Big Night, directed by Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott, is a movie about two Italian immigrant brothers and their restaurant “Paradise.” Primo, the older brother, is a first-rate chef, but only cooks food that he considers perfect. His unwillingness to make dishes that appeals to more customers like steak and spaghetti makes it hard for his brother to keep the restaurant afloat. Secondo, the younger, wants to be successful and accepts that Primo’s philosophy will drive their business under. In the beginning of the movie, we learn that if they don’t make a payment to the bank within a month, their restaurant will be foreclosed. Secondo goes to Pascal, a local competitor, for a loan, instead, Pascal offers to call Louis Prima to dine at Paradise. …show more content…
He tells Secondo that this would attract more business and save his restaurant. Big Night is setup like a classic feel-good redemption movie, but instead tells a story about the reality of uncompromising morals, capitalist America, and brotherhood. The success of their restaurant reflects the harsh reality of an unbending artistic passion vs. capitalist America. Paradise fails to attract business, despite serving supreme food. Customers prefer known dishes like spaghetti and meatballs to risotto. This strains the relationship between the two brothers. Secondo has aspirations of being a successful businessman in the land of opportunity, but Primo would rather die than sacrifice the integrity of his work. Primo refuses to mark risotto off the menu and serve anything less than perfect. Secondo would rather run a successful restaurant like Pascal’s, a local Italian competitor, but Primo says their lousy food is “the rape of cuisine.” Their relationship shows the conflict between what it takes to make great food, and what it takes to run a successful restaurant. Primo makes the best food anyone has ever had. His food drives a woman to tears saying, “My mother was such a terrible cook.” However, this alone will not keep the restaurant afloat. His unwillingness to change shows that he either has lost touch with reality or refuses to accept it. He argues that he doesn’t need to change and tells his brother, “Give people time, they will learn” but two years have passed with no progress. His philosophy doesn’t make sense to Americans. We can’t see how serving hotdogs is really a sin. His passion is admirable but hardly practical. Big Night tells us that when given the chance to eat at Paradise, we choose to eat at Pascal’s. Ambition for success brings out the worst in people, which is encouraged in America. The brothers want to run their own restaurant and Secondo is wiling to betray his loved ones in order to make it happen. He has a girlfriend, but sleeps with someone’s wife to get good deals on booze. He lies to his brother about how he got Louis Prima to come to their restaurant, so that Primo wouldn’t protest. The brothers argue and Primo shouts, “This place is eating us alive!” Morality isn’t necessary for businesses to succeed. Pascal lied to Secondo about Louis Prima. He never called Louis and did so intentionally, because he knew Paradise would fail and the brothers would have to work for him or go back to Italy. He wanted to have Primo’s talent for his restaurant and didn’t care if he had to sabotage their business to make it happen. Pascal always came across as a stereotypically loud and friendly Italian friend, but shows his true colors to Secondo in the end. He eerily mutters, “I’m a businessman. I’m anything I need to be at anytime.” We see how far Pascal is willing to go and what kind of character it takes to make a successful restaurant. However, Primo notes that there is a restaurant in Bologna that makes incredible food. He also praises his Italian uncle’s cooking. The greediness, deception, and backstabbing that occurs in America is not in Italy, or at least a few places in Italy, according to Primo. They appreciate real cuisine and the quality of their food the most important aspect of a restaurant. Big Night shows how capitalism has driven Secondo to greed and how this sullied the relationship between two brothers. The movie revolves around the relationship between the two brothers.
Their relationship is complicated and this is even shown in their names. Primo is the first brother, the one with a rare and special gift for cooking. Secondo has lived in his great shadow and resents him, especially for making business so difficult. They argue constantly and Secondo complains about Primo all the time. They don’t agree on how the restaurant should be run. Secondo complains that his brother is cheap and his stubbornness is costing them their business. He feels that he does all the work to make the restaurant a successful enterprise, and Primo gives him nothing in return. Despite constant arguing and complaining between the two, they love each other deeply. Secondo encourages Primo to ask out a girl he likes and when Primo gets too nervous, he asks the girl to show up to the restaurant for him. When Primo is offered a job from his uncle, he said he would only go if Secondo could work there too. When Secondo is offered a job by Pascal, it is clear that he and his brother come as a package deal. Brotherhood is what grounds these characters and prevents them from losing themselves. After all the dramatic events, lying, and fighting, the final scene depicts the two brothers eating an omelet with their arms across each other’s shoulders. The brothers experience life together and even if they are different, they will always have that bond. Even greed and betrayal fails to break their …show more content…
bond. Big Night is more than just a feel-good immigrant story.
It’s a story about how art may transcendent and Godly, but unrealistic and impractical. Restaurants don’t succeed on good food alone; it ultimately depends on paying customers. The ambition to create a successful business can drive someone to forego morality and only fixate on the bottom line. America creates a system where lying and deceiving can be prosperous. Big Night is unique and worth watching, but its themes on American cuisine and business is pretentious. Claiming that one culture’s food is outright better than another’s is baseless. It is not a crime to serve hotdogs if that’s what people want to eat. Claiming that America’s capitalist economy promotes greed is a boring and overused theme that fails to see the big picture. Big Night does offer an interesting perspective on a genius that glorifies eating good food as, “being close to God.” Does eating good Lasagna really bring us closer to truth or is Primo just out of touch with reality? How much truth can starch really
convey?
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York: Perennial, 2002.
