THOMAS A. FUCCI

Thomas Fucci’s career in entertainment began at the age of thirteen. Armed with phony ID, he sang lead vocals for a rock band in a number of clubs around New York City.

When he wasn’t up front with the band, he could be found somewhere in a back dressing room doing homework so his parents, believing he was at a friend’s house studying, wouldn’t get wind of where he was.

It went like this through high school -- till he entered university where he majored in Film.

Upon graduation, Thomas worked in New York editing a number of features and television shows before moving to Los Angeles where he started writing and producing as a next step to directing.

His first film as a producer: "Purple Haze", won the Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, before being released by Columbia/Triumph.

His second film as a producer, "Nightsongs", was a participant of Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute Lab before airing on the PBS American Playhouse series and on to a limited theatrical release.

A meeting with Whoopi Goldberg led to his directing the opening to Whoopi’s HBO Special: "Fontaine Why Am I Straight". The special was nominated for a Cable Ace award.

From there he directed his first film, "The Comforts Of Home", by Flannery O’Connor, quickly followed by, "Don’t Call Me Frankie".

"Don’t Call Me Frankie" premiered as an official selection of the Semaine de la Critique (Critic's Week) section in the Cannes Film Festival, where it played to enthusiastic audiences from around the world.

Since Cannes, Thomas has been writing for himself and others while preparing "Love and Deception", "Kashmir" and "A Fox in The City". He’s recently returned from a long stint in and around India where he was a Visual Consultant on "Gills", for Checci Gori, Rome.

Thomas earned his degree in film from City University of New York.

"DON’T CALL ME FRANKIE"

Just as one begins to despair of the American cinema’s ever more rapid descent into emotional, intellectual, and creative senility, along comes Thomas Fucci with a fresh eye (and ear), an insouciant thumbing of his nose at what’s expected in tone and style, and a sense of the humorously absurd, which almost hides his sensitivity to pain.

He obviously knows his film noir, but instead of trying to prop up something from the past, he lets rip at it so that we get a double pleasure: watching the vital organs of an old favorite tumbling from its split belly and seeing them reformed into something new. All the elements are there. We start with a dark, wet night where the only light is a cheap neon sign from a sleazy hotel (seen at an oblique angle, of course). In the hotel: a desperate man about to put a revolver to use on himself; an old, demented couple obsessed with and literally endangered by newspapers; a clerk who doesn’t care who does what with whom as long as you take the body out with you.

Fucci takes these stereotypes (with the help of a universally perfect cast) and skillfully makes us care about understanding each of them as he slowly allows them to reveal their humanity and the ridiculousness of their situations, their assumption, and even of their despair. Fucci has an elegance of style so that while the eye records and admires the composition and the lighting, one is never yanked out of the ever more binding emotions of his tale by the empty glitz of a "look at me, Ma. I’m directing" that seems to possess more and more directors.

Then there is Fucci’s ear. The sound track is sophisticated, subtle and always surprising. Music from country Cline to classic Callas—is as important as the images. Fucci uses it as emotional counterpoint, as a way of connecting states of mind in his characters, and as a means of emotional reversal. There is a wonderfully comic scene in which an old lady, after an earthquake, is in real danger of being smothered under what looks like a ton of old newspapers. So her rescuer can locate her, she croaks out "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" - making the comedy turn to warm humor in a delicious continuation of the song in another tone.

As his main character says "It’s all connected if you listen close." All of that pain turned upside down might in less intelligent hands turn to optimistic mush. Here Fucci (in an audacious refusal to cut or move his camera); lets us have it both ways—and then lets it stay that way with a necessary ambiguity. This is an American film you don’t have to be ashamed of liking. This is a new American director who promises to keep our eyes and ears fresh.

David Overby

"DON’T CALL ME FRANKIE"

This distinctive feature stands out on the festival line-up as a stubbornly independent sketch of an unsuccessful suicide. Dodging cliches- even when depicting a hooker in a hotel with a neon sign-director Thomas Fucci betrays a beautiful contrariness.

