The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

eh its okay I was just perplexed at what you were getting at. (Again, I haven't seen the Wire yet)

"i dunno, i feel like 90% of the characters on the wire are more interesting/strong as carmela or livia"

In this case, I think strong = developed.

and both shows use changes in criminal behavious as an analogue for changes in capitalism

^^ the reason i love the wire and only like the sopranos is due to the structure of both 'businesses'. talking about the drug game, you can't help but deal with the nature of capital cos it's a parody of a business ('buy for one, sell for two'). your customer is degraded and addicted but the methods run in parallel to real business ('i may be just a gangster i guess -- but i want those fuckin corners')

the mafia system is pre-capitalst, it's basically feudalism. the sopranos' money was always vague. i guess in one sense it left the show 'free' to dig into family and psychology and all that stuff. i've said all this before somewhere, probably on this thread.

the wire never had any fucking dream sequences either

other boring shit about dads: the Bible, Hamlet, etc.

Both about sons, surely?

I'm not doing the comedy being-a-dick thing anymore, but part of my Sopranos issue is that despite loads of watching it I never really felt like it was about anything, or about anything that wasn't sort of mundane and badly captured; I tended to feel like it was just telegraphing Great Dramatic Significance and self-seriousness atop drama that was actually quite conventional, even hackneyed, and difficult for me to care about or even relate to due to the weight of Great Dramatic Significance being loaded onto it.

people spend a third of their lives dreaming, y'know

dreiser is not a modernist, so no fkn way.

sopranos is kind of "postmodern" in that it makes big references to godfather/goodfellas.

but 'the wire' is straight-up pre-modernist storytelling. as is 'the sopranos' really.

I mean there isn't one character in the Wire who gets as much screen time as Carmela gets. Her arc is a centerpiece of the entire show. Maybe McNulty gets that kind of development in the Wire, but he's basically the only one and the entire fourth season basically ignores him.

they're both great shows and "which has better characters" is a pointless argument. for me it boils down to the wire's journalistic realism style vs. the sopranos' more personal, idiosyncratic and IMO more artistically accomplished approach and i will probably always lean towards the latter.

yeah, enrique is right. lol dickensian aspect, but i would compare the wire formally to the nineteenth century realist novel + to shakespeare.

horseshoe otm about everything in this thread

the different characters don't get as much on screen time as Carmela, sure. i agree with that

the wire never had any fucking dream sequences either

― kuntrie/hardrock-tributes (goole), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:28 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ultimately this is all you really gotta say

esp re: this

i maintain that the Wire is more generous emotionally because it loves its characters and it's okay with the viewer loving its characters, but that is based on a comparison with, like, three episodes of the Sopranos, so i don't really know what i'm talking about.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:20 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

Kima would be the exception, and maybe this is bullshit of me, but it seemed to me that it was easier for the creators to write her because she's a lesbian.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:23 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha horseshoe on the money with life in general

the wire isn't really journalistic realism!

xpost ade, your post about not finding the sopranos characters human is basically what i've been stealing all through this thread.

aw you guys. <3

the mafia system is pre-capitalst, it's basically feudalism. the sopranos' money was always vague.

this is an interesting point - but I think there's a number of situations where its made clear how they make their money (like when they "bust out" the Scatino guy's sports store). It isn't about a product, its about predatory behavior, pure and simple. They find someone gullible enough to get involved, and then they take everything. Its not really capitalist in that there's no market forces involved, beyond maybe competition between the crews/families.

x-post

the wire isn't really journalistic realism!

no but that's it's "style"

i've only watched seasons 1-4 of the wire, so maybe i'm setting myself up, but the last episode of the sopranos was some straight up i don't know how to end this, so it's gonna end all weird Don't Stop Believin/onion ring/dream sequence bullshit. i don't see how the end of the wire could be any worse

btw i dont think you have to hate one to prefer the other! anyone writing off the sopranos for dumb reasons like it's about mobsters or it has dream sequences is really missing out!

