just was a bad role for him.
Is it worth talking about the quality of Christopher's movie. Chris clearly has good taste, liking classic films, and in earlier seasons he showed promise to me, especially in D-girl. But I think Cleaver shows the degeneration of his character. His creativity completely stifled by resentment (the movie being a hitpiece on Tony), and instead of being an artist, he resorted to a cheap slasher thriller. It looked corny too. To me, Cleaver itself showed he had no real future and his negative qualities had poisoned his dreams.
I think someone in another video said it best about Chrisufah's greatest fear: his greatest fear was to be average, to always be the guy behind the counter, a man of insignificance.
gosh that's right, code of LCN/Omerta/we're soldiers/ the dutiful crimes that they carry out to earn a bump up the ladder, the vocabulary of Christopher's lexicon, my god " I kill that Emil Kolar, nothing." Should of been Chrissy's 1st clue, from that very first whack imho lol I feel crazy delving into Sopranosverse sumtimes and it's gr8 LOL
That scene where he's looking at the poor family worried he'd wind up just like that father if he ever strayed from the path he was already going down.
@@jasonparker2552 That's the choice that fate had offered him. He could redeem, keep his soul and start a family with a woman who genuinely loved him, but it would cost him a period of life where he wouldn't have the luxury, money and power he was used to. Or he could hand Adriana over to the mafia to become another one of their buried corpses, keep the money and the power and stay loyal to "a man he was going to hell for". We all see the path he chose and where it took him.
I always looked at Christopher’s character was always a cautionary story about the realities of the mob.., compared to the Hollywood persona. He doesn’t develop because the environment is so toxic every time he has a chance to have an arc he’s dragged back to stagnation.
Exactly, his life was never his own. Micromanaged by a sociopathic farmer, not to mention being criticized, ridiculed, hazed, threatened, beaten, shot @ by his fellow associates/soldiers/ capos...F*CK that i woulda found a solid recourse to high tail it outta La Crazy Nostra lol
Yeah, his development and arc IS that he wants to have a better life but feels trapped, and thinks he can't (or isn't worthy of one). That struggle being more and more consuming is the whole arc with him, and it's excellent.
He started out as a hot headed, immature, rising star of the family who idolised the gangster lifestyle, had dreams of being a director and looked to his uncle almost as a father figure. He ended up a drug addicted, more mature, sidetracked in the family, disillusioned with the lifestyle film director who grew so distant from his father figure that they couldn't even relate to each other anymore. But that's not an arc. That's Christopher "doing stuff"
Actually, I would say he regressed. He shot JT for nothing in the most cold blooded way possible and never batted an eye. Chris went full psycho, even for the mob. Killing a civilian for nothing would have possibly gotten him whacked by Tony. Think about this semi-realistically. JT was a successful Hollywood screenwriter, he was known and his name was on Cleaver as well. Cleaver was financed by the mob. Law enforcement would have known all of this and when JT turned up dead I guarantee the Feds would have picked up Christopher immediately. As soon as Chris killed JT either he would have gone to jail, or been whacked by his own people. IMO Chris killing JT was really bad writing and beyond unrealistic.
@@tedwojtasik8781 Chris killed JT because he realized he said wayyy too much in front of him, the "You're in the mob" bit just made it all dawn on him. I also fail to see how what you said relates to Chris's arc or lack thereof, but in any case I do agree that the police not sniffing around even a little bit is unrealistic. I very much doubt Chris would've gone to jail over it, because there really isn't any proof he did it. Any DNA in the house can be explained away by their supposed friendship and mob guys know how to clam up, whereas a lot of murder convictions come from confessions. Also the mob kills/harms a whole bunch of civillians throughout the show.
I feel this video leaves out the most important piece as to why Christopher is the way he is… Tony Christopher throughout the show DOES show the capacity for change (unlike Tony and his BS therapy) although because of Tony’s grooming Christopher throws away every opportunity for having a character arc. Had Tony not pressured him, he likely would have gone to Hollywood. Had Tony not given him his fathers killer, Chris probably wouldn’t have been so loyal till the end. He maybe would have even gone with Adriana to the FBI. Finally, if Tony hadn’t pressured him, Chris probably would have stayed sober. At every opportunity, Tony dragged Christopher down to his level because Tony can’t stand other people doing what he can’t: change
I believe (or choose to believe) Tony was at his core a loving man who just did not have the emotional awareness to confront his traumas and control his emotions leading to his anti social tendencies.
I think it's unfair to blame Tony for everything wrong in Chris's life. Tony didn't make him kill Emil Kolar or JT, Tony didn't force Christopher to give up Adriana, he did it on his own accord. Chris chose Tony everytime not out of love or loyalty but because Tony could offer the things Christopher wanted which was excitement and glory. When Chris is watching that family come out of the store he isn't thinking about Adriana or Tony, he's thinking about how boring and normal his life would be and how he'd basically be just another face in the unwashed masses
He proves that a character doesn't need an arc in order to have depth, which is what matters at the end of the day. Most Sopranos characters are like this.
RE: Christopher’s heroin use, I do believe he was using before the trip to Italy. In the first episode of season 2 Adriana gets mad at Chris for leaving the stove on in her apartment and says something along the lines of “why can’t you cook your shit up with a lighter like a normal person?” My guess would be that the Italy trip was when Chris shot up for the first time and that he was probably “chasing the dragon” prior to that.
my fav part was that both his first and last scenes were about driving Tony and in both scenes he was wearing a baseball cap. feels like a full circle.
