The final Episode: Sopranos -Spoilers Everywhere!

[jake_fink]

"Rod Serling Rule - When you write, whatever you write, never think your audience is any less intelligent than you are".

The Ezra Pound Rule: Make it new.

 

[jake_fink]

I am not sure how I feel about this argument.

Let me know.

 

[Dr Doran]

Let me know.

It may take some digestion, several weeks, and in years to come I may change my mind ... but ... I'll keep you posted ... it is an intelligent argument at the very least.

In fact, all these arguments have been quite good, and this may constitute the most intelligent exchange I have seen on the Lounge (aside from some of the masterful comebacks about muscle cars on "my" miso-1970s thread, ha ha).

As to the Euripides references: yes, he did really rewrite things, didn't he. I, along with Aristophanes, am much more a fan of Aeschylus than Euripides if they must be opposed -- and I think they should, as they are quite different, as anyone can see from analyzing their contrasting messages and treatment of the Orestes story. I do love Euripides, though.

But STILL there are commonalities in storytelling between even such polar opposites as Aeschylus and Euripides. Aristotle pretty much nailed all of it in Poetics which had the advantage, and vantage, of being written several generations after the furor had died down and after even Aristophanes' brilliant critique of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (in his Frogs) was long over. And yet, having said that, there are, still, really quite new ways of telling stories to be gleaned after all that. But ... I am not sure whether these new ways are really all that new. To end a story as abruptly as Chase did may be something that others have done. In which case it is not new but a pastiche of something else. Pastiche is old, after all, older than The Waste Land from the 1920s, written by Eliot, a protege of course of the Pound whom you quote above. An article in Harper's a few months ago discusses the border between pastiche and plagiarism; it is written by the fellow who wrote the utterly execrable Amnesia Moon, possibly the worst novel I have read in my life; but it makes good points and is itself a plagiarism/pastiche.

I hope you are not equating "tying with a ribbon neatly" with having a clearer narrative arc and resolution -- no, of course you are not, since you reference Shakespeare. Just checking. That would be a straw man argument and I know you wouldn't do that. As an immense lover of Rod Serling, I respect that quote -- but just as long as you are not conflating "respecting your audience's intellect" with "being willfully, egregiously obscure" which I don't think you are.

As for a show with a Greek chorus: the closest modern thing I can think of was the unwatchably disgusting prison TV rape drama, Oz. The black guy in the wheelchair served this function. The hideous scenes in the show were too much for me, though.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

Whatever happens next, violent or not, long and legal or whatever, is beyond our view. We have been violently removed from teh narrative, not Tony.

Well put!

 

[Mr. Lucky]

I

But STILL there are commonalities in storytelling between even such polar opposites as Aeschylus and Euripides. Aristotle pretty much nailed all of it in Poetics which had the advantage, and vantage, of being written several generations after the furor had died down and after even Aristophanes' brilliant critique of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (in his Frogs) was long over. And yet, having said that, there are, still, really quite new ways of telling stories to be gleaned after all that. But ... I am not sure whether these new ways are really all that new. To end a story as abruptly as Chase did may be something that others have done. In which case it is not new but a pastiche of something else. Pastiche is old, after all, older than The Waste Land from the 1920s, written by Eliot, a protege of course of the Pound whom you quote above. An article in Harper's a few months ago discusses the border between pastiche and plagiarism; it is written by the fellow who wrote the utterly execrable Amnesia Moon, possibly the worst novel I have read in my life; but it makes good points and is itself a plagiarism/pastiche.

I hope you are not equating "tying with a ribbon neatly" with having a clearer narrative arc and resolution -- no, of course you are not, since you reference Shakespeare. Just checking. That would be a straw man argument and I know you wouldn't do that. As an immense lover of Rod Serling, I respect that quote -- but just as long as you are not conflating "respecting your audience's intellect" with "being willfully, egregiously obscure" which I don't think you are.

As for a show with a Greek chorus: the closest modern thing I can think of was the unwatchably disgusting prison TV rape drama, Oz. The black guy in the wheelchair served this function. The hideous scenes in the show were too much for me, though.

The four women at the center of Euripides' Trojan Women are the same women that lament over the body of Hector in the Iliad! Yes, others have done what Chase did, BUT not in the medium of television. And that was the point of my post. He did for that particular venue what all those you mention above have done for their particular art during their particular time.