Peter Van Norden underplays his role as an unattractive man, Frank, who wants to shoot himself in the head, accompanied only by an eclectic choice of music on his tape player. He checks into a shabby hotel room where thin walls and earthquakes bring neighboring strangers into his life, made miserable when his ex-wife sells off his collection of 11,415 records.

Django Reinhardt, Maria Callas, Tom Waits, Eydie Gorme and Leonard Cohen serenade this accidental pilgrim, as Frank-he repeatedly asks "Please don’t call me Frankie" - hits the road…Fucci ends with a uniquely articulate use of naturalistic scenes rendered in real time.

Bill Stamets

"DON’T CALL ME FRANKIE"

A pleasing little film by Thomas Fucci about a despondent man named Frank (Peter Van Norden) who checks into a transient hotel, armed with a gun and a tape of his favorite selections from the more than 11,000 records in his collection, with the sole intention of ending his miserable life. Pulling the trigger becomes problematic, however, when his neighbors repeatedly intrude in the most bizarre ways. …Fucci displays little of the contempt of (David) Lynch has for his characters. Once the films moves out onto the open road, Fucci establishes his own distinctive style, which, coupled with Van Norden’s charming performance, makes the film a success. …it’s likely to be more entertaining than most other American Independents showing this year. …any film that can blend such an eclectic sound track – everything from Abbey Lincoln and traditional Indian music to selections from Puccini’s Manon Lascaut- this delightfully and effortlessly is worth seeing.

RP

"DON’T CALL ME FRANKIE"

A minimalist gem, Fuccis’ wonderfully modulated comedy finds Frank, a rotund, middle-aged music lover, in a grungy hotel room scrawling a suicide note on a coat-hanger wrapper. The noises of the other occupants distract him until the moment he’s ready to shoot himself, when he’s interrupted with impeccable illogic by an earthquake and his introduction to the occupants of the nearby rooms, including a prostitute who takes a shine to him (Elisabeth Anne Bowen, a plainer Helen Hunt). Fucci’s dark, low-budget nighttime shooting is complimented by a wickedly eclectic soundtrack, drawn from Frank’s collection of "11,415-vinyl only"- including Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Perez Prado, Dinah Washington, Puccini, Bellini, k.d.lang, the Platters and notably, the lovely, Middle-Eastern inflected Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart. The spare deadpan of Fucci’s dialogue includes nuggets of genius, including the exchange: "on anybody else, it would look cheap." "Do you mean that?" Peter Van Norden is wonderful as Frank, with a masterful deadpan. Comparisons to other collectors of the bizarre like David Lynch would be unfair. Fucci’s world of delicate yet profane whimsy is strange enough on it’s own. (Pride)

"DON’T CALL ME FRANKIE"

Every thirty years an American independent film, whether on the east coast (Cassavetes, Jarmusch) or on the West Coast, as is the case here, rouses the interest of film-lovers and festival programmers. The film either recreates the codes of fiction and/or takes on a topic that is too controversial for the Majors (homosexuality, social crises...). "Don’t Call Me Frankie" is a half-tinted work, not really underground and not really explosive either. It is the subversion of the laws of the genre (melodrama and thriller) and the breaking of the rules that marks it’s principal trump cards.

Frank, a music lover in his fifties, decides, without sweating, without emotion, to put an end to his life. The events outside (his room) build to a crescendo, (a neighbor demands he lower the radio, a brief earthquake happens leading him to saving a couple of tenants) diverting him from his original purpose. Then suddenly he’s embarking on a genuine adventure! Coming to the aid of a prostitute who lives in the same place, Frank knocks out her pimp and in the end, shoots him with the revolver originally intended for his own suicide.