Seriously, though, post-being-a-dick, if anyone can explain to me better than the countless slavering articles over the years what the meat of the Sopranos was, beyond a run-of-the-mill family-and-work drama about people who happened to be really unpleasant, I would appreciate it in a seeking-to-understand-not-argue kind of way

it's about the drug trade in baltimore

season 5 is worse than the previous 4, but i maintain that the end of season 5 recovers and i cried like 5000 times in the last two episodes.

xpost to Que

it's gonna end all weird Don't Stop Believin/onion ring/dream sequence bullshit

so wrong

so wrong

how was that a good ending of a TV show?

...

what the meat of the Sopranos was

its about a man who corrupts and/or destroys everyone he comes into contact with. Like Le Strada.

oh yeah, let's have THIS conversation

what kind of question is that? you think all shows should end with a 20-minute montage sending off the characters?

Bobby 'Bacala' Baccalieri: I mean, our line of work, it's always out there. You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?

hey i'm just saying, i'd love for someone to try and explain it to me

yeah everything Bubbles related in s5 is like niagara falls for me

i <3 s1ocki

The idea that the Sopranos would have been better if it ended with them going "TONY IS DEAD, LOOK HERE COMES THE RUSSIAN FROM SERIES 3 WITH A GUN AND HE CAPS HIM! AWESOME!" is fantastically wrong-headed.

The idea that the Sopranos would have been better if it ended with them going "TONY IS DEAD, LOOK HERE COMES THE RUSSIAN FROM SERIES 3 WITH A GUN AND HE CAPS HIM! AWESOME!" is fantastically wrong-headed.

That's not what I'm saying.

yes it is... admit it

its about a man who corrupts and/or destroys everyone he comes into contact with

Okay, I like this, and will keep it in mind if I ever rewatch any of the series, though I can't escape the feeling that everyone he comes into contact with is already corrupted before the start of episode 1

xpost - I don't think that's what Que is suggesting in the least

actually it is... admit it

Yeah you get to watch him corrupt them FURTHER though!

For 70 + hours! WOO HOO!

ending of sopranos = total "hey dudes this is a TV show, get over it" among many, many other things. it's great!

to me the sopranos is basically about family & depression & the way people relate and the way that fundamentally people do and don't (more often the latter) change. the commentary on capitalism, the american way, business etc is there but it's not REALLY what the show is about. its lens is really different than the wire's... so much that comparing them is kind of apples and oranges, you end up comparing subject matter and not the art itself, which to me is kind of a dead-end.

i think the ending David Chase served up after all that time we spent with Tony and Carmella was a weak cop out. i loved the 2nd to last episode with AJ and the pool and the fire and stuff. but the last episode, and the last sequence in particular just rubbed me the wrong way. and no, russian flashback mobsters and/or montages are not what i'm suggesting either

smart people defending the sopranos in this thread have made me kind of want to watch it now. i love edie falco.

the wire is my jesus, though.

everyone he comes into contact with is already corrupted before the start of episode 1

No. DR. MELFI duh. He corrupts his children, for another example (at the beginning AJ doesn't even know he's in the mafia). He ruins Artie Bucco, who up to then has been a hapless civilian resterateur. He corrupts/kills/otherwise ruins multiple characters who are introduced throughout the show. Tony draws everyone into his web and makes them all complicit in a whole host of horrible things by virtue of their casual greed, their gullibility, or their desire to be like him/live vicariously through him (ie, Melfi, or Christopher). Its about the banality of evil and how its enabled by all kinds of little innocuous compromises and self-centered behavior.

ending of sopranos = total "hey dudes this is a TV show, get over it" among many, many other things. it's great!

― ryan, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 17:43 (32 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"That's the question I get asked more than any other. It drives people crazy: 'Where's the Russian? What happened to the Russian?' We could say, 'Well, he got out and there's a big mob war with the Russians,' or 'He crawled off and died.' But we wanted to keep it ambiguous. You know, not everything gets answered in life. They shot a guy. Who knows where he went? Who cares about some Russian? This is what Hollywood has done to America. Do you have to have closure on every little thing? Isn't there any mystery in the world? It's a murky world out there. It's a murky life these guys lead. And by the way, I do know where the Russian is. But I'll never say because so many people got so pissy about it."

i find the failure of change, and redemption of any sort, to be immensely crushing in the Sopranos. in it's way it's incredibly dark.

god i love that "i do know where the Russian is"...that's hilarious!