“Although all the actors in the series were great I think Christopher was the hardest role to play. His character changed so much over the seasons. From a young punk wanting to rise through the ranks, to turbulent relationships with other characters, to dreams of Hollywood movies, to drug addiction, to soberiety ,to losing Adriana, to having a child etc. Through his character we got to see that being in the mafia isn't all its cracked up to be. Fantastic performance by Michael Imerperioli.” -D C (a Borko commenter)
Ironically, this was my first impression when I first watched this show. I mean it still is but before it had a negative connotation. I never really connected with Christopher because he was constantly complaining about how sad his life is and I remember constantly thinking “do something about it you fuck!!” every time he cried about it. Him killing JT really left a sour taste in my mouth. It was only on rewatch that I loved his lack of arc and realized that some people really do live their lives constantly crying about how miserable it is without doing anything about it. The extra years of life experience certainly helped.
Not just some people, a lot of people live their entire lives whining about how miserable their life is, not realizing that they simply don't have sufficient resolve to do what it takes to change it.
Yes. It's also why the hollywood aspect of him is important. For him, it represented a way out of the mafia, and seeing how he constantly ended up rejecting it, or doing it in improper, pathetic ways (the whole "cleaver" stuff) was his "arc": refusing to take proper steps to get out of a situation that's morally corrupt, thus ending in tragedy. His arc is a tragic one, one where the character is killed by what he refuses to examine in proper light.
the mafia is only a plot device. The whole series supposed to portray "the fuckin regularness of life" chrissy could've been just as depressed being a low level employee in some corporate office being promoted to some bullshit middle management role that gives him no meaning in life. For some people it's hard to escape those stalemates. Chrissy had no dependents so i guess who could have risked his entire life and gone out of the mafia or of a shitty job he hates in this metaphor, but how many people go and do that in real life?
I always found it interesting, that Christopher was fully aware of the fact, that he would go to hell. He'd do it largely thanks to Tony, whom he followed, and yet he did it anyways.
Chris had no arc? His father, a Jersey Family powerful soldier was killed when Chris was a baby. Being raised by an alcoholic mother to become a captain in the Jersey Family, higher in rank and economic status than his father, who was Tony's hero and his father was in charge of the men who became the management of the Family. Chris is an underrated character by alot of fans
You know, it's true, Christopher is a stale character and call me crazy but, do all the people we meet ever change, go through an incredible life journey that made them turn 180° for either better or worse, or they just accumulate stuff through time, age, fat, wealth, accolades, but in the end they are the same rowdy kid we met in school and I think where the brilliance of the show comes.
He was born into a mob family. He became a coke addict movie producer. He then went to hell for Tony Soprano the guy that killed him. He now spends eternity in hell narrating spin off mob movies.
Hey as sad as that is you're spot on. I was about to comment, 9:13 also poor Ade, other folks may not think it's a big deal but I remember my heart breaking when Meadow, Finn and Carm saw Adriana's mom Liz @ the feast after Tony's shooting by uncle Jun, I was under the impression that Med was a girl's girl *young woman* but I was wrong- her answer to Finn when he asked who Liz LaCerva was? she referred to Adriana only as 'Chris's ex" if I remember correctly 😔
He had a set on him via insane jealousy when he snapped @ Eugene Pontecorvo, *who became a made guy right alongside Chrissy* remember he outta the blue ordered Eugene to go whack a guy @ a diner and then ends his request with a phony " I'll put in a good word to Tony about Florida" !mentiroso! lol
Christopher is the character I love and relate to the most, his death was the saddest moment in the show for me. In the first season, he's ambitious and has a image he wants and does progress with his goals, but never at a pace that would lead him anywhere and especially with his mob life, being so misguided with what he wanted in life and constantly being shown that his "friends" don't give a fuck about him. Paulie's jokes were really insults, Christopher knew they were jokes, but he was saying how happy his kid makes him, and it was thrown back in his face with a disrespectful joke in front of everyone he knows and instead of anyone saying Paulie went too far, they laugh. You can see Chris die inside after that.
I honestly think that’s kind of the point of his arc and even Tony’s. Chris will never be clean or happy just by virtue up being in the life. He ends up ruining the life of and eventually killing his own sponsor lmao and he kills him at the moment he says what we all know is true. Tony never changes, well he changes in the sense that he becomes more self aware and uses that to his advantage to be more of a monster. Chris is seen as tragic not bc he’s remotely a good person but bc he’s literally trapped and any effort to try and help himself can never reach it’s fruition.
Whenever the Sopranos points out the Seven Deadly Sins, Tony is often given Pride. For Chrissie, I would honestly say it was Sloth. He had so much stacked in his favor, and he had multiple instances to truly prove himself and rise above where he is both in the criminal world and the legitimate world. However, every chance he was given he squandered it. Ultimately, Chrissie is what happens when you are given all the potential in the world, and you squander it.
Chris has had many chances to change and be better, but like Tony they just couldn’t move past their issues and it cost them everything. Both just use people, Drugs etc as a means to distract themselves on how miserable they are.
kind of a commentary on drug use I think. being an addict keeps you spinning in circles, never realizing your true potential (completing your arc). I also love how The Sopranos had a character like this about a decade before the actual opiate epidemic started and these kinds of characters became way more mainstream. but that's just another reason among the many many others why this is the single greatest show of all time (by a considerable margin)
I notice A lot of ppl in this show had arcs but ultimately went back to their old ways which was prob the point of the show. Like Chris had his arc after he got out of rehab and started to finally get off the drugs and built a family but eventually with time he spiraled right back down into drugs. Also Kinda like how after Tony goes through his near death experience he started to view every day as a gift, like he was being more friendly, not cheating on his wife, not being so greedy, etc and u start thinking he might turn over a new leaf. But that doesn't last long and he eventually goes back to his old toxic self.
