Wise Guy: Unpacking David Chase's Legacy with The Sopranos

It just seems so , not you bada bing all over your nice ivy lake suit . That's the Godfather , not the Sopranos . All right , so we're talking about this documentary that just came out September 7th 2024 , called Wise Guy , david Chase and the Sopranos . It's currently streaming on Max . It's a two-part documentary and each part is a little over .

It's about an hour and 15 minutes , I'd say each part roughly . Yeah , it's an easy watch back to back . Yeah , it's directed by Alex Gibney . Like you said , it's broken up into two parts the first part pretty much .

Just , really , you know a little bit of background on David Chase , yeah , and how you know how he came to write the pilot of the show , which was originally going to be a feature film , right ?

Um , and I wasn't sure , like you said in the very beginning , this kind of weird they were like cutting the interview in with all of these clips and sound bites from his past and gibney had him talking over himself , almost as if he knew I want to get through this quick , exactly , and about eight minutes in , chase just wants to get up and leave , right , he's

like I hate doing this . This is awful . He has nothing good to say .

So , yeah , it's about eight minutes into the documentary part one , and chase wants to get up and leave because he's not real keen on talking about himself and he doesn't . What he says to the director is I didn't know it was going to be so much about me , right , and I think that's a weakness . I liked it , but I think there was too much .

I didn't need to know that much about Chase . I loved learning all the other facets , but that's what it's about , right . So I think that's what you have to keep in mind . Look at the title . It's David Chase and the . Sopranos . Do you think it would have been better if it was Wise Guys ? Or Look at the Sopranos . No , no .

As a writer , I gotta show this jesus . I mean every . No , this , this one episode . It's got to be a thing of physical media . Let me turn it over , folks . I'll be back in a minute . No , this is like 30 pounds . No , kidding , right , you open the bar , can you describe it for those listening ? It's , it's , it's the soprano's original box set .

When you open it , there's a book . We're not , you're not going to unbox this . No , I'm just showing you , just show it how big it is , how it's like 30 pounds , right , it's one of those things it's not easy to grab and and flip on . I tend to just go to HBO , like I said , but there's some commentaries that are not on HBO , that are here .

Okay , so we're not talking about the documentary , so let's get back to talking about the documentary .

I've since rewatched them numerous times , a lot of that in covid , like so many people during the quarantine found the Sopranos for the first time , really , cause this went off the air in 2007 . Yeah , I was going to say , yeah , long gone . And also , another thing related to the quarantine is Michael and Perioli and Steve Schereppa .

They did a podcast called Talking Sopranos Right , which you can get . Yeah , it's out there and it's on Max actually now too , exactly the video version of it , and it's fantastic because they have on a lot of the cast from over the years . They go through every single episode . It's like 90 or 91 episodes , the podcast , and it's it's really really good .

I would recommend it for somebody that isn't familiar with the Sopranos . Really , I , I , I mean the sense that , like I , I wouldn't want to give spoiler alert . I mean , you know , but not as , like hardcore fans . There's nothing to , in my opinion , to learn from this that you don't ? I thought I learned a lot .

Well , like what well , I didn't know how tough james gandolfini was to work with , and I think this is an unblinking . I don't think that's a fair statement well , they talk about , you know , setting up an intervention for him this is way they weren't really specific yeah , right , but this is way late this is like season six , right and it wasn't like .

Yeah , it wasn't like it was in season two , he's creating all this drama . I mean , I don't know specifically , obviously it wasn't there , but I think they don't cast this . You know , paint this picture that he was difficult to work with from the jump . I don't think that's fair . I didn't get that .

Well , I mean , your buddy , little steven , says it was like he , he wanted to quit every day . That was like season two and three .

Well , right , but that's just because of the pressure that he was feeling as someone carrying this series , because this thing was a hit from the get-go , right , although it took a while and this is something else I didn't remember it took eight months from pilot to show . I think it was 18 months , was it 18 ? So I think it was 18 months .

I was , uh , I was just obsessed with this when it was , when it was out , you know . I was from the from the get , go from the jump .

