The Sopranos

TV Milestones

Series Editors

TV Milestones is part of the Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series

A complete listing of the books in this series can be found online at wsupress.wayne.edu.

General Editor

Barry Keith Grant

Brock University

Advisory Editors

Robert J. Burgoyne

University of St. Andrews

Caren J. Deming

University of Arizona

Patricia B. Erens

School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Peter X. Feng

University of Delaware

Lucy Fischer

University of Pittsburgh

Frances Gateward

California State University, Northridge

Tom Gunning

University of Chicago

Thomas Leitch

University of Delaware

Walter Metz

Southern Illinois University

THE SOPRANOS

Gary R. Edgerton

TV MILESTONES SERIES

Wayne State University Press

Detroit

© 2013 by Wayne State University Press,

Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

17 16 15 14 13                   54321

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Edgerton, Gary R. (Gary Richard), 1952–

The Sopranos / Gary R. Edgerton.

p. cm. — (TV milestones series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8143-3406-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) —

1. Sopranos (Television program) I. Title.

PN1992.77.S66E46 2013

791.45’72—dc23

2012029895

ISBN 978-0-8143-3852-0 (ebook)

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Introduction: Backstory: Breaking Omertà

1. Game Changer: The Role of The Sopranos in the Resurgence of HBO

2. Cinematic Television: The Education of David Chase

3. Disorganized Crime: Living Large in the Suburbs

4. Situation Tragedy: A Midlife Crisis for the Gangster Genre

Conclusion: Strategic Ambiguity: The Sopranos’ Aftereffect

WORKS CITED

SUBJECT INDEX

TELEVISION SERIES INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Let me begin by thanking editors Barry Keith Grant, Jeannette Sloniowski, and everyone at Wayne State University Press for creating the TV Milestones series, which is more inclusive in expanding the existing purview of similar book series from various publishers devoted only to significant motion pictures. TV Milestones filled a discernable gap in the scholarly literature with its inaugural entry, Jay Telotte’s Disney TV, in 2004. Thanks as well to acquisitions editor Annie Martin for her genial patience and encouragement in shepherding along this particular volume on The Sopranos. She and assistant acquisition editor Kristina Stonehill have been continually supportive, professional, and delightful to work with throughout the long gestation process and production of this book.

When considering The Sopranos, there are arguably more books and articles that have appeared via the academic and popular presses on this program since its debut than on any other TV milestone that has been covered in this series so far. As a result, I want to express my immense debt of gratitude to the many talented scholars who have already published on The Sopranos, especially Regina Barreca, Frédéric Foubert, Glen Gabbard, Richard Greene, David Lavery, Florent Loulendo, Horace Newcomb, Martha Nochimson, Dana Polan, Thomas Prasch, William Siska, Robert Thompson, David Thorburn, Peter Vernezze, and Maurice Yacowar, whose volumes and essays have helped me enormously as I researched, thought through the topic, and wrote this monograph. I hope that this concise volume serves as a complement to their earlier groundbreaking work.

I also want to heartily thank those colleagues who invited me to present some of the ideas found herein at various symposia. First off, "The Sopranos: A Wake," organized and hosted by David Lavery, Douglas Howard, Paul Levinson, and Al Auster in late May 2008, was a wonderful opportunity to discuss the series with a wide range of American and European researchers and writers, along with legal and law enforcement practitioners, including Kim Akass, Glen Creeber, Jason Jacobs, Janet McCabe, Robin Nelson, Sean O’Sullivan, Steven Peacock, Jimmie Reeves, Ron Simon, and Frank Tomasulo, among others.

Thanks also to John Tibbetts and Tamara Falicov for asking me to deliver the featured address at the 13th Annual University of Kansas Graduate Film and Media Symposium in Lawrence, Kansas, in mid-February 2010. I greatly benefited from the thoughtful conversations with faculty and graduate students during that two-day meeting. Likewise, I am deeply grateful to Marjolaine Boutet and Sandra Laugier for inviting me to give the keynote lecture at the opening session of the Séries d’elite, culture populaire: le cas HBO Conference sponsored by the Graduate School of Social Science and Humanities at Université de Picardie Jules Verne, which was held at the Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po at the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris in early June 2010. It was a wonderful gathering that allowed me to learn more about French perspectives on The Sopranos and other recent American television dramas from the numerous scholars and critics who attended that symposium.