Certain type of people, no matter what achievement or reward they got, they still feel unsatisfied and kept doing things old way, like a coded machine only play its old track.
To me I always thought of Chris’ arch to be: An aspiring screenwriter gangster who looked up to their uncle tony and as the series progresses he gave up screenwriting for tony, gave up the love of his life for tony, and suffers from addiction which tony makes fun of him for. By the end of the series Chris hates tony when Chris made cleaver it’s obvious that it was a fantasy chris made about killing tony
This is a significant observation. One of those quirks written into the Soprano story line. Chris moved through mob life, gaining his stripes, but falling from grace with the bawss. Ultimately, he returns to hard drugs and alcoholism before his exit, stage left. The image of him starting off as a driver in a ballcap, then ending with him in a ballcap, driving for Tony again, is clearly a demotion. The symbolism is apparent, throughout the series. The making of eggs for a meal, the wind rustling the leaves on the trees, the use of large pools of water, all indicate imminent danger. Chris was a danger to Tony, in earlier episodes. With the threat of exposing the whole mafia organization, through his script writing. His movie turns out to be a "revenge fantasy" as Carmela points out. Then, Chris rolls the truck over an embankment, high on drugs again. The re-occurring motifs emphasizes the overall idea that in the gangster culture, you put your health at risk, hanging out with low life succumb bags.
Why do you say he started by killing for no reason? He whacked "Email" over the garbage dispute. The first time I recall gratuitous violence was when he shot the bakery counter boy because he didn't like waiting his turn in line.
Chris just doesn't change and maybe that's the point. It's far more realistic to have someone like Chris who initially was a much deeper thinker than the rest of the people around him but as life goes on any potential he had just fades away and that's it.
There IS an arc for Chrissy... actually, a loop. He started with driving Tony around while wearing a cap (in the day time), and ended while driving Tony around, WHILE wearing a cap... at night (and I really DON'T think it was the FBI-bugged cap like some say, it was just a cap to close the loop).
Sopranos is full of characters that always come back to evil. BUT all of them are given a chance! Chris with rehab, Tony B with massage, Vito with the new town and his boyfriend, Carmella with her visit to the jewish psychologist, and last but not least Tony with his coma dream. They all give in and given how clear and often hell is mentioned in the show, they will all most likely meet again there. Speaking of hell, I think hell did have an effect on Chris and even more on Tony. Chris kept dreaming about it and then the bad omen with the crow and then he says this: "My uncle Tony, the man I am going to hell for." Sopranos is not about people trying to change, it is about people who lie to each other and most important to themselves. Sopranos is about accepting who you are, even if what you are is evil.
3:18 lol neanderthal POV in earlier times lol nowadays you got a touchstone to higher vibration realm in somebody like Grimes for example, only she even could probably break it to him gently that a daughter can legally retain her Moltisanti surname if that is her wish lol 🙏
This is a great video, I love the critique and your points are direct, supported and I believe they are all valid. The film rolling behind is a great touch, and I dare say this is a well constructed video, my critique is not on your masterful work, but more so on the conclusion. I would say an “arc” is a change of character, to me it is important component of film because it shows they (a character ) are dynamic and react to stimulation. In the show, Christopher multiple times regresses, through drug use ( a continuing theme) and has many setbacks. Although in the end he dies a heroin addict , akin to where he started I believe there is still an arc. His character to me at least serves to show the futility of choice in a lot of ways. He made so much progress, but continually regressed into his former self. He had situations to escape, as you said with film, he could’ve had a wife and a legitimate career. But he didn’t and it killed him. Anyways, I disagree. Despite finishing near where he started , he had a journey with a lot of distance with respect to his maturity. I would argue he is one of the most supporting acts in television history, but to each there own. Again, great video! Rock on.
Chris would be dead early on if Tony wasn’t his family for his reckless nature in the business. It is not just cause the drugs. He uses drugs as an excuse why he is reckless. Chris is no different than Meadow and AJ. He lives a privileged business life like Meadow and is a depressed and dependent person like AJ. Tony got tired of giving Chris privileges and got tired of him being dependent on him to protect him all the time which is why he killed him.
New hats, they put the wire in the button. Unfortunately Chrissy died before it could have any real effect on him Snitching to the feds that night was just something he did.
One thing that Tony never could understand that little Carmine clearly could that the movie business is an excellent front business even if you make movies or not.
Christopher never learned how to tell genuine misfortune from the consequences of his bad personal choices. Every stretch of 'bad road' was something to be endured, something to put behind you. If he had any self-awareness, it never really showed.
I think Chris really loved Ade, he was just a part of a life that directly conflicted with romance. These are people who can’t develop real connection, but it doesn’t mean that connection doesn’t exist there to begin with.
We didn't get to see much of his new wife and baby after Adrianna was killed. If this was done deliberately, it may have been to show that Chris rushed the process because he thought that's what he wanted, but it didn't change his ways. He'd probably have been more fulfilled leaving with Adrianna and adopting some kid somewhere, or be at least less dead.
I do agree with most points in the video but I strongly disagree that he had no arc. Christopher started out as a reckless, jealous nephew that romanticized the mob life. He ended up as an empty shell of his former self because he sold his soul to Tony (the devil from his perspective), choosing him over Adrianna, a career in writing films, and everything else. His drug addiction was a physical embodiment of Tony's toxicity that was ruining him from the inside. When he told Paulie about Devil's Advocate, he was foreshadowing his own arc, and ultimately his downfall. Whenever I talk about Sopranos with friends, I tend to mention that the most fun twist for me was Chrissy's arc, and how the man that thought he didn't have an arc got the most extreme one. Guy was an interior decorator.