Not since the early days of TV, of LIVE TV, when television was still written in the form of PLAY, has the dramatic boundaries and mechanical conventions of the medium been pushed the way the Soprano's have done. Hell, even Clooney, in his film Good Night and Good Luck, and due to budgetary restraints, he resorted to trickery that was invented in the early days of TV! And the manner in which Chase would tell his story - dangling plot participles a many, no tidy endings, sometimes no resolution, deep moral ambiguity - that was not new, EXCEPT, for the modern box! And even then, only in the sense that he was one of the first to apply this to FILMED TV.

If you look back at some of the teleplays of the early days of TV (one that my grandfather wrote where Jackie Gleason plays a corrupt southern politician comes to mind) there were similar themes, ethics, ambiguity. The Soprano's, and its subsequent proginy, have learned from the masters - as did ALL the aforementioned - and then taken it to the next level. We start with a gangster and his ducks and end with a gangster and his family. But what happened in between was utterly wonderful - not new, per se, but new from whence it came. Chase took the a familiar medium, a genre piece with a familiar character, and turned it, and the manner of dramatic expostion, on its ear! Just like ol' Rip!

Oh, and you were right. I forgot about Oz. I'd still like to see a WHOLE chorus somewhere along the way. But it sure as hell ain't gonna work with Two and a Half Men!

 

[Dr Doran]

The four women at the center of Euripides' Trojan Women are the same women that lament over the body of Hector in the Iliad! Yes, others have done what Chase did, BUT not in the medium of television. And that was the point of my post. He did for that particular venue what all those you mention above have done for their particular art during their particular time.

Not since the early days of TV, of LIVE TV, when television was still written in the form of PLAY, has the dramatic boundaries and mechanical conventions of the medium been pushed the way the Soprano's have done. Hell, even Clooney, in his film Good Night and Good Luck, and due to budgetary restraints, he resorted to trickery that was invented in the early days of TV! And the manner in which Chase would tell his story - dangling plot participles a many, no tidy endings, sometimes no resolution, deep moral ambiguity - that was not new, EXCEPT, for the modern box! And even then, only in the sense that he was one of the first to apply this to FILMED TV.

If you look back at some of the teleplays of the early days of TV (one that my grandfather wrote where Jackie Gleason plays a corrupt southern politician comes to mind) there were similar themes, ethics, ambiguity. The Soprano's, and its subsequent proginy, have learned from the masters - as did ALL the aforementioned - and then taken it to the next level. We start with a gangster and his ducks and end with a gangster and his family. But what happened in between was utterly wonderful - not new, per se, but new from whence it came. Chase took the a familiar medium, a genre piece with a familiar character, and turned it, and the manner of dramatic expostion, on its ear! Just like ol' Rip!

Oh, and you were right. I forgot about Oz. I'd still like to see a WHOLE chorus somewhere along the way. But it sure as hell ain't gonna work with Two and a Half Men!

Good points!

 

[Mr. Lucky]

Good points!

And..?

(Hey, I'm gettin' into this!)

 

[Twitch]

There were far to many events, characters and relationships that unfolded over several years for any resolution to be had in one script.

The way the camera shot certain people in the restaurant that Tony was alegedly looking at was done many times before in other episodes as well as other programs. It is simply a technique of illustrating who and what a character is visually focusing on. Tony and his crones often paid attention to their surroundings as any streetwise criminals or cops would do.

If you are writing an ending where there is no harm or foul how does the director portray that on film? Must he add a non-sequetar text line as it fades to black "and they lived happily ever after."?

The usual cop out cinematic technique to tell a long term projection past the ending is the ubiquitos text explanation routine.

"Tony was shot by the NY mob 2 weeks later"
"Carmella became a millionaire in real estate"
"AJ joined the Army and was killed in Iraq"
"Meadow married Senator Jack and moved to Washington"

But what about Pauly, Sal and all the others? Can't have a laundry list of "what happened" scrolling by.

If anyone remembers the long-running NYPD Blue Andy Sipowitz was sitting alone in the office doing banal paper work which is typical of what cops mostly do. They didn't feel compelled to explain what happend after the fade to black. It was an illustration of the repetative ongoing life that would continue to unfold. They didn't kill Andy in a scene with a robber or show him have a heart attack or show him retiring to Florida.

It simply ended portraying a day like any other as did the Sopranos.[huh]

 

[reetpleat]

Actually, in terms of the television narrative, Chase shattered the rules, shuffled the pieces around and came up with a whole new set! It's a whole new ball-game now. Look at Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck, Deadwood (RIP) and the new batch - they all use the Soprano's structure and hyper-reality as their starting point and go from there.

