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Maybe A Bronx Tale
is a bit like West Side Story. Both films are set in areas of
New York where different people struggled to define their own neighborhood
by creating 'us versus them' attitudes. An again, both films depict
young people caught up in their own emotions and the conflicts Their
communities have created.
The movie is set in the 1960s'
and is written by Bronx native Chazz Palminteri who also stars as the
gangster Sonny. Palminteri attended college in the Bronx in the 1970s'
where he wrote the play that the movie is based on.
The 1960s' were not only
a time of change for the country, but were for the city too. The construction
of highways and housing projects during the 1950s' changed the landscape
of many neighborhoods, particularly in the Bronx. However, Little Italy
in the Bronx, however small that neighborhood is today, remains almost
stuck in time as the areas surrounding it changed. In part, this is
the back drop for A Bronx Tale. Not only is the Bronx changing,
but so is Calogero, a boy who grows to be a teenager who matures quickly.
A gangster named Sonny lives
in Calogero's Bronx neighborhood. A shooting witnessed by Calogero is
the starting point of a lasting bond between the gangster and the small
boy. Father (bus driver Lorenzo), however, disapproves. Calogero grows
up under the wings of both men, torn between his own natural honesty
and his fascination with Sonny. C's neighborhood cronies get involved
in theft, use of guns, racial fights. When C meets girl, things don't
become easier. C's leap to manhood is marked by tragedy, but also by
his recognition of the many faces of love
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