Thomas A. Fucci illustrates the postulate that American life in the 90’s can be inspired by film and television. But unlike, let’s say a John Landis, he does not lace his film with references and a wink of the eye. No, for him the fiction film vampirizes peoples’ behavior and "Don’t Call Me Frankie" is almost a documentary on the craft of individual actors who are not participating in a film of this genre (the police are absent, the extras are eliminated) but are instead giving substance to a banal adventure which feels like a real slice of life. The character of Frankie is half-humane, half-romantic. Frankie constantly pushes the canons of the psychological drama (in the beginning, as soon as we see his pain he adopts a fictional and distant attitude). The title "Don’t Call Me Frankie" emphasizes this phenomenon. Every time the prostitute, who from the onset is drawn to him, calls him Frankie (a nickname typically associated with the heroes of B-films or cartoons), he gets angry and insists that his name is Frank. With a rare economy of means, Fucci creates a unique place, where he speaks of the distressed, of the exhausted, documenting, and re-exploring the archetypes (the prostitute, the pimp and the provincial man) that often inhabit the world of fiction film. It doesn’t matter what point of view you take (a genre film or a docu-drama) "Don’t Call Me Frankie" functions marvelously as an x-ray machine of man and the images coming from contemporary American society.

Raphael Bassan

"Don’t Call Me Frankie" by Thomas A. Fucci (USA)

Tenuous Promises—

A large man locks himself in a shabby hotel room, disclosing gradually his plan to blow his brains out. An earthquake jolts the building. The desperate yet dependable hero aides the mother of a blind maniac to get out from where she’s buried under a mountain of old newspapers. In order for him to find her, she must sing (painfully) "Tip toe through the Tulips". Next door a young prostitute is being beaten by her pimp. Our man knocks out this scoundrel and will lock another in a closet before departing with the hooker. Let’s slip into the joyous ride which spreads through "Don’t Call Me Frankie", the premier feature (screening in Critic’s Week) of the American Thomas A. Fucci, who urgently wants us to know he’s obviously here to stay. It’s a low-budget film but we couldn’t care less, as long as he has the talent to film his moving actors (Peter Van Norden, Elizabeth Ann Bowen, Martin Beck, Thomas Prisco, Krista Eulberg, Nan Moog) in a confined space from which he extricates the best choice through subtlety of framing. As for the humor, he makes it sell by creating a lively plot and building characters gradually with small touches that move (the audience) and are each one endowed with a credible story. Such qualities are not accomplished with a heavy foot. In a way, the truth is Thomas Fucci is in this house. He already has to his credit one short as well as having been a producer, a script writer and director of Whoopi Goldberg for the small screen. Without a doubt with more money (and if we had our wishes it would be certain - even if he makes necessity a virtue without sparing the effect) this filmmaker, who from the beginning holds promise, has his whole future ahead of him. His next film should not be shot in 16mm as was the case with this one. We are faced with someone with an independent inspiration, from the beginning the bearer of a peculiar tone and pace, who knows how, as insignificant as it may seem, to start with the promise of a thriller and get into the can a simple vision of a cunning world where the harsh social reality allows one the luxury of a comic look. To make a long story short, in a few images, it is art. It inspires true fondness. Finally, one attaches oneself to people who are engaging.

J-P. L.

Thomas Fucci: The Ace of Troubleshooting

An apparently peaceful yet desperate and honorable executive who hides out in a squalid hotel in order to put an end to his own life, is going to be brought back to life through a succession of incongruous encounters and funny adventures. It’s "Don’t Call Me Frankie" chosen by Critics’ Week. In the making of the first film which evokes a bastard child of "Barton Fink" and "Delicatessen".

Lacking money and means, Thomas Fucci had two trumps:

A/ A great actor who has accepted to put his salary on hold: Peter Van Norden (he is incredibly flexible and versatile). "You might find him a bit awkward, but when I chose him he was playing the role of a maniac".

B/ A troubleshooting and a challenging experience on the various stages of his career in film. With round-shaped glasses, green eyes and jacket/tie carefully matched, this second generation Italian-American studied under the close supervision of Antonin Liehm.

