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Read David Chase’s touching eulogy for James Gandolfini

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 22:21:00 +0000

Speaking on behalf of James Gandolfini's "crew that you loved so much, for the people at HBO, and Journey," "Sopranos" creator David Chase issued a moving eulogy to friends, fans and family of the late actor at Manhattan's Cathedral Church on Thursday morning. Calling Gandolfini his "brother," Chase recounted some of his favorite memories about him on set as Tony Soprano. Here's an excerpt from the full transcript, published by HitFix's Alan Sepinwall:

I also feel you're my brother in that we have different tastes, but there are things we both love, which was family, work, people in all their imperfection, food, alcohol, talking, rage, and a desire to bring the whole structure crashing down. We amused each other.

The image of my uncles and father reminded me of something that happened between us one time. Because these guys were such men — your father and these men from Italy. And you were going through a crisis of faith about yourself and acting, a lot of things, were very upset. I went to meet you on the banks of the Hudson River, and you told me, you said, "You know what I want to be? I want to be a man. That's all. I want to be a man." Now, this is so odd, because you are such a man. You're a man in many ways many males, including myself, wish they could be a man.

The paradox about you as a man is that I always felt personally, that with you, I was seeing a young boy. A boy about Michael's age right now. 'Cause you were very boyish. And about the age when humankind, and life on the planet are really opening up and putting on a show, really revealing themselves in all their beautiful and horrible glory. And I saw you as a boy — as a sad boy, amazed and confused and loving and amazed by all that. And that was all in your eyes. And that was why, I think, you were a great actor: because of that boy who was inside.

Chase wrapped the speech with a nod to the show: "You know, everybody knows that we always ended an episode with a song," he said.

"And the song, as far as I'm concerned, would be Joan Osborne's "(What If God Was) One Of Us?"

Read the full eulogy here.

James Gandolfini: “No character captured the longing and melancholy of American life better than Tony Soprano”

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 11:45:00 +0000

There's a scene from the last season of "The Sopranos" where Tony, Carmela, Janice and Bobby are playing Monopoly together and everyone's drinking too much. Janice launches into an anecdote about her dad shooting a hole in her mom's beehive hairdo, and Tony starts to look visibly sick. "I can't believe you never told me that story!" Carmela laughingly yells at Tony. "Yeah, what's the big deal?" Janice says to Tony. "Because it makes us look like a fucking dysfunctional family!" Tony growls. A few minutes later, though, after Tony insults Janice, Tony and Bobby are trading blows. And then, Tony is laying on the floor, covered in blood. (I guess the cat's out of the bag on the dysfunctional family thing, huh, Tone?)

In another actor's hands, that scene is just your typical snapshot of a hotheaded patriarch in denial, an Archie Bunker or a Rabbit Angstrom or a "Great Santini" for the new millennium. James Gandolfini, though, knew just how to tease out the storms raging inside Tony Soprano. His bullying always had this faint hint of self-consciousness to it, suggesting the vaguest whiff of guilt behind that surly mug. When Tony felt anxious, Gandolfini made us feel anxious, too. We could hear Tony start to breathe through his nose, like a bull growing agitated at the sight of the color red. His words got percussive and clipped as his heart raced faster.

David Chase: “I got sidetracked” by “The Sopranos”

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:00:00 +0000

“Not Fade Away” feels like a familiar kind of movie – an ambitious coming-of-age story with a strong autobiographical element, from a first-time director immersed in pop music, the mysteries of sexuality and the agonies of family life. But this particular indie drama about rock ‘n’ roll and girls and suburban angst is set in the mid-1960s, and was made by someone who saw that decade firsthand. You don’t meet too many first-time filmmakers who are 67 years old, and who have already had a long and illustrious career as a writer and producer in a different medium.

OK, you don’t meet any. That’s because there is no one in the American entertainment industry exactly like David Chase, who got his start in television as a writer for the mid-‘70s paranormal series “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” (a pioneering show, after its fashion) and went on, many years later, to create one of the most famous ensemble dramas in TV history. Through it all, as they say, he really wanted to direct. So it is that we wind up in 2012 with “Not Fade Away,” which has all the young-man’s intensity of a debut film, but also views its characters and their lost world through the long lens of artistic distance.

David Chase: Whether Tony died isn’t the point

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:17:00 +0000

In a recent interview with David Chase about his new film, "Not Fade Away," the conversation inevitably turned to "The Sopranos" and its infamous ending. Below are Chase's comments reflecting on watching the final episode for the first time two years ago, with only an occasional interjection from a reporter.

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I thought the episode itself might have been kind of a dud, but it wasn't. I was proud of it. I was satisfied that we'd done something. What I didn't understand was that the ending would be so talked-about that it would completely obliterate the rest of the episode that came before it. No one ever even saw it, talked about it, mentioned it or anything about it - and I think didn't even interpret it correctly because all they talked about was that ending. I did not know that would happen.