It's not just his mom's side. He told Tony that his father "Tony's hero" was "nothing more than a junkie" who was squirting "whatever the f*ck up his arm".
They all had arcs…..one moment they were breathing…the next…not breathing….no one changed who they were on the whole series….no one had a arc…they were all death fodder for the camera.
Chris making a move on Tony over the Adriana situation should have been the end of his arc. I understand that Tony killing him would have proved to the world that the rumors were true so it was marginally more beneficial to spare him, but Tony still had enough legitimate reason to send him "into witness protections".
You forgot the moment Christopher bought in and doomed his fate when he was guided by Tony to revenge his father's killer. When Chis realized the man handcuffed to the stairs might/ was telling the truth, Chris said "It doesn't matter"
Not every character, even protagonists, need an arc. There is a thing called a Flat Arc, which is no arc at all. A famous protag with a Flat Arc is Goku/Kakarot from Dragon Ball. His power grows, but as a character, he stays the same through the whole show, even in DB Super
![Christopher Moltisanti's Revenge Fantasy in The Sopranos [CLEAVER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QueZzpN_9Dc/mqdefault.jpg)
y'know who had an arc? noah.
I almost put that clip in right after! Thanks for watching!
Why you gotta up me like that!? Took the wind right outta my punch line, asshole 🤣🤣
It’s only a plastic arc
you mean Jamal Ginsburg, the hasidic homeboy?
@@littlekingtrashmouth9219 the resilient type of plastic tho like the kind Paulie covers his sofas with lol
David Chase said that the point of The Sopranos is that people never change. Christopher was a perfect example of that.
Ty you took the words right out of my mouth but I wasn't aware about DC interview lol
Exactly.. all of the main characters try to be better than their flaws and ultimately fail I think that’s sort of the major theme of the show (& what makes it so interesting to watch imo)
Yeah a majority of the characters have no arcs tbh.
Narcissist: “I haven’t changed, therefore people don’t change.”
@@Activated_Complex No. a person is who they are. Fundamentally people don't change, barring literal brain damage or dementia that alters personality. Claiming thats some kind of narcissistic statement is ignorant and shows you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about
To be fair, I don’t think Christopher mistook Paulie’s wisecracks for insults, I think he knew they were jokes. I think that it was a moment where he realized that none of them actually cared about him or his happiness, like when Tony S and Tony B were giving him shit for his sobriety and we see him crying in the car after. Here he was telling them how happy his kid made him, and it was all a joke to them. He realized how little he actually meant to them. We get a similar moment with Tony earlier in the series where we get a slow-mo shot from his perspective panning around the room of people laughing at him, as he realized he was in the snake pit
Poetic af🖤
Idk man those joke's were outta line regardless of the situation. Remember Johnny wanted Ralph killed for making a fat joke about his wife in front of other associates. Chris was married and that was his little girl Paulie had not right to get that personable like that. What was worse was that everyone was partaking in his said humiliation after they knew he had struggled with addiction. And only joined in because they had broken his balls time after time. This is why I feel Tony was a terrible leader there's no way Carmine would have allowed such a joke to even be uttered around him. That's exactly why the rest of the family's never viewed Jersey as nothing more then a glorified crew.
@@hilriekemp Not sure why you started that out with ‘idk man’ when I literally agree with you lol
Tony feels like a joke when he gets to go with Dr Cusamano on that golf course. When Tony tells a joke and all the guys laugh in slo mo is where Tony knows that no one respects him, they fear him. I think Carmela says it to him earlier in that episode
It's regional dialect to start a long message out with "idk man"
Christpher's arc is the cautionary tale of idolizing a life of crime, wasting your life and doing terrible things to just end up accomplishing nothing.
@Clint Hardnips I think it was more so of him missing the point of Chris not having a traditional arc. He did have an arc, but the arc was one of stagnation due to his actions for Tony.
He accomplished more than most .
@@thesnailiscoming..5736 And look how he ended up
so is mine
He was a huge pessimist, which are prone to addictions and creative endeavours. But he chose the line of work that didn't give him any satistafction, and while trying to holding on to it, spiraled out of control multiple times. It just was a bad role for him.
Chris had 4 arcs actually, and they all came together to form a circle.
Isn't more like a square
@@devinarce5439 A square has corners not arcs.
Charles Schwab ova here
Maybe more like a canopy? That let's smoke a cigarette while it's raining.
@@ajcastellon5903 With his hands in his pockets, no less.
Is it worth talking about the quality of Christopher's movie. Chris clearly has good taste, liking classic films, and in earlier seasons he showed promise to me, especially in D-girl. But I think Cleaver shows the degeneration of his character. His creativity completely stifled by resentment (the movie being a hitpiece on Tony), and instead of being an artist, he resorted to a cheap slasher thriller. It looked corny too. To me, Cleaver itself showed he had no real future and his negative qualities had poisoned his dreams.
I think the corny look can be attributed in universe to the fact he used the other mafia guy's porno movie connections to actually make the movie.
Wow great take never thought about it that way, great one now!
