For a long time, people close to David Chase said he should write a script about his mother, the controlling and unstable woman who dominated his family. Chase then had the idea of ​​making not a conventional family drama, but a gangster movie. In his imagination, Robert De Niro and Anne Bancroft would play the lead roles.

But a feature film wouldn’t be enough to tell the story of the Mafia boss who suffers from depression and discovers that his own mother conspired to kill him. Chase then adapted the script to turn it into the pilot episode of a series.

Thus was born The Sopranos, which over six seasons, between 1999 and 2007, elevated the parameters of television fiction to heights never before reached.

Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos, available on Max, narrates in two episodes the creative adventure that was the production of the phenomenon that put HBO at the forefront of television production.

The documentary has two protagonists: Chase, the creator and producer of the series, now 79 years old, and Tony Soprano, the anti-hero played by the great James Gandolfini.

In the introduction of the documentary, Chase, interviewed by director Alex Gibney, talks about his childhood, his parents, and his background. Illustrating the narrative, photos and films of the Chase family alternate with scenes from The Sopranos – an exceptional editing work that blurs the lives of Chase and Tony.

With this resource, Gibney shows how the series carries very personal elements of its creator. Chase, who is not an easy man, protests: he says he would not have agreed to participate in the documentary if he had known it would be so focused on his life.

Children of Italian-American families, Chase and Tony were raised in New Jersey, the setting of the series, and suffered emotional blackmail from an unbalanced mother. And both reached middle age in crisis with their respective professions: TV producer and crime boss.

Chase studied film at Stanford, where he directed a film that tried to emulate Breathless, by Jean-Luc Godard (the scenes that appear in the documentary are unintentionally hilarious). He started his career at a B-movie production company and then moved to TV.

In 1997, when he presented the project for The Sopranos to HBO, Chase had a respectable but not brilliant resume. “He was a veteran of TV and had worked on some good things. But he never had a hit with his own creations,” says former HBO CEO Chris Albrecht in the documentary.

At that time, the premium channel had not yet established itself as a major producer of original content. HBO was looking for innovation and accepted the risk of backing a series that had been rejected by all open-air broadcasters.

It was a hit: The Sopranos changed everything.

The conventions of TV series were subverted by the disruptive conjunction of family drama and police story. Tony Soprano, a good family man and violent criminal, was a character that didn’t fit on screen.

Almost universally praised by critics from the start, The Sopranos became a cultural phenomenon. It was the series that everyone watched on premiere night to discuss the next day at work.

Rightly so, Chase’s creation is celebrated as one of the best – perhaps the best – series of all time. It paved the way for other productions featuring morally ambiguous characters, like The Wire and Breaking Bad, and remains an essential reference. Not surprisingly, HBO’s new sensation, The Penguin, has been touted as a meeting between the Batman universe and the world of Tony Soprano.

With behind-the-scenes footage and insightful interviews with writers and actors, One of Ours is a gift for fans. The first episode goes from the conception of the project to the conclusion of the debut season. Cast selection recordings confirm Chase’s talent as a producer: each of the chosen actors seems tailor-made for the role.

The second episode covers the following five seasons. Alongside the unquestionable triumph of the series, it delves into the darker moments of its production.

The high expectations set by the first season increased pressure in the writers’ room, and many couldn’t handle Chase’s capricious demands. On set, actors lived under the uncertainty of the future: in a series about mobsters, many characters were ruthlessly executed.

Gandolfini didn’t have that concern, but Tony Soprano exacted a high price from him. The character’s depravity wore down the actor, who missed filming on several occasions. He also abused alcohol and drugs.

The actor passed away in 2013 at age 51 from heart problems. David Chase was invited by the family to speak at the funeral, and part of this tribute is shown in One of Ours.

The producer recalls the scene from the series where Gandolfini, as Tony Soprano, relaxes in the backyard with a wet towel over his head to protect himself from the sun. Chase remembers that his father, grandfather, and uncles did the same thing. And he breaks down in tears.


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