A Toronto-based ‘auteur’ whose subject is usually himself
Frank D’Angelo’s films, including latest The Neighborhood, offer a rare window into his psyche
When cineastes discuss “auteurs,” names such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino are inevitable. But how about Frank D’Angelo?
The Toronto food and beverage mogul turned filmmaker has written, directed, produced and starred in six features since 2013. Vanity Fair described him, in a piece about his 2015 gangster-horror movie Sicilian Vampire, as “a more-than-usually egregious” indie filmmaker whose cine- ma represents “a world in which continuity errors, plot inconsistencies and baffling incompetence reign supreme.”
Having seen all of D’Angelo’s movies, including The Neighborhood — now playing in a handful of theatres in the GTA — I can easily label him an auteur because the term isn’t about quality, but rather personality and consistency. Dictionary.com defines “auteur” as “a filmmaker whose personal influence and artistic control over a movie are so great that the filmmaker is regarded as the author of the movie.”
Hitchcock was into blonds and voyeurism, and Tarantino fetishizes women’s feet and retro-pop culture.
D’Angelo obsesses over, well . . . Frank D’Angelo. His filmography fascinates because it’s a window into his psyche — one made of Sopranos- coloured glass.
Sure, he played a tender homeless man in The Big Fat Stone, an outrageously benevolent businessman in No Deposit and a standard-issue copon-the-edge in The Red Maple Leaf, but D’Angelo’s most at home as a wise guy ( Real Gangsters, Sicilian Vampire), holding court at a restaurant table, cracking jokes, making threats and belittling those around him à la Tony Soprano.
Unlike James Gandolfini’s signature character, though, the 58-yearold plays saints whose biggest flaw is enduring disappointment when those around them fall short of their moral code.
Whichever side of the law these oddly coiffed heroes are on, they’re tough, respected, wise and irresistible to younger women — to a credibility-destroying degree.
In The Neighborhood, he’s a gang leader who informs his friend’s mother that the man is dead; she responds, “You were always too good for my son.”
It’s a typically jarring line in an awkward scene from an artist who shoots features in under a week with few, if any, second takes, plenty of stiff improvisation and loads of name actors chewing bland scenery. The scratch to attract stars sets D’Angelo apart from other vanity project helmers such as Tommy Wiseau ( The Room) and Neil Breen ( Fateful Findings), and the results are arguably more surreal.
In The Neighborhood, for example, D’Angelo regulars Margot Kidder and Art Hindle are shoehorned into the story via brief but utterly pointless scenes, while Daniel Baldwin’s character simply disappears for part of the movie, forcing Burt Young — who plays basically a restaurant greeter — to take his place in the climax.
Newcomers to the D’Angelo repertoire include Franco Nero ( Django Unchained), who appears no younger in a 30-year flashback, and Giancarlo Giannini ( Casino Royale), whose godfather character comically mouth-wrestles a gigantic plate of spaghetti.
Aside from a few ambitious drone shots and a stylish monotone sequence, it’s an expected entry in a majestically egocentric body of work.
That’s just the way we D’Angelovers prefer it.