I think someone in another video said it best about Chrisufah's greatest fear: his greatest fear was to be average, to always be the guy behind the counter, a man of insignificance.
gosh that's right, code of LCN/Omerta/we're soldiers/ the dutiful crimes that they carry out to earn a bump up the ladder, the vocabulary of Christopher's lexicon, my god " I kill that Emil Kolar, nothing." Should of been Chrissy's 1st clue, from that very first whack imho lol I feel crazy delving into Sopranosverse sumtimes and it's gr8 LOL
Or to be the guy in front of the counter, who just can't get noticed when all he wants is some Cannoli, Shfooyadell and Napoleons.
That scene where he's looking at the poor family worried he'd wind up just like that father if he ever strayed from the path he was already going down.
@@jasonparker2552 That's the choice that fate had offered him.
He could redeem, keep his soul and start a family with a woman who genuinely loved him, but it would cost him a period of life where he wouldn't have the luxury, money and power he was used to.
Or he could hand Adriana over to the mafia to become another one of their buried corpses, keep the money and the power and stay loyal to "a man he was going to hell for".
We all see the path he chose and where it took him.
The worms hole
I always looked at Christopher’s character was always a cautionary story about the realities of the mob.., compared to the Hollywood persona. He doesn’t develop because the environment is so toxic every time he has a chance to have an arc he’s dragged back to stagnation.
Exactly, his life was never his own. Micromanaged by a sociopathic farmer, not to mention being criticized, ridiculed, hazed, threatened, beaten, shot @ by his fellow associates/soldiers/ capos...F*CK that i woulda found a solid recourse to high tail it outta La Crazy Nostra lol
Yeah, his development and arc IS that he wants to have a better life but feels trapped, and thinks he can't (or isn't worthy of one). That struggle being more and more consuming is the whole arc with him, and it's excellent.
THEY PULL ME BACK IN
"Just when I was about to get in, they PULL ME OUT!"
Christopher is first and foremost a cautionary tale against being too loyal to a wrong person.
He started out as a hot headed, immature, rising star of the family who idolised the gangster lifestyle, had dreams of being a director and looked to his uncle almost as a father figure. He ended up a drug addicted, more mature, sidetracked in the family, disillusioned with the lifestyle film director who grew so distant from his father figure that they couldn't even relate to each other anymore.
But that's not an arc. That's Christopher "doing stuff"
Actually, I would say he regressed. He shot JT for nothing in the most cold blooded way possible and never batted an eye. Chris went full psycho, even for the mob. Killing a civilian for nothing would have possibly gotten him whacked by Tony. Think about this semi-realistically. JT was a successful Hollywood screenwriter, he was known and his name was on Cleaver as well. Cleaver was financed by the mob. Law enforcement would have known all of this and when JT turned up dead I guarantee the Feds would have picked up Christopher immediately. As soon as Chris killed JT either he would have gone to jail, or been whacked by his own people. IMO Chris killing JT was really bad writing and beyond unrealistic.
@@tedwojtasik8781 Chris killed JT because he realized he said wayyy too much in front of him, the "You're in the mob" bit just made it all dawn on him. I also fail to see how what you said relates to Chris's arc or lack thereof, but in any case I do agree that the police not sniffing around even a little bit is unrealistic.
I very much doubt Chris would've gone to jail over it, because there really isn't any proof he did it. Any DNA in the house can be explained away by their supposed friendship and mob guys know how to clam up, whereas a lot of murder convictions come from confessions. Also the mob kills/harms a whole bunch of civillians throughout the show.
Remember if you're shooting a gun, punch it forward while pulling the trigger like chrisy does, thats how you become an excellent marks man.
I feel this video leaves out the most important piece as to why Christopher is the way he is…
Tony
Christopher throughout the show DOES show the capacity for change (unlike Tony and his BS therapy) although because of Tony’s grooming Christopher throws away every opportunity for having a character arc. Had Tony not pressured him, he likely would have gone to Hollywood. Had Tony not given him his fathers killer, Chris probably wouldn’t have been so loyal till the end. He maybe would have even gone with Adriana to the FBI. Finally, if Tony hadn’t pressured him, Chris probably would have stayed sober.
At every opportunity, Tony dragged Christopher down to his level because Tony can’t stand other people doing what he can’t: change
AJ too. Joining the Army would have been good for him, but Tony (and Carm) couldn't let that happen if it wasn't under their thumb.
@@taylorg1585 Tony wanted him to go tho, but put it off because aj had a panic attack
I believe (or choose to believe) Tony was at his core a loving man who just did not have the emotional awareness to confront his traumas and control his emotions leading to his anti social tendencies.
I think it's unfair to blame Tony for everything wrong in Chris's life. Tony didn't make him kill Emil Kolar or JT, Tony didn't force Christopher to give up Adriana, he did it on his own accord. Chris chose Tony everytime not out of love or loyalty but because Tony could offer the things Christopher wanted which was excitement and glory. When Chris is watching that family come out of the store he isn't thinking about Adriana or Tony, he's thinking about how boring and normal his life would be and how he'd basically be just another face in the unwashed masses
He proves that a character doesn't need an arc in order to have depth, which is what matters at the end of the day. Most Sopranos characters are like this.
RE: Christopher’s heroin use, I do believe he was using before the trip to Italy. In the first episode of season 2 Adriana gets mad at Chris for leaving the stove on in her apartment and says something along the lines of “why can’t you cook your shit up with a lighter like a normal person?”
My guess would be that the Italy trip was when Chris shot up for the first time and that he was probably “chasing the dragon” prior to that.
Ha dude I just commented the exact same shit a second ago lol I just finished and wanted to read comments and boom, here you are lol
If he cooked it he shot it too
@@FrankM0613 or he was smoking it which is known as chasing the dragon.
@@robwood1987 you never catch the dragon
@@robwood1987 you don’t light a stove to smoke Heroin?
