Sad Tale: Lillo Brancato Jr.

The tabloids last weekend spotlighted the ghastly Bronx tragedy that left off-duty police officer David Enchautegui shot to death after attempting to foil a burglary. As if Enchautegui's murder is not brutal enough, one of the shooting suspects, Lillo Brancato Jr., was a New York-bred actor perhaps best known for his role on The Sopranos and as the conflicted teenager Calogero Anello in Robert De Niro's directorial debut, A Bronx Tale.

I will just leave it to The Times's Manny Fernandez to help explain exactly what this means:

A Bronx Tale ... became a favorite of many in the Bronx, a coming-of-age story that they felt captured the working-class decency of the place. People adopted a kind of hometown pride for it, nurtured by repeated viewings and by the real-life links between the film, its actors and local residents. ...

Along the strip of Italian cafes, restaurants and delis on nearby Arthur Avenue, the borough's Little Italy, the movie is revered.

David Greco, 40, the owner of Mike's Deli, a popular sausage-draped corner of the indoor Arthur Avenue Retail Market, had trouble putting a number on how many times he has watched A Bronx Tale. He said two dozen was a safe bet.

Mr. Greco and others in the Bronx spoke yesterday of the sad irony of the movie and the shooting. One of the themes of the film - that the saddest thing in life is wasted talent, a line used frequently in the movie - took on new meaning.

"It all comes down to wasted talent," Mr. Greco said of Mr. Brancato.

It has been about a decade since I saw A Bronx Tale, but it is still not that hard to recall the film's overarching emphases on choices and community. So beyond Enchautegui's tragic death, to what end will the seismic shift of a cultural touchstone influence Belmont? What is the appropriate proportion of mourning a neighbor to an idea, and to what degree does that individual become a symbol for the lost idea itself?

It all probably sounds kind of insensitive, but come on--I am not out to aestheticize tragedy. Nevertheless, Fernandez's piece raises an intersting question: What if a movie died as well Saturday morning in the Bronx? It seems like the type of thing that could happen in New York.