A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is a 2006 American film starring Robert Downey, Jr., Channing Tatum, Rosario Dawson and Shia LaBeouf. It is based on a 2001 memoir of the same name by author and musician Dito Montiel, which describes his youth in Astoria, New York during the 1980s.
Montiel also wrote and directed the film adaptation, which was released in the United States in 2006, in the UK and Europe on 21 March 2007 and in Italy on 9 March 2007.[1] The DVD version of the film was released on 20 February 2007 in the United States.[2]
The film is partly set in the present, but mainly in flashbacks in the 1980s. The latter parts are filmed with shaky camera with short shots.
Plot
Dito (Robert Downey Jr.) is a successful writer in Los Angeles. One day, after being urged by his mother and his friend Nerf, Dito visits his childhood home, Astoria, New York because his father has suddenly become very ill. The film switches back and forth between the present and flashbacks with Dito's memories in the summer of 1986.
Dito meets Nerf (Peter Anthony Tambakis), and talks with him in a parked car, where they can talk undisturbed, which would not have been possible at Nerf's house.
Dito then visits Laurie (Rosario Dawson), his childhood sweetheart, who is now a mother. They only talk through the open window; she does not let him in.
Dito finally visits his parents. His father used to ignore Dito's feelings, and he didn't want Dito to travel. He is angry at Dito for leaving, and for not returning sooner to visit; he then sends Dito away. Dito does leave but returns later, to insist that he take his father to the hospital.
Dito remembers Giuseppe (Adam Scarimbolo), reckless, destructive, and possibly insane: In the 1980s Giuseppe lay on a subway track; in spite of urgent warnings from his brother Antonio (Channing Tatum) and from Nerf that a train was coming, he failed to get back on the platform and was killed.
Then there was Mike O'Shea (Martin Compston), a Scottish boy who dreamed of becoming a musician. Mike and Dito had planned to go to California on a bus. They worked for a gay man with a business walking dogs. They went to his house to collect the wages he was slow in paying. First he did not listen to them, but then he gave them all the money he kept in the refrigerator, more than he owed them and told them to leave town. However, Mike was murdered by a gang of Puerto Ricans, after which Dito travelled alone to California.
Antonio, a confident, volatile boy with an abusive father, is still serving a life sentence for killing a Puerto Rican as payback for an attack on Dito. Dito visits him in prison and sees Antonio (now played by Eric Roberts) as a changed man of wisdom. The film concludes with the two of them about to sit down for a conversation.
One interpretation of the title is that Dito begins to believe that he has been saved from his friends' fate by his saints. Alternatively, he comes to realize that his saints were his friends and family – Antonio, Laurie, Mike, his mother, and even his estranged father. In either case, the film, according to New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott, though "wrenching, at times devastating, leaves you with that buoyant feeling of having encountered a raw, authentic work of art. "[3].
Cast
Anachronisms
Much of the film was set in the 1980s. However, it was filmed in 2005 (13 June through 1 August).
- A phone booth seen in the background appears to be a Verizon phonebooth. Verizon did not exist until 2000, so the owner of the phonebooth in 1986 would be NYNEX.
- The movie shows R68s in service. The first ones went into service in June 1986.
- The Astoria Line elevated track structure would have been painted beige in 1985. It was green in the movie, as a result of a mid-2000s paint job.
- Whiteboards were added to token booths in the late 1990s.
- Although the R train running through Astoria was accurate in the 1980s, there were a number of anachronisms with regard to the subway rolling stock seen. The R40 cars seen in the film in 1986 would have been in decrepit shape, covered with graffiti and lacking air conditioning. In addition, the flags seen on the cars were not applied until 2001, after the 9/11 attacks. Although one car has the accurate "two-tone M" logo of the New York City Subway, the "MTA New York City Subway" markings would not be applied until the mid-1990s. Finally, the R40 interiors are noticeably graffiti-free. In 1986, most R40 car interiors were covered from floor to ceiling in graffiti. However, the camera inside the cars focuses on the window scratchitti instead.