I mean I , I didn't really remember the degree to which he was struggling , you know uh , obviously you saw him putting on weight and you know some talk of some substance issues and so forth , but I didn't realize to the degree and , and you can see , if you go online on youtube you can see a lot of different video clips of him getting into it with different

paparazzi and people like , just like tony soprano would . They showed a little . Yeah , and I think what's important to point out as they do in the documentary , he was not Tony Soprano , he was not like this at all . Now , he grew up around and knew people like this from growing up in New Jersey .

But when you heard him speak in interviews which he didn't do , a lot of them , in fact good luck finding his full , one of his only full length interviews with 60 minutes . I couldn't even find it online and I scoured YouTube for it . But , um , he's very , um well-spoken and very kind of you know , uh how about the ? James Liptonpton interview .

Did you see that ? I didn't see it in full , but I think I'd seen it originally . Yeah , there's , there's more footage of that that you can find . Yeah , um , but you know he , he didn't want to do like the late night circuit , although he did appear like on saturday night live once or twice . He was in the at the news desk , I know .

Now , do you remember him prior to the sopranos ? I well , I don't know if I knew that . I knew him before , but did you know ? Did you know that James Gandolfini lived across the street from one of our siblings ? At one point I had no idea . Did you know that ? Hey , he didn't .

But this was kind of a wild nugget that I didn't know when I was kind of looking up some information on his life .

He was good friends with John Travolta because their fathers were friends when they were younger and travolta and gandolfini did like five films together , including get shorty , and they also did a civil action that's right which was set in our hometown correct , and gandolfini's character is a character that lived across the street from the woman who was the main

character , who was going after her attorney . Travolta was going after the city of wubern but because of the water and the chemicals that the right tanneries were dumping into the water there , which was giving people leukemia and and so I forgot that he was even in that film .

But the true romance is probably the standout yeah Performance for me of his at but before the Sopranos I bring up the last castle with Robert Redford big role in that , and the other one is the Coen brothers movie . Do you know which Coen Brothers movie he was in ? No , I'll give you a hint Double Indemnity .

Isn't that hitchcock ? That's hitchcock . The man who wasn't there 2001 yeah , he played big dave brewster . Yeah , I don't . I haven't seen that film in years .

So , oh , it's a great that was just before the last castle which so I I'm not sure , like you , if I knew him right at that time or if I saw those movies retroactively and then was like , oh yeah , james , I forgot he was in this .

Yeah , so this is a circle back to the documentary , so I don't make it all about Gandolfini , but that first part is really all about the casting Again , how it went from an original idea for a feature film to a pilot of a series . Right , you know , that's a big part of that part one .

And then the casting you talk about , like the seeing , the , the auditions , right , the . The biggest one was seeing steve van zandt as tony . Chase wanted him as tony , he did and and he was . It's hard to not see him as silvio now , but right , but I could see where it would have worked . He just he had that kind of charisma and everything .

But HBO is like we're not going to roll the dice on a guy .

You know , that's a different kind of but it's a lot different from playing a guitar and singing to acting right , but he was very much a ham and they're in videos . They're acting in videos in the 80s and things you know . So the other thing about the cast is this cast all knew each other . They were all you know in a lot of the same .

If you remember the film trees lounge , steve buscemi , look at all the characters from that that are in the sopranos . But I found it fascinating the footage . The footage was there wasn't enough of that . I would have , I agree , more of that .

And then you saw , you know , would be actors that were auditioning for a part that they didn't get , but then they ended up in it as something else , a smaller role , somewhere Like Drea de Mateo , I think . Right , wasn't she originally coming in for something else ? Well , she originally was just going to be the cocktail waitress .

Then it became Christopher's love interest , true , yeah , so she was there , but not as a permanent fixture . She was fantastic , yeah . So I think that kind of sums up the first part . You get some background on david chase , right , how we get into the , the business and all of that and how was the casting ? and and how .

It was just really all about his mother yeah his mother casts a huge shadow over the Sopranos . That I didn't really know . That , oh really . Yeah , I just heard that over the years I've known that , yeah , nancy Marchand is just was brilliant , then it is . Sadly only gave us about a year or so of a performance because she died . I was going to ask you .

I know she died between seasons and there was unresolved issues with her character and they did probably the worst artificial intelligence of all time .

