The Sopranos Facts Pekurny wants you to know from the Sepinwall chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 David Chase is the creator of the Sopranos He also directed the series pilot David Chase wasn t enthusiastic about creating a TV series because he was fed up with the business He felt he was never surprised watching hour long T V and that it had way too many constraints He was sick of sitting through these moronic meetings in which every timid weak vapid idea was always preferred to anything revolutionary or new Also Chase wanted to break out and do movies instead James Galdofini was casted as Tony Soprano because he brought a dark and real feeling to the role and to the series which Chase was trying to depict In essence Chase said Galdofini just inhabited the tone of the script The relationship Tony has with Melfi his psychiatrist is complex Though Tony rarely is honest with Melfi he is able to open up with her in ways he can t and wont do with anyone else like Carmela Christopher or Big Pussy He tells Melfi things about himself that he would never speak about outside those walls Tony enjoys his sessions with her and refers to to his sessions with her an oasis in his week Like I said before Tony Soprano is never 100 honest not only with Melfi but anyone Chase didn t set out to write a mob drama but rather a show about his troubled relationship with his late mother Chase s wife always said to do so because his mother was unintentionally funny This fact made the character of Tony Soprano s mother Livia Soprano Chase directed the pilot even though he was a novice Chase wanted to be a filmmaker and viewed the pilot as the next big step on that road The CEO of HBO the network it played on Albrehct wasn t sure he could trust Chase to do so but ulti mately was won over by Chase s level of attention to detail and the fact that Albrehct would never find anyone who see s the episode and series as a whole the way this guy see s it The College episode is important because not only does it bring the mafia Fam ily and his immediate family conflicts into a sharper focus but its the first time you see Tony Soprano actually killing a man It isn t self defense nor putting down a vile threat to society the only two circumstances under which TV protagonists had previ ously been allowed to kill He did it for revenge and left the audience with no confus ing about what kind of man they were watching and what kind of show this was Chase s comments about the dream sequences in the last season that Tony was in after being shot and was in the hospital was that he wouldn t refer to them as dreams Many fans thought that Tony was moving through purgatory or an afterlife in the episode Tony is mistaken for a salesman named Kevin Finnerty Chase s take is that he was in an alternate universe and that he had no proof but that s what he considered them The sequences were inspired by Chase s longtime friend John Petterson who directed many of the episodes before dying of cancer Chase says that at one point Petterson muttered in his hospital bed Who Am I Where Am I Going which Chase put into the mouths of both Tony in his hospital bed and Kevin Finnerty 10 11 12 in the alternate reality Chase wondered what he was seeing when he said that the line between dreaming and reality death and sleep Sepinwall s view of the Sopranos legacy was that he believes it isn t what it should be Certain shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad which many people say are better would not be possible without the Sopranos laying down the foundation for those shows Sepinwall says the Sopranos on its own defiant terms was an incredi ble piece of work Its heart was black and its despair was high yet I defy you not to be moved by some of the greatest dramatic scenes in the show He believes that these scenes were not just the greatest of the series but of TV drama as a whole The last scene was Tony gathering the family for a meal and the last moment the viewers are in suspense believing that Tony is in danger and might be shot When he looks up the screen cuts to black and the series ended Many viewers were en raged by the ending and the nonclosure they felt it gave calling Chase a saddist that he liked to fuck with people s head and he s a mean guy But the fact that peo ple are still trying to interpret and analyze the last scene gives the series creator great pleasure Some people s explanations of the ending were Oh it s so he could do the movie to He got tired he couldn t figure it out to He just wanted to fuck with us But Chase assures that wasn t the case Most fans of the series believe Tony did in fact die but Sepinwall believes that goes against everything the show had con veyed previously Chase never told viewers whether Tony actually dies or not and when asked about the last scene and why he did it that way he says It just seemed right You go on instinct As an artist are you supposed to know every reason for every brush stroke Do you have to know the reason behind every tiny little thing It not a sci ence it s an act It comes from your emotions from your unconscious from your sub conscious and sometimes Chase let his unconscious act out So why did I do it that way I thought everyone would feel it That even if they couldn t say what it meant they would feel it After the season finale with everyones reactions he says he does in fact think people felt it Assigned Questions from College Episode 1 2 3 4 The inciting incident is Tony going on the college tour with his daughter Meadow Tony wants to find out if the man he saw was in fact the snitch Fred from many years ago and once he finds out it is he wants to kill him Tony commits the act of violence because he was seeking revenge for the friends that went to jail because of the snitch The Shield had shaky gorilla shots and were done a lot by hand held cameras while The Sopranos had more steady shots Breaking Bad Facts Pekurny wants you to know from the Sepinwall chapter 1 Vince Gilligan s track record First was a romantic comedy writer but then was hired as a writer for X Files and his dark writing began 2 The idea for BREAKING BAD was formed by Vince Gilligan talking to one of his friends Thomas Shnauz a film school classmate …
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