The feeling of obligation that Pete and Sonny’s brother feel, results from their education. In both stories, the parents pass away and it puts the strongest brothers in front of their obligations as ...
The two characters come to the realization that they do share a brotherly bond, and that the narrator cares deeply for his brother even after all the time apart. The narrator says, “I don’t give a damn wh...
The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, a work examining the country’s fast food industry (Gale). Schlosser sets off chapter 5: “Why the Fries Taste Good,” in Aberdeen,
The section in the novel night that painted a dark and angry picture of human nature is when the Jews were fleeing Buna and hundreds of them were packed in a roofless cattle car. The Jews were only provided with a blanket that soon became soaked by the snowfall. They spent days in the bitter cold temperatures and all they ate was snow. For these reasons, many suffered and died. When they stopped in German towns, the people stared at that cattle cars filled with soulless bodies. “They would stop and look at [the Jews] without surprise.” It was a regular occasion for the German people to see suffering Jews and not feel pity. The dark and angry picture of human nature was when a German worker “took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it
... Nestle’s quote, Bittman makes his editorial plea to ethos, by proposing proof that a woman of reliable mental power of this issue come to an agreement with Bittman's thesis statement. Bittman also develops pathos in this article because he grabs a widely held matter that to many individuals is elaborate with: "...giving them the gift of appreciating the pleasures of nourishing one another and enjoying that nourishment together.” (Mark Bittman) Bittman gives the reader the actions to think about the last time they had a family dinner and further imposes how these family dinners are altogether important for family time. Therefore, Bittman did a magnificent job in pointing into the morals of his targeted audience and developing a critical point of view about fast food to his intended audience leaving them with a thought on less fast food and more home prepared meals.
To fully understand Fast Food Nation, the reader must recognize the audience the novel is directed towards, and also the purpose of it. Eric Schlosser’s intention in writing this piece of literature was to inform America of how large the fast food industry truly is, larger than most people can fathom. Schlosser explains that he has “written this book out of a belief that people should know what lies behind the s...
Imagine if you were an object. That you were an item that could be possessed and you had absolutely no say in what happen to you. People could use you and throw you out whenever it was convenient for them to do so. Elie Wiesel is someone that can describe to you first hand exactly what this feels like. He is a survivor of one of the darkest times in human history, the Holocaust. He made the decision to turn the pain and suffering he endured into something meaningful by writing the book Night. In this essay I will explain the ways dehumanization occurs throughout the novel.
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, as in the holocaust, evil trumps all good. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of evil is “morally bad or wrong.” The entire book consists of events that are morally bad or wrong, so much so that it hides the little bit of good that can be found. Most of the evil comes from the Nazis, who treat the Jews inhumanely. No one should be treated the way they were treated, which is practically the definition of evil.
Tone: The author’s tone in Fast Food Nation is very informative with also an entertainment side. Throughout the book, Eric Schlosser is always giving facts about different things, but along with the facts comes excitement and entertainment. Eric Schlosser uses this strategy to keep the audience in check. In other words, to keep the person who is reading the book interested. Many authors use this kind of tone to their story because if they don’t, then people would stop reading their work, but instead, the reader wants to get to the interesting facts and keep on
Usually, every story has a powerful ending that will keep the reader wondering, most likely in a good way, leaving the reader satisfied with the ending. Night does not follow the pattern. Elie didn’t want to end a sad story in a happy way, he wanted to end it the way it actually happened. It ends with the metaphor that will send a shiver down the readers spine. The story ends, “One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look on his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.” By ending the story this way, the reader finally realizes the horrible consequences of the Holocaust and the effects it had on Jewish people. Through neglect, malnutrition, and beatings, people had lost the feeling of life and turned into walking corpses, separated from their former selves. Many people weren’t even recognizable after the Holocaust, even by their own family.
In the midst of hardship, acting selflessly and sacrificing yourself for the sake of others is what will be remembered in the end. Giving up your own comfort, security, or pleasure can change someone else’s life. In “NightJohn” by Gary Paulsen, John sacrifices himself in numerous ways knowing that it is benefiting others.
“Don’t Blame the Eater” is an article by David Zinczenko that explains to Americans, specifically overweight young Americans, about the risks eating at fast food restaurants and its cause of affecting one’s health. In his article, he tries to address the issue about America’s food industries by using literal devices such as tone, logos, ethos, diction, and organization in order to spread his message. He begins his article by addressing the topic and as he continues writing, he supports his topic by writing about personal experience and moves onto the reasons why his topic in a serious issue. Although he shows an overall clear progress, he does tend to have a few problems with his writing that could be improved.
In the short story, The Last Night of the World by Ray Bradbury, a man who has a dream about the world coming to an end. As the man proceeds with discussing the dream with his wife, they are both surprised at their own actions and reactions to accepting the reality of discovering the world is coming to an end that night resulting in their own immediate deaths. Remarkably he discovers that everyone has had the same dream and the dream has accepted the real event. In the remaining hours of being alive, the man and his wife do discuss the reasons why life might be ending, what they had done to deserve this fate, how they feel about the end and what do they want to do on their last night alive. As every second, minute, and hour passes on the clock,
Anthony Bourdain's Food Market Takes Shape is a story about a man who is not only a chef, writer, entertainer, and television star, but also an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur who wants to change New York City. The story revolves around Mr. Bourdain’s dream of building a major food market. Three of key characteristics of report writing I noticed in this essay were trustworthy information, appropriate organization and design, and a confident, informative tone.