I don't correct I don't want to just lay around on a hospital bed and die , you know and I think she was just going to be have a short part and be done , but then , like you said , at her request and he says , I'm not going to say no to her yeah , so you could see .

You know that she was ailing , she lost a lot of weight and but she was still delivering fantastic performances in it .

And it focused on certain episodes . It was a lot more episode coverage in part two . I thought , yeah , I wrote down what I thought was interesting is , you know , the the . The series is a hit out of the gate and so now it's all about david . Chase has to continue to deliver . He doesn't expect this thing to to blow up like it does .

So now what is this show going to become ? And he's , you know , he's basically locking himself away with this small group of writers .

They had this very it was interesting this very trusting relationship , to the point where at one point in the documentary , chase says we were going to bring an assistant into the room with us , but we we realized we couldn't do that because they were talking about some very right feeling things of their own taboo things .

Yes , right , terence winter , one of those writers who , if you know , boardwalk empire , that's him and he he's like he's doing something that you're watching right now phenomenal writer yeah , he's a phenomenal . Right , when you see his name on the writing list you know you're going to get a good .

But this cast , dan , is like fantastic , oh , it's great , and you can't again . You can't go back and picture anybody else in those roles .

But what was interesting about it was , you know , the show became this balance of what Chase talks about as , or somebody's quoted in it as saying this you know , people that were tuning in for a serial drama versus people that were tuning in for the kind of mob mafia side of it . Right , less yakking , more whacking .

They called it right and um and like terrence winter says we and I think it's true there might have been a few spots where they went a little extreme , but I don't . I would say it's fair that the violence wasn't gratuitous . There was a reason for it and , as they point out , here's a series that was revolutionary at the time , especially for HBO .

Every now and then they would have to just surprise and shock the hell out of you , to reel you back into to , to , to get you to realize okay , these are the , these are the characters that you're rooting for . Yes , but they right . Yes , but they right , but these are stone cold murderers , right ?

You know , it's all fun and games until you owe them money or something right and all bets are off , so it's like watching the godfather or goodfellas , for some reason , yeah I'm gonna make an offer again we're rooting for the bad guys . I want michael to become don . I want michael to .

But one of the fascinating things is and steve shrippa says this on the podcast at one point , one of the episodes is one of the most fascinating characters is carmella she has . She is so complicit in this life . As long as she gets , she gets her piece , that's it .

And you know we see early on , I think , in the pilot episode , her going to the priest and she's trying to kind of deal with this guilt that she's feeling . But in the end she sticks it out and she stays .

No , no , no , that's dr mel , that's melphy's doctor right right this guy's in one episode , one scene with oh , I know who you're talking about I don't know him either , no , and . But he's the only one in the entire series that ever says to her you , you got to get out of this . Yeah , you're never going to be able to live with yourself .

What you're doing is wrong . You know it's wrong ? Yep , and what he says very strikingly . One of the last things he says is at least you can't say you weren't told , that's right , I mean it's great that's a great sequence , one I forgot , to be honest with you .

So seeing , you know , seeing these sequences , because I haven't watched this in a while I'm talking pre-pandemic , so for me , anytime I saw something from the show , I lit up , I was like all in and you know what I like , that they did , that the director gibney did was .

You know , once the uh intro , the , the intro , the , the title sequence for the documentary kicks in , it's the .

You hear alabama three woke up this morning theme song and you're watching what you think is the opening of the sopranos , right , but he kind of cuts it with shots of david chase almost mimicking that drive that tony takes across the bridge back to new jersey from new york .

And what I loved is at one point you see chase in the passenger seat of this car driving along and he looks out at like satriales and there's , like you know , the , the big pussy there , and and you know , silvio and the character , the character .

Um , and he was only 51 , 51 years old now I don't know if you saw his last two movies no , the drop with tom hardy , right , and enough said with julia louis-dreyfus , both good performances , yeah , yeah , and not great movies , but good performances , no , you know you know , not , I wouldn't , you know , reject the movies , but it was interesting because a year

before he died he died in june of 2013 . I think it was a year before . This is another thing I found interesting was david chase would have his first feature directorial debut with not fade away with gandolfini , that's right so it was nice that they got a chance yeah , I got made . Yeah see , I don't .