I strongly disagree. The Sopranos was good, but it ws good for it's traditional story telling. He used some creative devices, but at it's heart was character development, conflict, emotion and the big issues of life death family morality and dreams. He used great techniques to put across traditional storytelling.

THat is why I do not feel the ending was effective. His form outperformed the function for lack of a better way to put it.

 

[reetpleat]

There were far to many events, characters and relationships that unfolded over several years for any resolution to be had in one script.

The way the camera shot certain people in the restaurant that Tony was alegedly looking at was done many times before in other episodes as well as other programs. It is simply a technique of illustrating who and what a character is visually focusing on. Tony and his crones often paid attention to their surroundings as any streetwise criminals or cops would do.

If you are writing an ending where there is no harm or foul how does the director portray that on film? Must he add a non-sequetar text line as it fades to black "and they lived happily ever after."?

The usual cop out cinematic technique to tell a long term projection past the ending is the ubiquitos text explanation routine.

"Tony was shot by the NY mob 2 weeks later"
"Carmella became a millionaire in real estate"
"AJ joined the Army and was killed in Iraq"
"Meadow married Senator Jack and moved to Washington"

But what about Pauly, Sal and all the others? Can't have a laundry list of "what happened" scrolling by.

If anyone remembers the long-running NYPD Blue Andy Sipowitz was sitting alone in the office doing banal paper work which is typical of what cops mostly do. They didn't feel compelled to explain what happend after the fade to black. It was an illustration of the repetative ongoing life that would continue to unfold. They didn't kill Andy in a scene with a robber or show him have a heart attack or show him retiring to Florida.

It simply ended portraying a day like any other as did the Sopranos.[huh]

Firstly, I always think it is funny when they end a fiction that way. If it is a true story, then it makes sense. But a fiction has no future for the people. I agree it would be wrong to end this way.

But I would argue that this is tony's story. All the other characters come and go. But Tony's story should have some resolution. And again, what is the whole point of him seeing a shrink and having panick attacks and self reflection if he never changes or makes a conscious choice. It becomes a wasted plot device.

Thirdly though, i think that if you want to end it as we came in, just anothe day with the assumption that life goes on, then why the black ending. It would be a fade out with interesting music. I would not object to that ending. But why an ending that suggests something, but doesn't tell us what.

If there was a definite ending and we had to sift through the cules and eventually get it, that would be fun. If it were season finale where we had to wait till next year to find out wht really happened, again that would work. BUt to end it with a suggestion of something happening, but not telling us, or leaving each of us to end it our own way? Does not work for me. Sure I oculd make up an ending. But why?

 

[reetpleat]

For the record, I am glad Phil got it. I could not imagine that he would not get it in the end.

They could have ended it with Tony explaining how now he is in the witness protection program and is a high school football coach. Or maybe a heating and air conditioning salesman.

 

[Dr Doran]

Great points. I gotta confess, each time I read one of these elaborately and elegantly worked out explanations I feel the person has convinced me. Then I read another, diametrically opposite, and that one seems convincing too. I think I am going to call the ending "polyvalent" (yucky Berkeley literary term) and leave it at that. It's been real, gents.

 

[Dr Doran]

They could have ended it with Tony explaining how now he is in the witness protection program and is a high school football coach. Or maybe a heating and air conditioning salesman.

NO. Too pathetic. Can't do that.

 

[Mr. Lucky]

From Tony, hisselfs -

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr...sion/news/e3i8dd038cdff79097b11cd2b3b387f1df4

 

[Twitch]

lol Hey Reatpleet that made me think, Animal House ended with a text summary of what happened to the characters too.

As Tony might say "There was definetely a freakin ending whether youse liked it or not! The freakin thing ended didn't it? Whaddaya gonna do?"[huh]

 

[reetpleat]

lol Hey Reatpleet that made me think, Animal House ended with a text summary of what happened to the characters too.

As Tony might say "There was definetely a freakin ending whether youse liked it or not! The freakin thing ended didn't it? Whaddaya gonna do?"[huh]

That is exactly waht I was thinking of when I wrote it. It is the only movie I ever thought it worked in because it was kind of a joke to treat them as real characters with funny futures. But to do it in serious fiction is odd.

Saw a story from the Onion about a crazed fan putting a hit on James Gandolphini

I guess that sums it up. "What are you gonna do?"

 

[Dr Doran]

Latest NYRB, hot off the press, still steamin' from my mailbox, has article on Sopranos:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20473