A quasi-documentary fiction to expose the structural failures of American society
There are police in the air. the daily District 31 just disappeared from the screens and the miniseries We Own This City appears there Monday on HBO at 9 p.m. (The city belongs to us, Super Ecran, Tuesday, 8 p.m.). To say that it is almost expected as the equivalent of the parousia on TV seems hardly an exaggeration.
This American production is led by screenwriters David Simon, George Pelecanos and Ed Burns, who have already given TheWire, considered one of the two or three best creations of the new golden age of TV. In fact, in the shared opinion of critics who are never wrong, this group portrait with cops is quite simply one of the most striking works of this beginning of the 21st century.and century. It doesn’t seem like a stretch at all to call it a masterpiece and whip out the feather dusters, the pomade, and the five stars all at the same time.
“The Wire” is not a crime thriller, but a quasi-journalistic analysis of crime as a social phenomenon. Ultimately, “The Wire” is less of a crime drama about law and order and more of a commentary on the consequences of capitalism.
“I think it’s one of the most important TV shows ever produced,” said Sherryl Vint, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, who specializes in media and cultural studies, in an interview. She wrote the essay TheWire (2013) in Wayne State University’s exciting TV Milestones collection, unfortunately without equivalent in French. She was interviewed before the screening of We Own This City reserved for journalists.
“Although I am curious to see the new production, I am convinced that TheWire retains its very special place in the history of television, continues Mme Came. […] This series is 20 years old now. Television has changed dramatically since then and many of the most positive changes have come from ways of doing TheWire. »
Everything fits
Bugged (the French name of the 60 episodes broadcast between 2002-2008) follows in a quasi-documentary way the investigations carried out on the trafficking of narcotics, women and politico-economic influences in Baltimore. Each of the five seasons dissects the crisis of a specific institution, including politics, school and the media. The complete panorama bears witness to an America in deep crisis.
The city belongs to us (the translation of the new miniseries) continues in this realistic and critical vein by turning the perspective on the police institution. The six episodes chronicle the investigation carried out by a branch of the United States Federal Department of Justice to expose the real and very shocking corruption organized by the Gun Trace Task Force, an elite group of the police of the same city of Baltimore , but in the 2010s. Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead) masterfully embodies the very detestable Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, chief ripou.
Everything holds together and connects. The story is inspired by the eponymous book by Justin Fenton, the Baltimore Sun, Court Affairs Reporter, a position formerly occupied by David Simon who had himself drawn inspiration from his own work to TheWire. Genealogical links are evident on all sides between the two series. Several actors from one are reused in the other, often in reversed roles. Jamie Hector, who played mobster Marlo Stanfield, winning competitor of the Barksdale Organization in Buggednow plays a detective.
The two productions also share a very particular and quite unique way of doing things on television. The most obvious, also the most promising, concerns the incessant exposure of the failures of the system, systemic racism, endemic poverty, organized repression, institutionalized corruption.
“ TheWire is not a crime thriller, but an almost journalistic analysis of crime as a social phenomenon”, writes Professor Vint in the introduction to her book. She also recalls that Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), David Simon’s very first series, was already intended as a fictional derivative of his journalistic work. “Ultimately, TheWire is less a crime drama about law and order and more a commentary on the consequences of capitalism,” she also wrote.
Critical TV
The specialist’s essay develops an assumed neo-Marxist perspective on cultural phenomena and society. In that it seeks to reveal and challenge power structures, but also to see social problems as the result of societal structures rather than pure individual choices. TheWire could itself be described as a production of critical theory interweaving the rational choices of social agents (including criminals) in a world where social structures fail to correct inequalities.
In any case, the contrasts are enormous with the usual detective series, including District 31. The ” police dramas » such as this focus mainly on the professional and personal lives of the agents, almost all of whom are inevitably presented as sympathetic heroes hunting down the outcasts of society. There are bad players among the law and order in this kind of classic portrayal of the police, but at the end of the exposition, basically, the system protects the upstanding citizen and the status quo in stalking the rascal.
“In most detective series, crime comes from immorality,” summarizes Professor Vint. In TheWire, crime emerges from inequalities. She adds that the focus on structural causes seems even more important in light of the accumulating ruptures, the financial crisis of 2008, growing inequalities, the impossibility of access to decent housing for more and more people. , the developing climate catastrophe.
“There are more and more series that criticize capitalism and its excesses, including wealth inequalities, adds cultural criticism. Succession is one of the best current series. She is interested in those who profit from the financialized economy while TheWire rather shows the ordinary people who suffer from the economic system. »
The way to Tea Wire to tell this story of the people from below stands out in an original way. Where detective series focus on solving cases that follow one another in single file, the story arc [dans
The pacing allows for focus on themes and character complexity rather than just plot development. The episodes add layers of understanding, but almost never end with a cliffhanger. Even the great investigation that occupies the entire second season of TheWire around the city port does not end with the arrest of the culprits.
We Own This City continues in the same vein, but introducing a spiral back and forth in time to compose his complete short portrait. The mechanic allows you to see the crooks in action as the federal investigators reveal their schemes. The result, captivating, although less strong than the overpowering original masterpiece, will still not disappoint the fans who await it like the return of a television messiah…