Analysis of the Framing of the Film "Household Saints"
"Household Saints" is a filmed version of the novel by Francine Prose. The film begins with a family picnic somewhere on Long Island (we think) and the tale is told by the old-timers who relate the story of Joseph and the wife he won in a pinochle game. The old man interrupts his wife, and explains how the story should be told. By now, it is very clear that we are in for a narrative flashback. We are not disappointed since the old man pouring the wine is intercut (with painful precision) to four men playing pinochle in a very hot, very sultry, very awful backroom of a butcher's shop.
Joseph, the butcher, is winning at pinochle by cheating, and since the wine is flowing freely, Papa Falconetti and his son, Nicky Falconetti, are both drunk. We have lost the voice over narration now, so we must fill in the blanks. To make a long story short (something Nancy Savoca who produced, directed, and co-wrote the screenplay didn't seem to like to do, since she believed in never letting one minute of film do when three or four would be better), the father wagers his daughter, and Joseph wins the hand. The daughter, of course, is Tracy Ullman, and she is plain, simple, homely, and always reading a film magazine. She goes to the butcher shop, not knowing that she has become a prize, and Joseph is flirting with every woman while she waits impatiently. She orders sausage, and Joseph leans down, and then looks at her through the case รป and this is a shot of her belly and loins and Nancy leaves the camera there for quite a while until we get the idea that Joseph is thinking about sex. In case we don't get it, however, he holds out a sausage and asks Tracy if she knows what can be done with a thumb, and we watch him squeeze the sausage out, and we watch her watch it, and are tempted to look at our watch since this sequence seems to overplay what has already been done.
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