I mean….just perfectly done. And, so true. Christopher was what he feared he would he, average.
Thank you!
You're... Average, at best.
1:55 I don't know why I find it so funny when Chris refers to him as "Email"
my fav part was that both his first and last scenes were about driving Tony and in both scenes he was wearing a baseball cap. feels like a full circle.
Great observation
“Although all the actors in the series were great I think Christopher was the hardest role to play. His character changed so much over the seasons. From a young punk wanting to rise
through the ranks, to turbulent relationships with other characters, to dreams of Hollywood movies, to drug addiction, to soberiety ,to losing Adriana, to having a child etc. Through his character we got to see that being in the mafia isn't all its cracked up to be. Fantastic performance by Michael Imerperioli.”
-D C (a Borko commenter)
Ironically, this was my first impression when I first watched this show. I mean it still is but before it had a negative connotation. I never really connected with Christopher because he was constantly complaining about how sad his life is and I remember constantly thinking “do something about it you fuck!!” every time he cried about it. Him killing JT really left a sour taste in my mouth. It was only on rewatch that I loved his lack of arc and realized that some people really do live their lives constantly crying about how miserable it is without doing anything about it. The extra years of life experience certainly helped.
Sounds like Tony as well.
Not just some people, a lot of people live their entire lives whining about how miserable their life is, not realizing that they simply don't have sufficient resolve to do what it takes to change it.
Yes. It's also why the hollywood aspect of him is important. For him, it represented a way out of the mafia, and seeing how he constantly ended up rejecting it, or doing it in improper, pathetic ways (the whole "cleaver" stuff) was his "arc": refusing to take proper steps to get out of a situation that's morally corrupt, thus ending in tragedy. His arc is a tragic one, one where the character is killed by what he refuses to examine in proper light.
the mafia is only a plot device. The whole series supposed to portray "the fuckin regularness of life" chrissy could've been just as depressed being a low level employee in some corporate office being promoted to some bullshit middle management role that gives him no meaning in life. For some people it's hard to escape those stalemates. Chrissy had no dependents so i guess who could have risked his entire life and gone out of the mafia or of a shitty job he hates in this metaphor, but how many people go and do that in real life?
Chris didn’t have an arc but he was 35% of the entire show very important character and one of my favorite
I always found it interesting, that Christopher was fully aware of the fact, that he would go to hell. He'd do it largely thanks to Tony, whom he followed, and yet he did it anyways.
This is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. The way he died and the song that was playing just made the entire scene insane
Chris had no arc? His father, a Jersey Family powerful soldier was killed when Chris was a baby. Being raised by an alcoholic mother to become a captain in the Jersey Family, higher in rank and economic status than his father, who was Tony's hero and his father was in charge of the men who became the management of the Family. Chris is an underrated character by alot of fans
“Just something he did” is a massive hand-wave. You can’t dismiss pivotal moments in someone’s life that way.
He was the Michael Scott of the mafia. He was effective at the street level but bungled things once he got promoted to a certain level.
You know, it's true, Christopher is a stale character and call me crazy but, do all the people we meet ever change, go through an incredible life journey that made them turn 180° for either better or worse, or they just accumulate stuff through time, age, fat, wealth, accolades, but in the end they are the same rowdy kid we met in school and I think where the brilliance of the show comes.
Well said
Malcolm X?
‘Christopher, you had an arc!’
‘No I diddennnnt.’
"Little Lord F*ckpants" will never get old! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 "... just a thing he did" was a spot-on bumper for each season event, well done!
He was born into a mob family.
He became a coke addict movie producer.
He then went to hell for Tony Soprano the guy that killed him.
He now spends eternity in hell narrating spin off mob movies.
He was a heroin addict not a coke head
I think his only true arc was growing to love Tony less
Hey as sad as that is you're spot on. I was about to comment, 9:13 also poor Ade, other folks may not think it's a big deal but I remember my heart breaking when Meadow, Finn and Carm saw Adriana's mom Liz @ the feast after Tony's shooting by uncle Jun, I was under the impression that Med was a girl's girl *young woman* but I was wrong- her answer to Finn when he asked who Liz LaCerva was? she referred to Adriana only as 'Chris's ex" if I remember correctly 😔
Chis-sta-Fahhh had no balls. That was his arch..... you know who had an arch? Noah
He had a set on him via insane jealousy when he snapped @ Eugene Pontecorvo, *who became a made guy right alongside Chrissy* remember he outta the blue ordered Eugene to go whack a guy @ a diner and then ends his request with a phony " I'll put in a good word to Tony about Florida" !mentiroso! lol
@@cosmicskates7721 that was just chain of command. I like Chrissy but even his stereo system had no balls.
After checking the date of this post I was surprised that this wasn’t posted on April fools day
Chris may have left no legacy, but that Brendon Filone...
He had no arc. That was the point. His life had no point, no future. Like all gangsters.
For any addict,especially junk,to stay clean long enough to make a movie I give Christopher a big pat on back.
You know quasimodo predicted all of this
Chris didn't have an arc, but he did have a bridge and tunnel
Christopher is the character I love and relate to the most, his death was the saddest moment in the show for me. In the first season, he's ambitious and has a image he wants and does progress with his goals, but never at a pace that would lead him anywhere and especially with his mob life, being so misguided with what he wanted in life and constantly being shown that his "friends" don't give a fuck about him. Paulie's jokes were really insults, Christopher knew they were jokes, but he was saying how happy his kid makes him, and it was thrown back in his face with a disrespectful joke in front of everyone he knows and instead of anyone saying Paulie went too far, they laugh. You can see Chris die inside after that.