- Most elevated subway stations in 1986 would have been covered in graffiti. Although clean-up efforts had begun, the subway cars and stations seen in the film would not be cleaned up until around 1988 and 1989.
- The person who Giuseppe is based on is still alive and living in Italy. Giuseppe's story was altered to mix it with a story of a boy they knew named Billy who died in a similar matter. In real life Giuseppe was deported to Italy after being arrested too many times.
- The pedestrian crosswalk lights are language neutral pictograms which were installed in the early 2000s, the version in 1985 would consist of nothing but the words "DONT WALK/WALK"[4].
- In 1985 most buildings would have had TV antennas; in the movie few if any do. Many have cellular antennas. Cable TV didn't exist yet for Astoria and rest of Western Queens. The first customers in Western Queens were hooked up in November 1986.[5] The cellular phone network in NYC was only turned on in July 1984, with only eight towers in all of the city, making it impossible for any of the cellular antenns/towers shown in the movie to be there in 1985[6].
Awards
List of wins and nominations
Sundance Film Festival
| Year |
Group |
Award |
Won? |
Notes |
| 2006 |
Director's Award |
Dramatic, for Dito Montiel |
Yes |
|
| Special Jury Prize |
Dramatic, for the ensemble cast |
Yes |
Shared between Robert Downey Jr., Shia LaBeouf, Rosario Dawson, Chazz Palminteri, Dianne Wiest and Channing Tatum |
| Grand Jury Prize |
Dramatic, for Dito Montiel |
No |
|
| Year |
Group |
Award |
Won? |
Notes |
| 2006 |
Best Actor |
Dramatic, for Adam Scarimbolo |
Yes |
Independent Spirit Awards
- ^ "ChanningTatumUnwrapped.com". A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints European Movie Premiere. http://channingtatumunwrapped.blogspot.com/2007/01/news-flash-guide-to-recognizing-your.html. Retrieved January 18, 2007.
- ^ "ChanningTatumUnwrapped.com". A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints DVD Release. http://channingtatumunwrapped.blogspot.com/2007/01/guide-to-recognizing-your-saints-dvd.html. Retrieved January 18, 2007.
- ^ Times review of this film
- ^ http://www.forgotten-ny.com/SIGNS/dontwalk/lastdont.html
- ^ 'This was a year of firsts in Queens. For many of the borough’s residents, 1988 was the first year they were able to hook up to cable television. Curbside recycling was also introduced in a few Queens neighborhoods. Although American Cablevision, with mostly underground cables, was introduced in Western Queens as early as November, 1986, and Brooklyn Queens Cable first came to Northeastern Queens in December 1985, the process of getting the service to everyone who wanted it was slow. Those living in Southern Queens did not even have the option of signing on until mid-1988.'"Queens Chronicle 30th Anniversary Edition: 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990". Queens Chronicle (Mark I Publications). 2008-11-13. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20197356&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=614627&rfi=6. Retrieved 31 December 2008.
- ^ BARNES, PETER W. (June 18, 1984). "MOBILE PHONE USERS JOIN THE CELLULAR GENERATION" (LexisNexis). New York Times: pp. Section D; Page 1, Column 1; Financial Desk. "Eight such expanded-capacity antennas are now pulsing radio beams through portions of the New York metropolitan area. These eight cells are part of a $25 million, 20-cell system covering 3,000 square miles in and around New York City that Nynex Mobile intends to make fully operational within six weeks. The company is a unit of the Nynex Corporation, parent of the New York Telephone Company. For years, mobile phone service has been restricted in the New York area to an estimated 2,000 business executives, politicians, celebrities and other privileged few like Mr. Paul. But late Friday, the Nynex Mobile Communications Company switched on a new, expanded mobile telephone network that will accommodate up to 100,000 customers."
External links
