'Sopranos' Creator Whacks His Audience
Filed under: Media
David Chase "sends a message" to his fans.
LUCY NICHOLSON/AFP/Getty Images/Finally breaking the Omerta on the controversial ending of his Emmy-winning series, Sopranos creator David Chase labeled his audience "pathetic" this week.
As you may recall, a lot of people were left confused and/or unfulfilled by the final scene, which quickly cut to black without a clear resolution to the major storylines of the show's six seasons. Now, for the record, I was among the fans who loved the way the series wrapped up. The Monday after the finale aired was my first day at the BPP -- and I was the only staffer (out of four at the time) who liked the way things ended. I thought it was powerful, nerve-wracking and demonstrated some serious stugotz. I applauded it as pop art that avoided a more predictable bloodbath or witness protection program epilogue.
Today, I renounce my defense of the Sopranos denouement.
A new coffee table tome, "The Sopranos: The Complete Book" hits the shelves this week, and in it Chase finally addresses his audience's reactions to the last episode. According to the AP, Chase says, "There are no esoteric clues in there. No 'Da Vinci Code.'" And although he says it's "just great" that people tried to pick the episode apart for clues, "most of them, most of us, should have done this kind of thing in high school English class and didn't."
Yikes. Chase disses his audience simply because we presumed he had a meaningful vision. That's pretty shaky ground for an artist to walk on. He always wanted credit for making The Sopranos a higher form of television, yet ultimately he recoils at honest analysis, something any good work of art should invite. Chase continues:
"It's one thing to be deeply involved with a television show. It's another to be so involved that all you do is sit on a couch and watch it. It seemed that those people were just looking for an excuse to be pissed off. They wanted 'justice.' They wanted to see his [Tony's] brains splattered on the wall. I thought that was disgusting, frankly...The pathetic thing to me was how much they wanted his blood, after cheering him on for eight years."
Not only is this just plain mean, it also demonstrates a lousy understanding of psychology. People didn't want Tony to die because of bloodlust. They wanted an ending that gave some meaning and impact to an otherwise perplexing final episode. This is the audience that any artist should want--dedicated, intelligent and heavily invested. These are the same people who were able to overlook six seasons of meandering dialogue, frequently terrible acting and monotonous subplots, because they believed that the show was going somewhere. Yet, after years of cashing checks and stacking Emmys, Chase shows nothing but disdain for his viewers by suggesting that all they do is "sit on a couch."
Paradoxically, Chase seems to fancy himself quite the auteur. In the new book, he discusses his process very seriously. He says the ending was imagined long ago, but he doesn't say why or what it means. In fact, he spends a lot of time discussing what the ending wasn't, but sheds no real light on what it was. Apparently, Chase felt strongly about the high artistic merit of the choices he made, but his distaste for honest discussion of those choices is equally strong. In my book, he was on far better footing when he was saying nothing. His attitude forces us to assume that either the ending was arbitrary and meaningless, or that we are too stupid to understand the master's vision.
The latter is a tough sell, coming from the guy who cast a mafia capo with the guitarist from the E-street Band.
12:03 PM ET | 10-25-2007 | permalink
