Ice Pick Joe - Tumblr Posts
I just rewatched Goncharov 1973 and realised that I never noticed the true meaning behind the scene in the theatre. When Ice Pick Joe admits to Sofia that he never liked anchovies but still ate them anyway and offered them to everyone in a tin - basically a parallel to his relationship with his father - and then Sofia offers him an apple... I'm actually crying this is so sweet.
Goncharov (1973)
I know everyone talks about Ice Pick Joe, but let’s be real, that scene where he finally kills Gil “the Grill” McGilicuddy? Brian Dennehy STOLE IT.
gonchin’ guys
eiscue pick joe (i am horrible at this, apologies in advance)
garchomparov
goncharov memes for your consideration
it's been 50 years so I'll say it again.
ice pick Joe is trans coded.
ice pick Joe is trans coded.
ICE PICK JOE IS TRANS CODED.
take a good look at him and his past and the way he's treated by the other characters and it is CLEAR AS DAY.
Level 1: Non-murdery Goncharov AUs where Joseph Morelli is just Joe, because obviously he wouldn’t be called that, right?
Level 2: Non-murdery Goncharov AUs where Joseph Morelli has a different, more milieu-appropriate nickname.
Level 3: Non-murdery Gonchraov AUs that go out of their way to explain why Joseph Morelli still has his canon nickname.
Level 4: Non-murdery Gonchraov AUs that don’t go out of their way to explain why Joseph Morelli still has his canon nickname.
I know most of the fandom is enthralled by how the relationship between Andrey and Goncharov develops (and I am too! it's a beautiful film, with a compelling power dynamic!), but I really think we need to talk more about Ice Pick Joe.
and more specifically, we've gotta talk about his ice pick, and how he uses it.
it's implied that he's killed a lot of people with that ice pick, but only one of those deaths is shown in the film. it's a hard scene to watch, and some people might want to skip over it, but I think the brutality is part of the point. there's a reason that it's played out with such excruciating detail.
see, ice picks are used as weapons all the time in movies, usually with a stab to the throat or ear, leading to a quick but bloody death. but in Goncharov, the scene is played out slowly, with Joe tying Amarro to a chair before almost carefully putting the pick through his eye socket.
sound familiar to anyone? it should. for a lot of reasons.
Amarro Fiamberti was the name of the first psychiatrist to ever perform a transorbital lobotomy. it was only due to his research that Walter Freeman was able to come up with his own lobotomy technique: one involving an ice pick.
Walter Freeman died in 1972, just months before Goncharov went into production.
and then there's the fact that Joe's ice pick is stolen (where did you steal it from, Joe? from whose operating table?) and the implications that he has his own struggles with mental health (the mention of his sister's murder, the humor he uses as a coping mechanism, the camera angles that give a sense of unreality to any scenes that are from his perspective).
I don't think any of that is an accident or a coincidence.
in my opinion, Ice Pick Joe's story is a tale of revenge - not against someone who wronged him, but against a medical procedure that wronged thousands of people.
and murderer though he may be, he's still my favorite character.
in a fit of madness i have written a fic that is completely disparate from everything i do. and i will never do so again.
it’s a character study of Joseph ‘Ice-Pick Joe’ Morelli from the movie Goncharov (1973).
mo·sca cie·ca
noun
1. blind man's bluff
Joseph Morelli is fated to die. and yet—
(twelve moments that play before he takes his last breath.)
tired of everyone on here reducing icepick joe down to haha funny stabby man
like i DO like the jokes and memes, don't get me wrong, but like
there's SO MUCH to his character and he really does tie into goncharov's main themes
like. we're told early on the he was put into a mental institution as a young man due to his breakdown and inconsolable grief at losing his older brother giorno (who was his only living family and basically a father figure to him!)
wherein he was mistreated and was HEAVILY IMPLIED to be scheduled for a lobotomy before he escaped. (in fact, some interpretations say he actually received and survived the lobotomy, citing his manner of speaking and his lack of impulse control. but that's a whole separate discussion because i can honestly see both sides)
and then he turns to a life of crime because that's basically the only option he had left, after being deprived of so many opportunities in his youth (and the fear of being caught and involuntarily institutionalized again)
and him eventually leaning into the role of "violent madman" that the world thrust onto him for showing signs of mental illness in a way that was nonviolent, but was loud and inconvenient and impossible for those around him to simply push away.
and him taking his rage out at the same world that not only killed his brother but forced him to undergo years of psychiatric abuse and basically dehumanization
(like seriously, how do SO MANY people miss the connection between him using an icepick as a weapon and the concept of an ICEPICK lobotomy)
which. yknow. ties heavily into the film's theme of people being pushed to society's margins and forced into a life of crime, instead of given the help they desperately needed
and then like.
his fucking death scene. he tries to put a stop to the cycle of senseless violence, taking the fall for andrey, telling michailov that *he* was the one who killed luciana
him kneeling down and allowing michailov to bash him through the skull with his very own icepick. it's more lobotomy symbolism; dying from the very thing he spent his whole life running from. further driving home the film's themes of repeating cycles and futility
and then, to drive it all home, that sacrifice didn't even end up stopping the cycle of violence! because andrey viewed joe as basically an older brother (mirroring joe and giorno) and tried to get revenge on michailov for killing joe.
like. come on.
