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Melvyn Bragg on The Sopranos - Radio Times, February 2002 |
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As the South Bank Show tackled The Sopranos, Melvyn Bragg explained what makes the US hit series the equal of classic British dramas.
"The great fascination of
The Sopranos for me is
that it gives the Mafia a
human face for the first time. I am
not sure they deserve it, but it is
compelling stuff.
[Creator] David Chase had a high-class
pedigree as a writer and director
for television - The Rockford Files
is just one example - before he
finally wrestled more than a
dozen doubts to the ground and
after more than ten years made
the first two episodes of The
Sopranos. I'm certain he was
telling me the truth when he said
that no one involved thought
it had the slightest chance of
moving on to episode three.
All the big networks had turned
it down. It was going to cable.
Success? Ratings? Forget it.
Shooting (a word used with
care in this context) is now under
way for series four. The Sopranos
has gone from being an instant
cult to the biggest cable hit ever
seen on American television. In
the USA it is what is now called
"appointment viewing". People
have parties around the showing
of [it]. Here, too, its
devotees are dizzily enraptured,
reminding me of the buzz
around old classic series such
as The Forsyte Saga.
The Sopranos has qualities as
fine as the very best of British
television. Scripts are worked on
and nagged at time and time
again by good writers -
often they run to 15 drafts.
Locations are
scrupulously scented out,
castings are as careful as
can be afforded - the
programme is not
highly budgeted, and is
as tight a ship today as it was
in the early days, though the cast's
pay has certainly zoomed.
It's not difficult to analyse what
intrigues about The Sopranos.
A Mafia boss runs two families,
both of whose circumstances
follow the patterns and worries of
middle-class America. But one
"family" kills people and runs
rackets, and the one at home is as
much of a front as Tony Soprano's
string of shady business ventures.
There is a degree of normality,
quite unlike the classic Godfather
films - which is weird in the
circumstances. Not as weird,
though, as the Mafia boss with his
culture of silence and lies going to
an analyst, with her culture of
openness and truth.
Add the
mother who wants her son,
the boss, to be killed, and the
Mafia wife who cooks and
nurtures as per stereotype but also
leads her own spiritual and leisure
life, and put it in an ostensibly
unglamorous part of America,
and you have the ingredients of
a compelling drama.
But what makes it really
work? Why are you sympathetic
to Tony Soprano one minute
and loathing him the next?
That's much more difficult.
And that's what makes The
Sopranos sing."
**
Now take a look at our full guide to The Sopranos.
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