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Fingers
Fingers
	Theatrical poster
Directed by	James Toback
Written by	James Toback
Starring	Harvey Keitel; Tisa Farrow; Jim Brown
Cinematography	Michael Chapman
Edited by	Robert Lawrence
Distributed by	Brut Productions
Release date	March 2, 1978;
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.3 million

Fingers is a 1978 American crime drama film directed by James Toback. The film is about a troubled young man being pulled between his mob father and his mentally disturbed pianist mother.^[2]

Plot

Jimmy "Fingers" Angelelli (Harvey Keitel) is a brilliant young pianist who also works as a debt collector for his father Ben (Michael V. Gazzo), a local loan shark. Wherever Jimmy goes, he always carries a tape player with him, playing classic pop hits (mainly soul and R'n'B) from the 1950s and 1960s. While trying to concentrate on an upcoming recital interview at Carnegie Hall, Jimmy loses focus when he falls for a woman named Carol (Tisa Farrow). He gets further sidetracked when collecting a large debt from a mafioso named Riccamonza (Tony Sirico), who eventually threatens Ben's life. This forces Jimmy to seek retribution.

Cast

Harvey Keitel as Jimmy "Fingers"
Tisa Farrow as Carol
Michael V. Gazzo as Ben Angelelli
Jim Brown as "Dreems"
Tanya Roberts as Julie
Marian Seldes as Ruth
Danny Aiello as Butch
Ed Marinaro as Gino
Tony Sirico as Riccamonza
Dominic Chianese as Arthur Fox
Largo Woodruff as Dreems' Girl
Sam Coppola as Sam

Production

James Toback said he originally wanted Robert de Niro to play the lead, but then decided to use de Niro's best friend Harvey Keitel. "Harvey agreed to play Jimmy and quickly began to astonish me by taking the character into dimensions of darkness well beyond my original imagining", wrote Toback.^[3] The film was remade in 2005 in France as The Beat That My Heart Skipped.^[4]

Critical reception

Writing in The New York Times, critic Vincent Canby noted upon the film's release that it features "a series of anti‐climaxes that dog the movie with the persistence of a humorless flat‐foot," that "[w]ithout building any momentum whatsoever, the movie darts among its various plot threads like a cat who wants play, but can't stick at one thread long enough to have any fun," and that "something more than apparent talent was involved" in Toback's ability to have made the film.^[5] A contemporary review of the film in The Boston Phoenix by Stephen Schiff described it as not "just bad; it’s wildly; extravagantly, even entertainingly bad," and "what comes through is not how troubled Jimmy is, but how bizarre the man who made this film [Toback] must be."^[6] A review of the film by Thomas Davant for Turner Classic Movies described it as "[a]ggressive, shocking, heart-wrenching" and "[i]n its tale of the battle between dual loyalties, contradictory desires and an internal madness that threatens to consume it all, the film pulses with a desperate power."^[7]

Music

Two notable pieces from the film are "Angel of the Morning" by Merrilee Rush and "Summertime, Summertime" by The Jamies. Director Toback initially wanted to use the song "Summertime" because the movie had "a summertime feel to it", and they wanted to shoot it during the summer months. The whole film, however, is framed by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata in E minor (BWV 914), which Keitel's character plays throughout the film, including during his audition at Carnegie Hall.

References

^ "AFI|Catalog".
^ "Fingers". IMDb.
^ James Toback, "A Hollywood Mis-Education", Vanity Fair, March 2014 accessed 10 February 2014
^ Critique: Mélodie pour un tueur, de James Toback. Critikat: Accueil.
^ Canby, Vincent (1978-03-19). "'Fingers' is Strictly from Desperation". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2024-09-20.
^ Schiff, Stephen (1978-05-16). "Sticky Fingers". The Internet Archive. Retrieved 2024-09-20.
^ Davant, Thomas. "Fingers (1978)". Turner Classic Movies. Turner Classic Movies Inc. Retrieved 2024-09-20.