"When I came out of college I became a film editor. It’s the phase of the making of the film which determined visual narration the most. However, I also trained myself to write and then, once in Los Angeles, it seemed good to me to try producing." First step: "Purple Haze", a film with a budget of only $210,000 and another step to the Sundance Film Festival (Grand Prize winner) and distribution by Columbia (Triumph). "Before moving into directing as I intended to do, I thought it would be good to try a second attempt at producing." It was to be "Nightsongs" his wife’s project - Marva Nabili, of Iranian origin, whose script was chosen by the Sundance Institute and went on to be filmed in Chinatown, New York. He still makes a few rounds before making his first jump: "I wrote some scripts. I was called to Madrid to give an American-International touch to the script of a remake of "Blood and Sand". It was a painful experience..." After that he launches his first short: "The Comforts of Home" by Flannery O’Connor. A few more digressions, directing Whoopi Goldberg in a TV opening sequence (They showed her checking out of the Betty Ford Clinic in order to do the show).

Agne-Dominique Bouzet

Virgole, mutande e il grande Fucci (Comas, panties and the grand Fucci)

Cannes...In the section La Semaine the focus was again on USA independent filmmakers with "Don’t Call Me Frankie" by Thomas A. Fucci, who has come to direct after training as editor and producer ("Purple Haze", "Nightsongs"). Frank, given the fact he hates his nickname, is staying in a very modest hotel room, with the intention of listening to some music before pointing a gun at his head and shooting himself. He has his own reasons, his wife’s gone with their kids, but above all, she’s taken the 11,883 records he adores, with her, Without them life has no meaning any longer. But the umpteenth Californian earthquake puts him in touch with his neighbors, a collector of newspapers out of it and a woman who drags him into a plot of murder and escape. A bottled up, crushed, chaotic, almost always dark universe, of which Fucci gets the most by making up borderline situations and playing with script, genres and characters. A small lesson to the cinema of the big bucks.

Antonello Catacchio

by: Michele Anselmi

Le tre Americhe sulla Croisette (Three Americas on the Croisette)

Three slices of life of America are screened in Cannes. …Thomas A. Fucci plays with a surreal comedy of a man who aspires to commit suicide.

...Don’t miss "Don’t Call Me Frankie", another low budget film from the United States brought to the screen under the fresh direction of Thomas A. Fucci. Seventy five minutes and a lot of music to tell the tale of a suicidal man of about 50, whose greedy wife took off with his kids, his money and his beloved record collection (he had 11,683). He shuts himself up into a squalid hotel room to put a bullet in his brain, but the man constantly gets "distracted" by his neighbors, especially a sweet young prostitute for whom he later finds a reason to live. Spirited, absurd and gentle, like the face of the protagonist, (Peter Van Norden): the man who doesn’t want to be called Frankie.

by: Paolo D’Agostini

Uomini sull’orlo di una crisi di nervi (Men on the verge of a nervous breakdown)

"Don’t Call Me Frankie", tells of a nice, overweight protagonist of the same name by Thomas A. Fucci, United States. A prototype of an independent production, a "low budget" film (like the one we spoke about yesterday, "Ruby in Paradise", by Victor Nunez). Repeated polite requests are the only manifestation of aggressiveness in this bulky, cumbersome man who has only a strange compilation of tape recordings (mambo, Puccini, Leonard Cohen) to listen to. Frankie (Frank, please ) has lost everything: his job, his family and a collection of 11,000 records; he shuts himself up in a sleazy little hotel room where he has the intention of listening to a few songs he salvaged and then blowing his brains out. All very calmly.

But the hours that were to be his last transform into a new beginning. The young prostitute next door involves him in an argument with her pimp and falls in love out of gratefulness for his kind protection. This initiates many strange, paradoxical almost abstract happenings (an earthquake), it then develops into ironic sentimentality, and finishes rather romantically, in spite of the last word, said by the girl to Frank after a last temptation at suicide; it was a very tenderly and tearfully stated "stronzo". Translation: "asshole".

