Reading Times, Pennsylvania, July 16, 1935

Musings on Ice-Pick Joe

I'm not sure why no one is talking about Ice-Pick Joe's death scene, especially with rumors of the Ice-Pick Joe prequel circulating the internet.

The scene where Ice-Pick Joe walked by Sofia's window on his way to the fateful meeting with Katya, stopping to lean against the light post long enough to see two silhouettes come together. (I can't be the only one who was getting Blue Velvet vibes in that scene?) Why isn't anyone talking about his longing? The voyeurism? His fear of abandonment stemming from childhood trauma...after all, his mother picked him, of all his siblings, to leave at the orphanage! She left him with nothing but those appleseeds that he carried around in his pockets.

I'm absolutely sure that Sofia was the unnamed child in Joe's flashback (Jodie Foster was so good as the scrappy, androgynous best friend. She did have a limp in that scene when they were running from the cemetery. We don't actually know at what age Sofia lost her leg. And Donny Osmond was the perfect young Ice-Pick Joe!)

If you watch closely, she had the same birthmark on her shoulder in that first awkward kiss scene that Sofia had when she and Katya fought that night of her birthday, when she ripped her blouse and threw her glass of champagne at the wall.)

But back to Joe on the empty street, those shadows against the wall like shadow puppets, and the way the clock motif came back at that moment? Such haunting music, reprised again in the film score during Joe's death (I still cry when I hear "The Demise of Ice-Pick Joe". Linking to it here, because I played it on repeat when the movie was over. Brilliant and haunting.)

Remember how the flashbacks showed us that Ice-Pick Joe was really superstitious and believed that he had inherited his grandmother's gifts? If you watch the way Joe looks at the shadows and then down at his watch, you can see him hesitate before going to the docks. Was he hearing voices?

Most people agree that the shadows on the wall looked like a child, but I'm not sure that Ice-Pick Joe's hesitation to go to the dock was about his own son. I think the shadows looked more like that kiss flashback when he and Sofia were children. The frame and perspective are almost the same angle, as if they are being watched from below.

Either way, he is clearly making the choice to leave the past behind that brings him to his tragic and senseless death.

I would love to know what happened that took that gentle young Joe who loved to sing and turned him into the tortured stoic we meet in Goncharov, the only affection reserved for his cat, Mrs. Claws.

(I can't help but wonder if they meant for her to be an echo of Le Befana, the Italian winter witch-goddess who sometimes gets translated as Mrs. Claus? After all, his mama's last words to him when she kissed him goodbye were, "If you're a very good boy, maybe La Befana will bring you to a new home on Epiphany morning, a warm home full of food and presents." Poor Joe never finds that home.) You know, I think that was the first time I heard about Le Befana, and that was one of the inspirations that led me down the road to my own version of Mother Christmas.

Does anyone know if it's true that the Ice-Pick Joe prequel got permission to use "Hotel California" as its theme song? I wonder if we're going to get the story of his time as an unskilled laborer in the vineyards of Napa in the 60s? I was never clear about how he got to America and then back to Italy with a small fortune and hitman skills? They're saying it's like Better Call Saul meets the Sopranos meets Twin Peaks. I'm here for it, especially if they can get Cole Sprouse to play young Ice-Pick Joe.