I know, I know, everyone talks about Goncharov's themes of overcoming your past, the cycle of violence, the Gay, etc. but I feel like the theme of seeking home needs to be talked about more too! I love how all the main characters are trying to find a new or an old home in different ways.
Let's start with Goncharov: he obviously wants to be the Big Tough Mafia Man (tm) and does his best to burn all his links to his past. And in the present, his home/marriage with Katya is falling apart, and he starts to find happiness with Andry. Regardless of whether you read Goncharov and Andry's love as romantic or platonoic, Goncharov accidently finds a home in his relationship with Andry yet still clings to his life with the Mafia and his "perfect" marriage to Katya. He rejects both his past and present homes.
And of course Andrey's whole thing throughout the film is running from his past. He's ashamed of what he's done and is afraid that he'll never be accepted or find a home anywhere. He has no one. Until he meets Goncharov. Then he slowly realizes throughout the movie that it might be possible to find love and a home. But of course he has to deal with the period-typical/internalized homophobia and the inherent tragedy in that Andrey knows nothing but to betray and destroy relationships and protect himself so that of course leads to an ending where he loses his home only after he had it within reach.
Next, Katya. I love the parallels between her and Andrey- both have regrets in their past that they are trying to escape from, both feel that they are unworthy of love or having a home, neither are sure they even know what home is. Katya obviously didn't have a happy childhood with her rich family that only cared about connections and politics and marriage. Katya doesn't want to return to her past. She's never had a home, and has no home to return to, and no idea of what home feels like.
Katya's arc is tied to Sophia's. Unlike other characters, Sophia does have a home that she loves, but she cannot return to. After the death of her parents, Sophia grew up in an orphanage and then when that burned to the ground it's implied she lived on the streets for a while. Her home has constantly been uprooted and destroyed, so her arc is figuring out where and with whom to make her new home. Sophia is afraid she'll find home and won't belong. She's afraid she'll never find a home where she'll feel true belonging and love, so she runs from love and home. This is what makes Sophia's offer to Katya to run away together so important. This is the moment where both Katya and Sophia realize that they can create "home" together, that it is possible to find home.
And I love how Sophia's home theme parallels Ice Pick Joe's! We never see Joe's parents- it's implied that his parents died when he was young and he was raised by his brother Giorno. Giorno was his entire family, his home. After Giorno's death and Joe's breakdown resulting in him being institutionalized, Joe loses his only home. Both Joe and Sophia lost homes that they long so, so much to return to, but never can. The difference is in how their stories end and it is so tragic to see how things could've been different.
Just... how these people come from such different homes or lack of homes and try to find new homes in such different ways and learning that home can be such different things arghahga I live for that sort of thing
“ice pick joe perfectly encapsulates the same brutality as the other characters, the only reason people have issues with him is because he isn’t viewed through the eyes of someone who loves him” i say into the mic.
the crowd boos. i begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room.
"she’s right," they say. i look for the owner of the voice. there in the 5th row stands: martin scorsese himself.
Say what you want about Ice Pick Joe, but we stan a guy who:
1. Knows what he wants to do (stab ppl)
2. Knows how he wants to do it (with an ice pick).
Best character in Goncharov (1973) by far. Y’all can fight me about it.
I know most of the fandom is enthralled by how the relationship between Andrey and Goncharov develops (and I am too! it's a beautiful film, with a compelling power dynamic!), but I really think we need to talk more about Ice Pick Joe.
and more specifically, we've gotta talk about his ice pick, and how he uses it.
it's implied that he's killed a lot of people with that ice pick, but only one of those deaths is shown in the film. it's a hard scene to watch, and some people might want to skip over it, but I think the brutality is part of the point. there's a reason that it's played out with such excruciating detail.
see, ice picks are used as weapons all the time in movies, usually with a stab to the throat or ear, leading to a quick but bloody death. but in Goncharov, the scene is played out slowly, with Joe tying Amarro to a chair before almost carefully putting the pick through his eye socket.
sound familiar to anyone? it should. for a lot of reasons.
Amarro Fiamberti was the name of the first psychiatrist to ever perform a transorbital lobotomy. it was only due to his research that Walter Freeman was able to come up with his own lobotomy technique: one involving an ice pick.
Walter Freeman died in 1972, just months before Goncharov went into production.
and then there's the fact that Joe's ice pick is stolen (where did you steal it from, Joe? from whose operating table?) and the implications that he has his own struggles with mental health (the mention of his sister's murder, the humor he uses as a coping mechanism, the camera angles that give a sense of unreality to any scenes that are from his perspective).
I don't think any of that is an accident or a coincidence.
in my opinion, Ice Pick Joe's story is a tale of revenge - not against someone who wronged him, but against a medical procedure that wronged thousands of people.
and murderer though he may be, he's still my favorite character.
im just a gay italian man i can’t handle these stresses
actually crying in the club about ice pick joe
do you ever think about how ice pick joe never got what he wanted at the end. do you ever think about how his one purpose was to earn andrey’s respect and find his sister after so many years but he got killed right before he could do that. do you ever think about how sofia was the closest to familial love he got and how that’s sad since they only knew each other for two weeks and how she didn’t even know he died. do you ever think about how his last words were that he’s not ready and please and he never told sofia she was his sister and please he’s still not ready