I honestly think that’s kind of the point of his arc and even Tony’s. Chris will never be clean or happy just by virtue up being in the life. He ends up ruining the life of and eventually killing his own sponsor lmao and he kills him at the moment he says what we all know is true. Tony never changes, well he changes in the sense that he becomes more self aware and uses that to his advantage to be more of a monster. Chris is seen as tragic not bc he’s remotely a good person but bc he’s literally trapped and any effort to try and help himself can never reach it’s fruition.
Chris was honestly the best character in the show
Paulie was the best
Jimmy Smash was the best.
His character was pretty indicative of real life. Most people don’t have any real change or even desire to change
He is not supposed to nave an arc because guys like him in life have no arcs, he is a result of the choices he made in life.
As are we all.
holy shit this has got me questioning my own arc now
Tony had a negative Arc. He became more evil as the show went on.
Whenever the Sopranos points out the Seven Deadly Sins, Tony is often given Pride. For Chrissie, I would honestly say it was Sloth. He had so much stacked in his favor, and he had multiple instances to truly prove himself and rise above where he is both in the criminal world and the legitimate world. However, every chance he was given he squandered it. Ultimately, Chrissie is what happens when you are given all the potential in the world, and you squander it.
Chris has had many chances to change and be better, but like Tony they just couldn’t move past their issues and it cost them everything. Both just use people, Drugs etc as a means to distract themselves on how miserable they are.
For me it was always Chris forgoing what he was clearly more gifted in to fulfill the expectations and needs of Tony.
kind of a commentary on drug use I think. being an addict keeps you spinning in circles, never realizing your true potential (completing your arc). I also love how The Sopranos had a character like this about a decade before the actual opiate epidemic started and these kinds of characters became way more mainstream. but that's just another reason among the many many others why this is the single greatest show of all time (by a considerable margin)
“Everyday I’m suffering”
-Christopher Moltisanti
If Tony wasn’t the main character, the next one would be Chrissy
I notice A lot of ppl in this show had arcs but ultimately went back to their old ways which was prob the point of the show. Like Chris had his arc after he got out of rehab and started to finally get off the drugs and built a family but eventually with time he spiraled right back down into drugs. Also Kinda like how after Tony goes through his near death experience he started to view every day as a gift, like he was being more friendly, not cheating on his wife, not being so greedy, etc and u start thinking he might turn over a new leaf. But that doesn't last long and he eventually goes back to his old toxic self.
Certain type of people, no matter what achievement or reward they got, they still feel unsatisfied and kept doing things old way, like a coded machine only play its old track.
Chris really never changes…It’s so obvious now that I see it
“I wipe my ass with your feelings” -Tony
He didn't "mistake Paulie Walnuts' wisecracks for insults"
They were insults
Christopher did in fact mess with the vipers
To me I always thought of Chris’ arch to be: An aspiring screenwriter gangster who looked up to their uncle tony and as the series progresses he gave up screenwriting for tony, gave up the love of his life for tony, and suffers from addiction which tony makes fun of him for. By the end of the series Chris hates tony when Chris made cleaver it’s obvious that it was a fantasy chris made about killing tony
Still loving the channel. Not crazy about the new name. Sopranos Street was more cool
Yeah, what does bully whispers even mean?
That kind of makes sense that he had no arc. God gave him a million chances to change course and he ignored everything
Enjoyed this very much!
That's crazy that she was listed as hostess
Adriana and Hostess are canonically different characters; both are played by the same actress though.
This is a significant observation. One of those quirks written into the Soprano story line.
Chris moved through mob life, gaining his stripes, but falling from grace with the bawss. Ultimately, he returns to hard drugs and alcoholism before his exit, stage left. The image of him starting off as a driver in a ballcap, then ending with him in a ballcap, driving for Tony again, is clearly a demotion. The symbolism is apparent, throughout the series. The making of eggs for a meal, the wind rustling the leaves on the trees, the use of large pools of water, all indicate imminent danger.
Chris was a danger to Tony, in earlier episodes. With the threat of exposing the whole mafia organization, through his script writing. His movie turns out to be a "revenge fantasy" as Carmela points out. Then, Chris rolls the truck over an embankment, high on drugs again. The re-occurring motifs emphasizes the overall idea that in the gangster culture, you put your health at risk, hanging out with low life succumb bags.
So, he was just a normal person.
Christopher was more of a literary device used for Tony's character than a character with any real agency of his own.
Why do you say he started by killing for no reason? He whacked "Email" over the garbage dispute. The first time I recall gratuitous violence was when he shot the bakery counter boy because he didn't like waiting his turn in line.
I related to Chris so hard on wondering where my arc is. But he lost me when he abused Adriana and authorized her murder
he did have a kind of arc, he got worse. He started out as a repellent dirtabag, and he died a worst, more repellent dirtbag.
Chris just doesn't change and maybe that's the point. It's far more realistic to have someone like Chris who initially was a much deeper thinker than the rest of the people around him but as life goes on any potential he had just fades away and that's it.
This is hitting me pretty hard dude
There IS an arc for Chrissy... actually, a loop. He started with driving Tony around while wearing a cap (in the day time), and ended while driving Tony around, WHILE wearing a cap... at night (and I really DON'T think it was the FBI-bugged cap like some say, it was just a cap to close the loop).
From what I’ve seen so far, Chris more so experiences a sine wave. 0 at first, then goes on all these ups and downs until it’s nothing forever.
