Just watched this two-part HBO documentary. Would highly recommend to anybody who enjoyed the tv show. Some fascinating insights to the characters and how David’s own experiences growing up shaped so many of the memorable moments in the show.
Great casting footage too; seems everyone in the show went for completely different parts originally!
I never realised the impact playing Tony had on James Gandolfini, which is also covered.
Warning: it does make you want to watch the entire thing all over again!
Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos
Absolutely loved this. And the ending genuinely made me LOL
Wonderful doc – watched in one sitting last weekend
Ending of the doc was almost as audacious as the series’ own
Was thinking about the show a few days before in a week when the Graun used the word ‘masterpiece’ in the headlines for their reviews of at least two and possibly three new TV shows.
I’m in the process of re-watching and currently on the final series. Will watch the documentary once I’m finished. I’m enjoying it even more second time around. I find myself empathising and almost liking some of the characters only to be brutally reminded how repulsive they are.
Sounds brilliant. It’s on Sky I think so I can’t watch it.
@Twang
You can get easy-to-cancel month-long subs to Sky’s streaming service pretty cheaply.
86 eps so two months should sort you out
I meant the doc. I’ve got The Sopranos on dvd and have watched it about 5 times! I’m due a rewatch!
Same applies to the doc. You may even be able get a seven-day
free trial.
Seen it several times myself but not since leaving HK in 2013.
Fave episode would have to be Paulie’s session at the spiritualist.
I know some people say The Wire, but for me The Sopranos is the GOAT
Completely agree. The Wire is quite inconsistent and the last series is weak. Mad Men is a rival I think though for me The Sopranos is the GOAT.
So, did Tony die?
For a long time I thought the idea that DC wanted viewers to come away from the last episode with was that Tony was doomed to spend the rest of his life not knowing if the next person who “came through the door” was going to be his killer.
I later read an incredible scene-by-scene breakdown of the entire episode that made a good case for him dying after all. Will try and see if I still have it somewhere and will post if I can find it..
One measure of DC’s genius is that he made us viewers invest so much in such a terrible person, neither he nor we could bear to see him get whacked.
Perfect ending to a perfect show
Here’s the piece I mentioned earlier
https://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/
While far shorter, DC”s explanation of what actually happened at the end of the show in the documentary is actually 100% accurate
Out of that HBO run, Rome and Deadwood are up there.
Screening a year or two before DC’s masterpiece, Oz was the John the Baptist of TV’s second Golden Age. Like the Wire (and indeed JTB), lost its head and fell away towards the end
Deadwood was great, until the feature length “finale”, tacked on and several years later.
Paulie’s session at the spiritualist is a comedy masterpiece. But seeing that clip in the doc, I realised much of what the medium was saying seemed to be “accurate” hence Paulie freaking out. That hadn’t registered really before, I’d always been distracted by Tony Sirico’s priceless eye-popping fury.
Despite his all-round awfulness, Paula W was probably my favourite character after T.
The episode near the end where the two of them are on the boat and Paulie was convinced he would be whacked was another cracker.
Paulie was always my favourite too. His reaction in the episode where Finn tells the boys about seeing Vito and the security guard is an absolute classic, “I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the heart!” and “How much more betrayal can I take?” That’s not to mention the Pine Barrens episode where he and Christopher lose the presumed dead Russian. That’s as good as TV gets.
Sopranos is on Now TV too. Actually, Now is quite good, lots of stuff that probably started on Sky, which I’ve never had.
Now is the same as Sky but cheaper as you don’t need a set top box
My daughter pays for it*,wanted to watch Game of Thrones.
*By which I mean I pay indirectly.
She’ll want her money back for the awful last season