Finally, I taught two courses on the gangster in film and television in 2009 and 2011 at Old Dominion University, and I thank my undergraduate and graduate students in those classes for their spontaneous enthusiasm and sharp insights on the subject. Last but not least, I express my deepest appreciation to my wife, Nan, and daughters Katherine and Mary Ellen, who have watched and discussed many episodes of The Sopranos with me over the years. As always, I thank them for their spirited observations and the pleasure of their company. I dedicate this book to them with all my love.

Introduction

Backstory: Breaking Omertà

The Sopranos gave the lie to the notions that you had to explain everything, that you always had to have a star in the lead, that everybody had to be ultimately likeable, that there had to be so-called closure, that there was a psychological lesson to be learned [and] a moral at the center that you should carry away from the show . . . The networks had essentially thrown in the towel on good drama. It’s like changing the direction of an ocean liner. But The Sopranos did it.

Allen Coulter, director of twenty-seven Sopranos episodes (The Family Hour 222)

American TV fundamentally changed after the premiere of The Sopranos in 1999. There is certainly a before and an after to television in the United States and internationally when considering this series. The Sopranos is among the most celebrated programs in TV history, having been chosen the fifth greatest TV show of all time and the highest ranking drama by TV Guide in May 2002; and the top television drama of all time by the Guardian newspaper in January 2010 (Editors of TV Guide, 2002, 22; Banks-Smith et al.). Stephen Holden of the New York Times famously wrote in an early review that "The Sopranos, more than any American television in memory, looks, feels, and sounds like real life . . . it just may be the greatest work of American popular culture of the last quarter century" (23). Three months after the telecast of the final episode, Time TV critic James Poniewozik added: "To get a sense of how The Sopranos changed TV, get a pen and make a list of the 20 best TV dramas before 1999. That list will likely include Magnum P.I." (September 2007).

Suffice it to say, The Sopranos is widely recognized in both popular and scholarly literature as an influential milestone in the history and development of TV drama. It delivered on the oldest and most high-minded aspirations of the medium, which declared that television could be at once artistic and profitable, complex and engaging, edifying and entertaining. More than a half-century after the first stirrings of prime-time drama, The Sopranos jump-started the aesthetic, narrative, and generic potential of TV to new and even greater heights. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott recently asked, "Over the past decade, how many films have approached the moral complexity of The Sopranos? He further posited that the traditional relationship between film and television has reversed, as American movies have become conservative and cautious, while scripted series, on both broadcast networks and cable, are often more daring, topical and willing to risk giving offense" (35). Whether one agrees with this basic assertion or not, the conventional hierarchy that always placed motion pictures above TV is no longer an assumption taken for granted in the post-Sopranos media culture.

The Sopranos was created by David Chase, a journeyman writer, producer, and director of such notable prime-time series as The Rockford Files (1974–1980, NBC), Almost Grown (1988–1989, CBS), Northern Exposure (1990–1995, CBS), and I’ll Fly Away (1991–1993, NBC). At varying times, Chase even functioned as the showrunner on the latter three series, which means that he was responsible for the daily management and creative directions taken on these programs. Still, nothing in his résumé hinted at the possibility that he would ever create and become the executive producer, head writer, and showrunner on a television milestone like The Sopranos, a series with an impact that would be felt across several different but interrelated contexts, including business and industry, TV aesthetics and generic transformation, and cultural reach and influence. The Sopranos burst onto the scene as HBO’s biggest hit in terms of audience numbers, instant profits by way of increased subscriptions, and widespread critical accolades. Chase’s success elevated the status of showrunners that in turn transformed cable television. Chase’s experience of realizing "his vision only by going to cable—had now become the model of how cable TV worked in the post-Sopranos era" (Weinman 49–50).

David Chase hardly entertained such improbable fantasies of industrial and institutional success when he began writing a theatrical spec script entitled The Sopranos in 1994 in the hopes of attracting financing, a script he then adapted for television in 1995. His sponsoring production company, Brillstein-Grey, pitched the property to the broadcast networks, being "first turned down