I've never seen that yeah , I wasn't sure , when I saw starring James Gandolfini I didn't know if that had made it to you know production . Now , it's interesting because he would be . It's funny as , of this recording , we're coming up on the um , what would have been his 63rd birthday , which is , uh , pretty amazing .

But it was a lot about gandalfini in the part two and it was a lot about the demons that he was dealing , right , not only it's again with the substance abuse and you talked about the failed intervention that they tried to set up , um but also the again , the , the , the pressure , yeah , that was on his shoulders to carry this series .

And what was interesting ? They point out at one point that they go into season six which , as you know , most people know it was 6A and 6B , as you learn in the documentary .

Sniff them , because if they had called it season seven , seven , they would have had to give the cast a raise , right , because of that fact , gandolfini , from his own pocket , gave every cast member thirty thousand dollars .

Even Chase , who did his eulogy he starts the eulogy and this is not normal by saying no-transcript .

So I mean , but that was kind of refreshing to get the truth , yeah , but I I just don't want to leave .

Our assessment of this documentary is like james ganolfini was some sort of animal or monster or something no he was in many respects a a very gentle guy , but yeah , he had his demons , like everybody else absolutely and the way he prepared to play tony . That was the steering wheel till I didn't knuckles bled .

Yeah , I didn't quite know he went to those lengths , right , some of that stuff , but um , what I didn't the thing I had the most issue with .

Okay , now we we're not going to get into a whole conversation about the ending of the series itself , which was very controversial still is , to this day , a lot of people still pissed off about the ending , but right , it's a much more satisfying description of it in this documentary from Chase than you might have ever heard before .

But I didn't like how his longtime collaborator , the DP Alex I can't think of his last name , but they worked together from the very beginning yeah , I know who you're talking about and it was a huge help to chase , because chase didn't really know what the hell he was doing as a director of the pilot episode . Right , he had never really , but his .

The dp talks about this open ending , this open end , and it's , it's a resolution of irresolution or something he was trying to , I felt like , overly justify the fact that it just abruptly ended and right it cut to black and nobody really liked it right , but the truth is , like a lot of films or tv shows , you have to decide .

It's up to you to decide what happens next . I was just in your hands . Yeah , I was just as pissed as everybody else , though I wanted something other than that , but I can appreciate that . I can , and it was funny to hear them say they were calling like did did my tv go out to mike ?

Because , I felt the same way when I watched it originally , and it just goes to black . I'm like , oh , man what ? A time to lose hbo right . The cast was equally . A lot of them were like what , the what ?

is right , you know , and it was funny it's been , it's been spoofed everywhere , like there's a lot of uh , good family guy references where you know stewie's in the middle of talking to brian and then it just cuts to black , like when they're talking about the , the series . But yeah , that's very controversial .

But I felt a little bit more satisfied from chase's discussion of it than I did from what his dp was talking about , as if you know , oh , it's just , oh , it's an open end and I think , it's more like what you're saying . You fill in the blanks , but something about the way he was describing it just bothered me . Now we know they made a movie , the .

What was it ? The new saints ? Of many saints of newark , which we did an episode on . But but chase is quick to point out that really isn't a soprano's no even though it was the candelfini's son playing him as a younger version . Right , but david chase didn't even know they were going to put that a soprano story tagline in the title .

So let me ask you this if he hadn't died , would we have seen a soprano's movie that he originally wanted to make ? I think we might have um , and I feel like steve sharippa talks about this on the podcast . At one point he played paulie walnuts .

You know , chase said how they wanted to shoot New Jersey and it was unlike anything else with the trees . Hello , miller's Crossing Right , I felt like they didn't give a shout out to Miller's Crossing . That was due because I felt like this I felt like this . This series felt a lot like Miller's Crossing .

You could plug in characters Obviously Buscemi's already in there , Set in a totally different time . Yeah , but it's . I don't see any comparison there whatsoever .

You know , I know , but Chase's influences are taken from uh filmmakers way before the coen brothers . He talks about uh godard and uh felini , right , and uh , uh , obviously kubrick with 2000 , coppola , yeah , polanski with chinatown . That was interesting to hear . Kubrick stuff was very interesting . It was interesting very . It's just wholerick stuff was very interesting .