Fassbinder, Ferrara, Fucci. Not only do their initials link them together, but also their diverse presence at the festival: the first for belated kudos, the second in a selection still too official for himself, and the last one discovered in Critic’s Week..."Don’t Call Me Frankie" is also a debut film. Fucci, on the other extreme, tells a story of how two people so completely different from each (a shy, overweight man and a skinny whore) can come together and find common ground. But, in regard to Fassbinder, his vision is more reconciled. The pimp is left for dead, and the girl has a chance at a new beginning. Frank, the fat man kill himself some other time. It’s a good debut film.

by: Y.T.

The overweight Frank (Peter Van Norden) is a pretty good natured guy: the only thing that gets on his nerves is when you call him Frankie. In spite of that, he decides to end his life. He rents a sea-foam green room in a hotel and pulls out a revolver. Right at this moment there is an earthquake which stops him from doing the deed. The earthquake is the first good thing that has happened to Frank in a long time.

A favorite set-up in American comedies is the "delayed fuck": when are they finally going to sleep together? Thomas Fucci invents a new genre: the "delayed suicide". Next, Frankie ("Don’t call me that!") meets his neighbors in the hotel who are more down on their luck than he is. (Moreover, one could categorize the sub-genre "seafoam green hotel", ushered in by the Coen brothers and equally represented this year from "The Wrong Man", by Jim McBride and "King of Hill", by Steven Soderbergh.) So, in the gallery of monsters, to my left, a newspaper collector who lives in the middle of piles of papers, to my right, a sweet hooker with a heart of gold, Barbara (Elizabeth Anne Bowen) and transversely, the manager of the hotel who’s constantly asking if there are any dead bodies to be removed.

The feel of the film would be dismal if the black humor didn’t save it from despair: each action of a character pushes the film one degree higher on the Richter scale. The look of the film is white trash and inventive, the lead actor is fabulous, and the best idea is to have a universally tragic character who listens to all his favorite tunes from Bellini to country, while crying at the loss of his 11,863 vinyl records. In fact, Frank hasn’t made the switch to CDs: nobody’s perfect.

by: M.O.

DON’T CALL ME FRAKIE

by Thomas A. Fucci (United States)

In a shabby hotel room, a man prepares his suicide: he writes his will, he pulls out his pistol...His plan doesn’t get past this stage...an earthquake, then a neighbor who’s a prostitute prevent him from doing it. A first film by American Thomas Fucci, "Don’t Call Me Frankie" is made amusing by its lack of pretense and its special tone, mixed with black humor where one feels a personal effort concerning the light and the set, which are an essential part of the story.

Don’t Call Me Frankie (Critic's Week)

Thomas A. Fucci starts off with a very serious tone, but the end result on the screen is less dramatic. Overweight Frank Connally finds himself in a sordid hotel room crying over his 11,683 records that his wife sold behind his back and who just took off with his two boys. He decides to blow his brains out, but an earthquake prevents him from doing it. Through a small hole in the door, he meets his neighbor, a whore whose breast jiggle with every move. Thomas Fucci, influenced by the Coen brothers’ "Barton Fink" imitates the sparse decor and the rotating themes. Rotation of the music from country to Callas, the rotation of joyous tones to macabre farce with cadavers sitting upright. It’s elegant, picturesque and promises a future for this young director who still anguishes over the treatment inflicted upon his screenplay "Blood and Sand" with Sharon Stone.

by: Phillippe Rouyer

...Don’t Call Me Frankie, a bitter-sweet story about a man at the end of his rope, forced to keep postponing his suicide because of comical celestial interventions (earthquake) and his neighbors at the hotel. The film oscillates between an excercise in style and the quirky world of the Coen brothers, but the comic windfalls of the cast (the hero mixes country and opera on his recordings) incites us to lend an ear to this amiable folly. . .

MAIL@STRAYDOGFILM.COM