The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

trixie's use of cursing seemed oddly forced to me and overdone. but I loved the dialogue for the most part.

Ok, so I've been watching The Sopranos in order because I'd only ever seen the occasional episode and hadn't seen it properly and this thread reminded me I needed to see it all. It's not as good as The Wire, because of all the stupid dream sequences etc. but up until the end of season 2, it's still almost perfect. And then, without knowing, the start of season 3 is fucking odd. The pacing is all wrong, the storyline just seems rehashed (oh, so another person not as important as tony but still important is more ruffless and crazy and seems unsure of tony's position etc) and most importantly, the livia episode! I never knew what had happened (spoiler: .............................she dead) so watching that scene of just rehashed livia quotes put on a fake body was the creepiest and oddest experience i can remember on fictional television. I'm sure there are great episodes coming so I'm going to continue but, really, people think this is better than The Wire?

oh, so another person not as important as tony but still important is more ruffless and crazy and seems unsure of tony's position etc

is to 'the sopranos' what 'what? the top brass want to shut down the investigation? just as we're getting close?' is to 'the wire'.

ha, ok, i totally agree.

I think it's better, yes. Keep watching, because season 3 is the best of the lot, I think. I never believed in any of the Wire's characters (even though I do like it a lot) in the same way as I believed in The Sopranos - still, what the fuck do I really know about any of these people, living in Cardiff?

yeah, it was more about me wanting to comment on how creeped out i got after watching that scene with tony talking to old livia clips was than anything.

yeah it is a shame that scene is so weird. i'm amazed nobody noticed that her parting keeps changing sides.

"season 3 is the best of the lot"

Totally and completely untrue.

ya fully untrue.

i'd say 5 at this point.

watch something like the opening montage of season 6 and compare it to the workmanlike filmmaking of the wire and it amazes me that anyone would thing the latter is a better show.

and if you think the sopranos is good despite "all the stupid dream sequences" you might as well give up now.

unfair, or at least missing the point to compare cinematography of these shows - sops eps were often used as showcase portfolio pieces by whatever director was doing that particular ep, so full of arty swoopy stuff - they usually kinda wanted to be film-like, the wire never did (i.e. the wire knows it's tv, wants to be tv, i.e. is better tv)

i'm not talking about cinematography.

i'm talking about visual ideas, staging, editing, direction. if you think it's better tv to throw those things out the window you might as well acclaim three-camera sitcoms as the best of tv.

the wire didn't throw those out the window, the sopranos just had more obvious cinematic tics.

i mean you can compare the two if the wire was trying to do the same thing as the sopranos, but it wasn't so in the end the comparison on those grounds is a little off-base. i think at some point it's just a matter of personal taste. do you prefer the style of the sopranos or the style of the wire? plus i think a lot of the preferences come down to characters w/r/t these two shows. it makes total sense why someone would prefer the wire imo!

you are obviously biased OMAR

naw it's just buggin' me how ppl dismisss the sopranos so out of hand when it so clearly, to me at least, such a monumentally fuckin awesome work of art

watch something like the opening montage of season 6 and compare it to the workmanlike filmmaking of the wire and it amazes me that anyone would thing the latter is a better show.

i no what u mean and maybe agree with u in general but i think "workmanlike" is really unfair here. like, just thinking of there's a shot in the third season of the wire where it goes from something static and tv to swooping out to track all the beer cans on the roof of the western that was really beautiful. the wire had fewer of these moments but they were there its not like its 2.5 men or w/e

shit gettin heated

slocki is so blatantly o the fucking m here.

my real complaint with visual stuff re: the wire is that the symbolism was pretty heavy-handed like just super-composed shots of ppl being framed by metal detectors in the FBI building or those under the overpass drinking shots

unfair, or at least missing the point to compare cinematography of these shows - sops eps were often used as showcase portfolio pieces by whatever director was doing that particular ep, so full of arty swoopy stuff - they usually kinda wanted to be film-like, the wire never did (i.e. the wire knows it's tv, wants to be tv, i.e. is better tv)

completely untrue about 'the sopranos' which was pretty consistent tbh anyway. one of the sops' main directors, tim van patten, also directed on the wire. anyway it's complete, ahistorical bs to say there is a 'cinematic' look and a 'televisual' look and ne'er the twain shall meet.

the idea of preferring mediocrity because it's somehow realer tv is bizarre dude, it's approaching rockist levels of misguided authenticity worship

wait slocki if you're not talking about cinematography what are you talking about?

