David Chase, the creator of "The Sopranos" is a very private man. Only Academy Award winning, documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief") could get him to open up like he does in the excellent new HBO doc WISE GUY: DAVID CHASE AND THE SOPRANOS.
For Soprano's fans, this two part doc offers up nearly three hours of fun, powerful and never before seen behind the scenes footage.
Gibney's first brilliant choice is interviewing Chase in a perfect recreation of Dr. Melfi's office. About twenty minutes in, Chase gets pissed off that he's revealing so much about himself, his childhood in New Jersey and his domineering Mother and her very hard family from Italy.
It's a fascinating moment.
Tony Soprano's mother Olivia, the one who tried to have him whacked? VERY similar to Chase's mother, without the contract killer of course.
The strange and funny happenings around the Bada Bing and deli? Most come from real life stories or experiences from Chase and his writing team.
I never realized how New Jersey-centric the show was.
Chase talks about his early days wanting to break into film, landing in TV and carving out a deal with a cable network called HBO that had never created a dramatic series before. Gary Shandling had certainly braved new cable territory with his superb comedy series, but an hour long drama? Would it work?
That's hard to imagine now, right?
HBO has become a bastion for series of the highest quality. "Game of Thrones", "Westworld", "Rome", "Boardwalk Empire", "Carnivale"...the list is, in retrospect, endless and impressive.
We watch actual footage of the auditions of numerous actors and the ones that finally landed key parts that would become part of Sopranos history.
Chase has huge respect for his actors, especially his leads, including Edie Falco, Lorraine Bracco, Michael Imperioli, so many more.
James Gandolfini is a force all his own.
Watching all the historic footage from the set, its clear that Gandolfini took a bit too much of Tony home with him. Gibney doesn't shy away from Gandolfini's alcohol abuse and difficulty on set as the seasons went on, but balances them perfectly with new interviews with the entire cast.
I LOVED all the new interviews. Bracco, Falco, Drea de Matteo and Steven Van Zandt are terrific. Their fond memories really take you back to those early Soprano's years, when every Sunday night was an event you had to see and be ready to discuss at the water cooler Monday morning.
I also loved Falco's comments on the powerful storytelling and the fact that the violence was so intense and sudden that it is a vital part of these characters, and that "we didn't need trigger warnings" because real life doesn't come with them either.
Amen, Edie. Amen. Well said.
Could you even make The Sopranos today? The nuances of Chase and his team's brilliant writing would likely be called racist, sexist and unacceptable in the early 2020's. These were despicable people portrayed in depth, a complicated prism of characterization too complicated for the "I'm offended!" woke clan.
Well let me shout from the rooftops then, THE SOPRANOS is the best TV series of all-time. Gibney pays it the respect and the reverence it deserves, while mining new levels of discovery around its creators and development over the seasons.
Like the series itself, Gibney's doc is must watch viewing for all Soprano's fans.
I can't get the smile off my face, it gets a A.
And best of all, Chase explains that ending of the last episode, explaining in full detail that
cut to black
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