Sopranos is full of characters that always come back to evil. BUT all of them are given a chance! Chris with rehab, Tony B with massage, Vito with the new town and his boyfriend, Carmella with her visit to the jewish psychologist, and last but not least Tony with his coma dream. They all give in and given how clear and often hell is mentioned in the show, they will all most likely meet again there.
Speaking of hell, I think hell did have an effect on Chris and even more on Tony. Chris kept dreaming about it and then the bad omen with the crow and then he says this: "My uncle Tony, the man I am going to hell for."
Sopranos is not about people trying to change, it is about people who lie to each other and most important to themselves. Sopranos is about accepting who you are, even if what you are is evil.
3:18 lol neanderthal POV in earlier times lol nowadays you got a touchstone to higher vibration realm in somebody like Grimes for example, only she even could probably break it to him gently that a daughter can legally retain her Moltisanti surname if that is her wish lol 🙏
I feel like most of the characters were basically in the same place where they started out
Long story short, he did-DENT
It seemed like he was going to get his life together the episode he got shot
Who needs an arc when you could have gabagool and grilled cheese off the radiatur?😂😂😂
0:41 that punch always looked real and brutal to me
This is a great video, I love the critique and your points are direct, supported and I believe they are all valid.
The film rolling behind is a great touch, and I dare say this is a well constructed video, my critique is not on your masterful work, but more so on the conclusion.
I would say an “arc” is a change of character, to me it is important component of film because it shows they (a character ) are dynamic and react to stimulation.
In the show, Christopher multiple times regresses, through drug use ( a continuing theme) and has many setbacks. Although in the end he dies a heroin addict , akin to where he started I believe there is still an arc.
His character to me at least serves to show the futility of choice in a lot of ways. He made so much progress, but continually regressed into his former self. He had situations to escape, as you said with film, he could’ve had a wife and a legitimate career. But he didn’t and it killed him.
Anyways, I disagree. Despite finishing near where he started , he had a journey with a lot of distance with respect to his maturity. I would argue he is one of the most supporting acts in television history, but to each there own.
Again, great video! Rock on.
Chris would be dead early on if Tony wasn’t his family for his reckless nature in the business. It is not just cause the drugs. He uses drugs as an excuse why he is reckless. Chris is no different than Meadow and AJ. He lives a privileged business life like Meadow and is a depressed and dependent person like AJ.
Tony got tired of giving Chris privileges and got tired of him being dependent on him to protect him all the time which is why he killed him.
New hats, they put the wire in the button. Unfortunately Chrissy died before it could have any real effect on him Snitching to the feds that night was just something he did.
One thing that Tony never could understand that little Carmine clearly could that the movie business is an excellent front business even if you make movies or not.
Its like what quazimodo said...
Christopher never learned how to tell genuine misfortune from the consequences of his bad personal choices.
Every stretch of 'bad road' was something to be endured, something to put behind you.
If he had any self-awareness, it never really showed.
I think Chris really loved Ade, he was just a part of a life that directly conflicted with romance. These are people who can’t develop real connection, but it doesn’t mean that connection doesn’t exist there to begin with.
We didn't get to see much of his new wife and baby after Adrianna was killed. If this was done deliberately, it may have been to show that Chris rushed the process because he thought that's what he wanted, but it didn't change his ways. He'd probably have been more fulfilled leaving with Adrianna and adopting some kid somewhere, or be at least less dead.
I do agree with most points in the video but I strongly disagree that he had no arc. Christopher started out as a reckless, jealous nephew that romanticized the mob life. He ended up as an empty shell of his former self because he sold his soul to Tony (the devil from his perspective), choosing him over Adrianna, a career in writing films, and everything else. His drug addiction was a physical embodiment of Tony's toxicity that was ruining him from the inside.
When he told Paulie about Devil's Advocate, he was foreshadowing his own arc, and ultimately his downfall. Whenever I talk about Sopranos with friends, I tend to mention that the most fun twist for me was Chrissy's arc, and how the man that thought he didn't have an arc got the most extreme one. Guy was an interior decorator.
He did see the movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis. You forgot to mention that.
I really thought Chris would have a heroes journey written into the story - he has the potential the way he was written
It's not just his mom's side. He told Tony that his father "Tony's hero" was "nothing more than a junkie" who was squirting "whatever the f*ck up his arm".
That introduction to chris was brutal😂😂😂
Thank you
did ANY of the characters in sopranos have an arc? Most of them just beat/killed their friends and family and then died.
junior, AJ, Adriana's mom and doctor Melfie
Bobby
started out as a driver, ended the show as a driver.
They all had arcs…..one moment they were breathing…the next…not breathing….no one changed who they were on the whole series….no one had a arc…they were all death fodder for the camera.
Really great content
I feel like Christopher's arc is all of our arcs we are not the hero we're just footnotes in other peoples stories.
Only thing that changed about chris is that he became more and more depressed
Chris was terribly insecure, because deep down he knew that he would be unsuccessful in any type of life,other than crime.
Chris making a move on Tony over the Adriana situation should have been the end of his arc. I understand that Tony killing him would have proved to the world that the rumors were true so it was marginally more beneficial to spare him, but Tony still had enough legitimate reason to send him "into witness protections".
You forgot the moment Christopher bought in and doomed his fate when he was guided by Tony to revenge his father's killer. When Chis realized the man handcuffed to the stairs might/ was telling the truth, Chris said "It doesn't matter"
Not every character, even protagonists, need an arc. There is a thing called a Flat Arc, which is no arc at all. A famous protag with a Flat Arc is Goku/Kakarot from Dragon Ball. His power grows, but as a character, he stays the same through the whole show, even in DB Super