I think a lot of people thought they were being made a fool of, that I was being really meta - is that the word? - and postmodern or just showing my quote-unquote "contempt" for the audience or going "Ha, ha, ha. It's just a TV show." None of that was what was going on. That was the best ending I knew to come up with and I thought it said some things but people didn't get it because they were angry. Or maybe it wasn't executed well.

David Chase: It was hard to get over “The Sopranos”

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:30:00 +0000

After "The Sopranos" went black, David Chase's next move was never in question: He would make a movie.

In all Chase's time toiling as a writer in television before "The Sopranos" — decades ranging from "The Rockford Files" to "Northern Exposure" — the big screen had beckoned. It reached back to his days as a teenager taking stills of "8 ½" and "Dr. Strangelove" (clear touchstones, still: one, Italian and surreal; the other, darkly comic).

After his first stab at writing a psychological thriller went begging, he turned to an idea of his since the '80s, one he occasionally kicked around in the "Sopranos" writers room.

"I love rock 'n' roll so much that I really wanted to make a movie about the music, not about the personalities involved, not about the ups and downs or the rise and fall of it," says Chase. "I didn't want to do a biopic. If it was going to be a biopic, I wanted to do a biopic about nobodies — which is what it kind of is."

"Not Fade Away," which Paramount Pictures will open in limited release Friday, is Chase's first project since "The Sopranos" remade American pop culture and, among other things, forever changed our relationship to Journey. A coming-of-age tale set amid the generational tumult of the '60s, it's the debut of the most promising 67-year-old filmmaker to come along in some time.

Is movie culture dead?

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:38:00 +0000

One of the centerpiece events of the 50th New York Film Festival — an event that has consistently defined the American marketplace for the artiest and most prestigious grade of international cinema — is the world premiere of “The Sopranos” creator David Chase’s “Not Fade Away,” a 1960s-set suburban rock-band drama. Along with the rest of the movie world, I’m curious to see it (if there have been any screenings so far, they remain closely guarded industry secrets). But here’s my halfway serious question for Chase: Why bother?

Given the undisputed cultural primacy of televised serial drama in the 21st century, making the switch to feature film seems almost as much of an exercise in nostalgia as the movie itself. I can’t help drawing an analogy between Chase’s foray into the supposed respectability of filmmaking and J.K. Rowling’s recently published (and tepidly reviewed) adult literary novel. Both works are understood to be important entirely because the people who made them have been so successful in other far more popular genres. Otherwise, they would likely come and go without anyone paying much attention. As Chase must realize, there is no way on God’s green earth that “Not Fade Away” – whether it’s good, bad or indifferent – will have anywhere near the cultural currency or impact of “The Sopranos.”

“Breaking Bad,” “The Sopranos” and the fall of the Dark Cable Drama

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:01:00 +0000

[Spoiler Alert! This article contains spoilers for the 4th season of "Dexter" and the 2nd season of "Sons of Anarchy." Do not read this if you're planning to watch those shows.]

During these dark times, do you prefer TV that plumbs the impoverishment of modern culture for comic relief ("30 Rock") or twists it into a horrific narrative in which every character is doomed to suffer until the final curtain call ("Breaking Bad")? Do you enjoy your gloom and nastiness softened by sly humor and nostalgia ("Mad Men"), or splattered with several gallons of fake blood ("Dexter")? Would you rather watch heartless lady lawyers trying to hurt each other with a subtle game of disconcerting gestures and veiled insults ("Damages"), or witness biker gangs plotting to blow each other's heads off as soon as possible ("Sons of Anarchy")?

Personally, as much as I once craved a dark tragidramedy back when every channel was filthy with hugging and learning, these days I find myself repelled by the unrelenting nihilism of a handful of the darker-than-thou cable shows: "Dexter," "Sons of Anarchy," "Breaking Bad," all well-written, imaginative dramas with wonderful casts that nonetheless present us with the same scenario, week after week: Things go from bad to worse to unthinkable, lead characters flinch and cringe and sweat and sigh deeply and then dig themselves in deeper, and everyone around them suffers.

Directors of the decade: No. 1: Charlie Kaufman & David Chase

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:31:00 +0000

David Chase, the creator of HBO's "The Sopranos," directed just two installments of the series' eight-year run, the pilot and the finale. Charlie Kaufman is mainly known as a screenwriter and has directed one theatrical feature, "Synecdoche, New York." Why are two people known mainly as writers sharing the top slot on this list of the decade's most important directors?

They're here because they spent the decade working within the same entertainment industry that otherwise prizes reassuring clichés and flashy stupidity, and produced work that was more compelling and unified than the work of all but a handful of full-time movie directors. They're here because their visions kicked down the doors of the audience's and the industry's preconceptions and showed them what's possible. They're here because their insights into human nature (not coincidentally the title of one of Kaufman's scripts) are so sharp and evocative that when we want to remember what it meant to be alive in the aughts, we'll only need to watch an episode of "The Sopranos" or a movie written by Kaufman and it will all come flooding back.