It was interesting Very . You know , that's one of the things I would say is is is worth watching .

There's this whole thing about this , this um , they compare it to this sequence in an episode that Tony's going through where he's he's like in a dream state as another guy , right , and they did that more than once he they did that more than once in the series where Tony would be watching himself .

It's almost like an out of body experience , yeah , where they walk into their own POV Exactly , and it really experience . Yeah , where they walk into their own pov exactly , and it really . I would have never picked up on that , having watched the series as many times as I have that , that technique that they were using .

But , as you said , he was connecting it back to the influence from 2001 , which was fascinating it was . And then you know to see a juxtaposition , you know juxtaposition between the two yeah , that was , that was really . But he also talked about Coppola and Scorsese and how they were influenced as well .

Absolutely , but I this , just like the ending of the series itself . This just wasn't satisfying enough . I it same thing . It left me wanting more .

No , I , I , I guess , and , like I said , I mean if you're a casual fan , I would would , but if you've never seen the Sopranos , yeah , that wouldn't make any sense , right . Plus , it's going to spoil all kinds of stuff for you .

Right , this cast , from top to the smallest role to the biggest . You can't give me one that isn't fantastic . Every single actor in the series is phenomenal . Totally agree with that . Yeah , yeah , so I don't know . I mean , like you said , maybe there's a disclaimer there to if you're a sopranos fan , it's kind of a no-brainer .

Although I don't think you're going to walk away learning too much more although you did , I did you know , because I haven't watched it in a while yeah , I took away a few . A few things too , and the stuff about Gandolfini . There's a heavy emphasis on that in part two and it is fascinating . It's a bit sad at the same time .

That he was going through the struggles that he was , and that we lost him at such a young age is just man he had a lot more work in him . He did , he did . But at least you know he leaves behind not just a legacy on screen with this , but you know again how revolutionary this was and just how much he owned the character .

He was Tony Soprano and it was interesting because the way chase approached it was season to season . He would come into the writer's room with an arc yeah tony episode 1 , tony episode 13 . And it was up to the writers to figure out how to go from there to there . Right , and that was pretty fascinating yeah , there's a little .

I don't know , uh , what you take away from this conversation about it , if that's gonna convince you to watch it , or , but if you have seen it , if you have watched it , drop some comments on the on the video here and let us know what you think of it . And would you recommend it to somebody who hasn't seen the sopranos ? I tend to agree with you .

I think there's just too many spoilers in it yeah so I think , for that reason alone , dip , dip your toe into the Sopranos pool first , then watch Exactly . If you haven't seen the Sopranos man , there's a treat .

And if you like , at all mob movies , absolutely Like Goodfellas Godfather , you want to watch this show , and then you can take in the Talking Sopranos podcast as a companion piece , which I still haven't done . That , yeah , I'll continue . I continue to watch the Sopranos . I'm constantly .

If I'm looking , if I'm struggling to find something to settle on , that's going to fulfill that . You know , scratch that itch , I go right to the Sopranos . It would be it me right now , because I haven't seen it now , seeing the documentary , knowing some of the things I didn't know well , this will give you an idea of my love of the show .

The documentary came out yesterday and I watched the entire first season of sopranos yesterday before yeah , before the documentary even aired , yeah , wow so .

You know , michael imperioli says this is lightning in a bottle and they no one really knew it until it happened , right , right , and it was a bizarre kind of story that you know why would anybody watch this . This is something that had to be on HBO . They couldn't have shot this on a network . Well , this , but but see I ? This made hbo what it is .

Hbo as , as michael imperioli also points out , it was kind of bargain basement to be doing right at the time , although they had the huge hit with larry sanders , which I found interesting , they referenced it right they did kind of opened a door to this sort of uh , filmmaking on television . Yeah , that's a good point ?

I wouldn't recommend that film . Yeah , me either . I don't own it . Shockingly , and it's about Dickie Moltisanti , so it isn't even Right . Played by another actor who died young . He was in Goodfellas Goodfellas oh my God Ray . He was in goodfellas goodfellas , oh my god ray .

I'm your host , dan Smith . Alongside me is always my paisan , mike Smith , and we'll see you next time . Bye , everyone .