NYT David Chase on Loose Ends and next season
Steve Tice
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/16/business/media/16ONTV.html?ex=996331474&ei=1&en=c236faecd52138f0
Liam Devlin
What the hell, here's the full text:
Stringing Together Taut Episodes, Not Codas, on 'The Sopranos'
By BILL CARTER
As "The Sopranos" ended its third season this spring, accompanied by a
torrent of attention, David Chase, the show's creator and executive
producer, was far away, secluded in France on vacation, unaware, he
says, of the intensity of passion that attended the final episodes.
But Mr. Chase has returned, in time for the news that "The Sopranos" had
secured 22 Emmy nominations, the
most of any show on television, and ready to answer the questions of
fans — some of whom were left a bit
unsatisfied by the untied threads in last season's story line — as well
as whether next season will really be the last.
And then there was the issue of just what Bob Wright was getting at. Mr.
Wright, the NBC chairman, stirred a
debate in the spring when he sent a memo to other NBC executives and
producers, along with a tape of the
season's most graphically violent and sexually explicit episode of "The
Sopranos," asking what conclusions
could be drawn from the fact that such a show was attracting critical
praise and enormous ratings.
Asked in an interview last week what he thought Mr. Wright was trying to
accomplish, Mr. Chase said: "I don't
think he was fooling anybody. It's obvious he was taking a shot at the
show, hoping to start some kind of
temperance movement."
Mr. Wright responded on Friday that he had merely been trying to
"provoke thoughtful responses" on what
impact "The Sopranos" was having on network broadcasters. "We can't just
put our heads in the sand and not
attempt to understand a change in viewers' interests," he said.
Even that short back-and-forth was somewhat more than either man wanted
to engage in, perhaps because a
natural conflict is looming: the only real challenger to "The Sopranos"
in terms of Emmy nominations and
critical praise is NBC's "The West Wing."
HBO, a unit of AOL Time Warner (news/quote), has been avidly seeking to
persuade Mr. Chase to extend his
contract beyond next season. A deal of some kind is close.
Mr. Chase said he went to France at the end of April not sure whether he
would end the series after the fourth
season. He spent about two weeks simply emptying his mind. The only time
the "Sopranos" intruded was every
Sunday night at 9.
HBO sent tapes of each of the final three episodes, Mr. Chase said, and
he watched at the same time in France
that he would have in America. "I just wanted to have the same
experience everyone else was having, even
though it was six hours earlier where I was," he said.
Then, several weeks into his vacation, the characters from "The
Sopranos" began to spill their way into his
thoughts again. He scheduled two hours each morning to work on ideas.
Mr. Chase says he develops the season
largely on the basis of where he sees each character going throughout
the 13-episode arc.
And if a contract extension is in the offing, does that not mean his arc
for the new season could not include a finale for Tony and his family?
"I had to think it out two ways," Mr. Chase said. "It was kind of
interesting."
Fans should not expect to see every hanging plot line tidied up. That
big Russian veteran from the war in
Chechnya, for example, who emerged from a car trunk and disappeared,
bleeding from a head wound, into the
snow of the New Jersey Pine Barrens is not lurking in Mr. Chase's
subconscious ready to exact revenge against
Tony's soldiers.
"I had no idea people would expect him to come back," Mr. Chase said. "I
just never thought about it. It was
just a spectacularly different kind of episode, and the Russian guy was
like something out of a fairy tale. Well, not a fairy tale exactly. He's
more like a spirit."
As he does with many of the show's best episodes, Mr. Chase sees "Pine
Barrens" as a kind of stand-alone
movie. "I'm much more interested in that than the connective tissue
between episodes."
For the same reason, the last scene for Tony's explosive car-dealer
girlfriend, Gloria, played by Annabella
Sciorra, was perhaps less definitive than some fans — and her character
— wanted. She was ushered out of
the series after a threat on her life delivered by one of Tony's
henchmen, who was subsequently seen driving
off with some groceries.