ALSO WHY ARE YOU CALLING THE WIRE MEDIOCRE I'LL KILL YOU

to prove a point

morbs bait xxxpost

the shows are trying to do two different things, and their visual characteristics reflect that. I think there are duff moments in the Sopranos for time to time, but overall, it is a pretty amazing piece of work. Sopranos might be bit more rewarding on 4th or 5th rewatch than the Wire, but both shows are just too good to really put into an 'either/or' context.

basically it's a good thing that tv has busted out! in the same way that it was a good thing that, some time in the 1910s, people figured out that you didn't have to shoot people feet-to-head; or, in the 1920s, that you could move the camera.

xposts

when people say 'cinematography' they usually mean it like it's an additional extra, rather than the actual texture of the thing we're talking about.

i am genuinely interested to know what you meant, slocki! i am stupid about this stuff.

mise en scene?

oh okay i think it's what enrique said. i agree with Lamp that there was a lot that was artful about the way the wire looked. i guess the differences are down to the formal stuff that got discussed upthread; i agree that the differences aren't about movies v. tv.

(i will say that i grew to kind of hate david simon listening to a season one commentary where he sneers about tv and basically spends a lot of time belaboring how the wire is so very not tv like. both false and made him sound like an insecure dick.)

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

― horseshoe, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:31 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u know its interesting that u say this since simon actively resists comparing the wire to shakespeare--even going so far as to say that sopranos is hbos shakespearean tragedy--he thinks of the wire as a greek tragedy, and in place of gods u have the institutions that ruin mens lives.

yeah well fuck the things he says about his show he is disingenuous!

all right maybe he's right. i know more about shakespeare than about greek tragedy.

my classics professor agreed with him but classics professors think everything is a greek tragedy

lol indeed.

but i think he is otm.

i don't think the wire OR the sopranos is v. shakespearean but the sops is moreso. but let's not get into 'what makes shakespeare shakespearean?' thing.

yeah i have been trying to think about what i meant by that and i can't really fix on anything. maybe i just meant "stagey."

i always thought of it as the sopranos' characters determined what happened and ultimately their fates while in the wire they had that greek god system of 'no matter what you do you're fucked'.

that won't hold up to the most cursory of glances tho

no i think that is a big part of the sopranos, the character = fate thing.

i always thought of it as the sopranos' characters determined what happened and ultimately their fates while in the wire they had that greek god system of 'no matter what you do you're fucked'.

yah idk nobility in the face of futility was a pretty big thing in the wire

pretty big think in greek tragedy too!

idk jack shit about greek tragedy tbh, but i don't think you can sub 'society' for 'the gods' THAT easily. js.

not society but the institutions. running theme in (what little i know of) greek tragedy is that the mortals are but playthings for the gods to dick around with for whatever reason. humans can't do anything about it, and yes, it is more important about how you act in the face of futility (cue jstor search for marlo wanting his name to echo for eternity lolssertation).

yeah there's something that's bothering me about the analogy. i know simon stays on message in interviews about his fatalism, but what happens on the show is people shaping institutions and being shaped by them. it's not like the institutions are floating above everyone, inscrutably controlling destinies.

some characters seem to fit the greek tragic model* better than others. omar more than jimmy, for example. or both fit them and not. like, bubbles killing sherrod is all tragic reversal, but overall bubbs's storyline bears witness to the fact that the choices he makes matter.

*i don't really know what this model even is lol

xpost

ya, y i said it didn't hold up if you looked too hard. i guess the argument could be that personal choices matter for the person, but at the end of the day nothing anyone does can affect any large scale change because you can't beat the department, city hall, or the game. schools will never get better, leaving the kids stuck in a still desperate situation, even if the occasional namond gets a helping hand out. drug laws can't be changed, and the department is stuck trying to give good PR to the hall rather than encouraging good police work.

otoh, avon/stringer doom was very much due to their characters.

schools will never get better, leaving the kids stuck in a still desperate situation, even if the occasional namond gets a helping hand out. drug laws can't be changed, and the department is stuck trying to give good PR to the hall rather than encouraging good police work.

this is why i think the show's fatalism is a problem tbh. i don't mean this in a pollyannaish way, just that things haven't always been this way, and won't always be either.

i think the fatalism aspects aren't so much about 'och well, this is all it will ever be, don't it suck'. the desperate fatalism, i think, is meant to shock and infuriate us into paying more attention to just what's going on. it also ups the drama within the show.

i guess i feel like the show shows you the unintended inertia of institutions but i don't think it actually says schools will never get better or drug laws can't be changed. (i seriously don't think it gets into the latter at all, does it?) this is maybe a pollyannish read of the show, though.

it's true it's not good at showing you that things won't always be this way. and yeah, it seems like simon's project is to use fatalism as a corrective.