Have you seen The Sopranos ? So what is the story behind this fabulous TV series that was launched just 25 years ago and is constantly praised as one of the best in the world?
The common, obvious answer is that the production tells the tumultuous life of the head of a New Jersey mafia clan, Tony Soprano (fabulous James Gandolfini), in therapy with a shrink to treat his anxieties. That’s already a lot and it’s very attractive. The pros of art and culture speak of a ” high concept » to describe this kind of strong and flagship idea, immediately catchy and therefore easily monetizable.
But is that really “only” that? Once we get past the scams, murders and betrayals galore, once we remember that this group portrait exposes an immoral America obsessed with money, by decanting the production, according to the father of this fabulous creation, to pure sugar, we are in fact left with a rather banal story concerning the relationship of a complicated middle-aged man with his twisted old mother, this shedding a lot of light on that.
The key to reading emerges very early and is constantly evoked in the two-part documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos dedicated to the television monument. The David Chase in question is the creator, the screenwriter and the show runner of the Soprano. He’s from New Jersey. His mother was of Italian descent. Above all, she was mean as a moth.
Wounded animals can be dangerous, and Mr. Chase’s mother had been deeply abused by her father, her husband, and the men around her, who were ultimately just as evil as Tony…
“Remothering”
“For years everyone was telling me to write something about my mother,” confides the TV man. “I began to understand that what I was doing with The Sopranosit was sort of “remothering” me. What I was writing with the therapist was to give myself a new mother. And most certainly that’s what Tony is doing. He needs a surrogate mom because his real mother is downright crazy…”
David Chase has since enriched the perspective by recounting Tony Soprano’s childhood in the film The Many Saints of Newark (2021), in which Michael Gandolfini, James’ son, played Tony as a teenager. And what adds even more Freudian weight, David Chase delivers, in the documentary series, reflections and confidences in the setting of the office of psychologist Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco). The very same one where she receives Tony in The Sopranos.
The mafioso consults her because he suffers from panic attacks. In the long run, the shrink puts her finger on the source of his twisted relationships with the women around him. “You think I embody everything your wife and mother lack,” sums up the DD Melfi to her patient in another powerful scene cited in the documentary.
There are plenty of others. You have to have seen the production to appreciate this long insight, especially since spoilers abound. But whoever knows the admirable thing will be royally served.
David Chase and his writers lift the veil on their creative process, which required hours and hours of group discussion to glean anecdotes to insert into the series while producing countless “waste”, more or less clichéd ideas rejected in favor of the sought-after narrative gems. The group portrait emerges from the audition tapes of actors who hoped to get one of the main roles, from the confidences of those, often unknown until then, who hit the jackpot with the mega-success. We are even treated to the eulogy delivered by David Chase at the funeral of James Gandolfini, who died in 2013, in Rome, at the age of 51.
The revelations reach their climax at the end of the second part, when the delicate problem of the much-discussed ending of the Soprano is approached. David Chase, who himself shot the pilot and the final episode entitled “ Made in America »provides crucial explanations for understanding his work. He is obviously talking about the black screen suddenly cutting off the last scene, one of the most discussed and criticized endings in the history of screen fiction. We then learn, with supporting sequences, that the final shots are partly inspired by the end of the film 2001: A Space Odysseynothing less. David Chase also points to a perhaps key scene where the two Soprano children discuss the symbols of death. You have to see what follows to appreciate the meaning of this quote…