Mr. Chase said the point was to show a series of characters stepping
back into their normal lives. "Tony is
realizing what a good wife he has. And this guy who just said these
horrible things to this woman is going home to his wife with the
groceries. And Gloria realizes she's not going to have the
Götterdämerung death she's been imagining."
Some viewers also had been expecting that the man who brutally raped
Tony's psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi, would
have to be dealt with. Mr. Chase did not rule out his returning at some
point, but he emphasized that the rape
episode, one that drew much of the criticism about excessive violence
leveled at the show this season, was
about the moral dilemma it created for Dr. Melfi.
Dr. Melfi was shown resisting the temptation to tell Tony what happened
to her, a move that would guarantee a
violent end for the rapist. "In order for us to understand the
principled stance she takes, you have to see how brutally bad the rape
was," Mr. Chase said.
The criticism about violence reached its height after an episode in
which a prostitute was graphically beaten to death. That was the episode
chosen for discussion by Mr. Wright.
"I don't like, after a season is over, talking about the point of an
episode," Mr. Chase said. "But that was a
show about how fortunate some people are — and some people aren't."
Generally, Mr. Chase defended the show against charges of excessive
violence by saying the last four or five
episodes contained almost no violence. "It is a crime drama," he said.
"These are not nice people, for the most part."
The final episode drew some criticism of a different kind: some viewers
thought it ended the season more with
a whimper, than a bang — despite the mob killing of the unwise young
Jackie Aprile Jr.
Mr. Chase said he was surprised. "I thought it was a big finale," he
said. "To me the death of that kid was a
very big deal. I thought emotionally it was a very big show."
With plans in place for the new season, Mr. Chase said he was re-
energized about his show, though he said the
outsized attention it received in season three was daunting.
"I feel the pressure to do it again, very much so," he said. "We all
do."
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
Randy
Barrens" as a kind of stand-alone movie. "I'm much more interested in that than
the connective tissue between episodes." "
Thanks for telling us now. This is kind of shitty. It's a chronological series,
it's not an array of self contained sub-movies. I think as a sample audience
member, I can safely say that we expect the story to be contiguous.
--Randy
Fred Fowler
The "unwise" young Jackie Aprile Jr.? The Russian interior decorator
was, what, Little Red Riding Hood or Harvey or something?
Crow T Robot
He has been saying that in interviews *FOR-FREAKING-EVER* though!
Look at "College" and "The legend of Tennessee Malitsanti" - PURE
standalone chartacter studies. The benefit of being a series is that
the characters for each mini movie dont have to be redeveloped each
time.
It AINT "As the Soprano Turns"
I *do* think Chase is a bit daft to not have cought on yet as to
audience expectiations. He had the same "surprise" to fan reaction to
Big Pussy's disappearance near the end of S1. His view was "Pussy is
gone, so what?"
It was only AFTER the fans and media hyped it as a season
"cliffhanger" that they added and wove the storyline of BP being a rat
throughout S2.
I personally dont think the Russian think is a big deal: he was a
"Wussian Gween Bewet", so he managed to escape, big deal. No matter
his closeness with Slava, he is just as likely to leave town with a
powerful mob capo looking to whack him.
That said, if Chase wants to produce shows which *more* satisfying to
the fans as opposed to creating "art" primarily for his own amusement,
he should get a clue. The "surprised" gambit worked once, but not
twice.
Mike
great. Who knows, maybe next season with the cooperation of Sacks,
Pauly plans a move on Tony, but runs into that Russian Rambo on his
way. These open ended episodes give the writers more wiggle room and
thicken the plots. If Pauly get wacked by the Russian, Chris moves up,
but I'd sure hate to see Pauly go.
Here's another twist Pauly plans a move on Tony, but Tony saves Pauly
from the Russian and they make up. I can't wait till season 4.
On 17 Jul 2001 13:23:26 GMT, ra...@secretisp.com.no-spam (Randy)
wrote: