However, I found "Wise Guy: David Chase and 'The Sopranos' " on HBO/MAX absolutely riveting. Who knew that the entire series was conceived by Chase --- who was the producer on the sweet, cheeky "Northern Exposure", if you can believe that --- to be a feature film about his monstrous mother? That's why Nancy Marchand, more familiar through glossy, elegant roles, portrayed the detestable Livia the way she did...and brilliantly. It used to be no one could ever say bad things about their mother, no matter how awful she was, since mothers are publicly held up as saints.
Turns out several of the writers and cast members had real-life mothers just like Livia Soprano. Since that, I see more and more celebs and every day people in advice columns say the same thing, without shame or regret. Just like there's a huge difference between getting someone pregnant and being a father, there's a similar gap between giving birth vs. being a good mother, and many fail at the latter.
I've said for years that my father would have taken a bullet for his six kids. My mother would have fired that bullet, then reloaded for each of the kids. So I was already familiar with Livia.
We all saw the series' brilliant --- yet initially hated --- finale's fade-out. There's a reason for it. During that final episode, every time Tony spoke, the camera would cut to the person he was talking to, as a way of being Tony's own eyes; we see what he sees. At the diner while Tony waits for the rest of his family to arrive and for Meadow to finally parallel-park the car, we see an ominous-looking guy walking into the men's room. Think for a moment about how the gun Pacino fired in Sofia's Ristorante in "The Godfather" got planted. The guy comes out of the restroom; Meadow finally arrives. Tony looks up to see a few ominous faces....and fade to black. Were we seeing, once again, what Tony saw in his final moment alive?
I can't link to the entire story without running afoul of the mods, so here are some highlights from the documentary, which contains spoilers but is a must-see for anyone who saw every episode:
- David Chase originally wrote The Sopranos as a feature film based on his mother’s life.
CBS head honcho Les Moonves turned The Sopranos down because he didn't like that Tony took Prozac.
Martin Scorsese, a lover of the big city, didn’t like The Sopranos at first and thought the pilot, with Tony's house in an upscale suburb, had too many trees.
Andrea Donna de Matteo, who played Adriana La Cerva, originally thought The Sopranos was about opera singers.
Steven Van Zandt was first brought in to audition for Tony Soprano after Chase watched him induct The Rascals into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.
Lorraine Bracco was offered the part of Carmela Soprano, but asked to play Dr. Melfi instead. She had been in therapy before and didn't want to repeat her character from Goodfellas.
James Gandolfini walked out in the middle of his audition. He didn’t think it was going well. However, the casting directors thought he was great, so he auditioned again at David Chase’s house and got the part.
HBO tested the pilot in four markets: Dallas, Connecticut, and two places Chase can't remember. No surprise, the Connecticut audience liked it the best. Also, the pilot-testing audience wanted the show to focus more on Artie Bucco's wife, Charmaine. Maybe next time!
It took ten months for HBO execs Chris Albrecht and Carolyn Strauss to order The Sopranos to series after the tepid response to the pilot.
Season 1 was supposed to end with the death of Tony Soprano’s mom, but the actress who played her—Nancy Marchand, had emphysema and lung cancer, so she begged Chase to keep her working. It was the only time Chase ever conceded.
The actor who played Paulie Gualtieri was a lot like his character. The two-tone hair, the tan … that was all Tony Sircio. In fact, no one was allowed to Sircio’s two-tone hair, and he was very upset when he had to mess it up for the “Pine Barrens” episode.
People had to ask David Chase for permission if they wanted to change a word of dialogue. According to Edie Falco, the cast “was there to serve his vision.”
Toward the end of the series, there were confidentiality issues on set, which led to Chase shooting multiple outcomes for Adriana’s character, including one where she survives and one where she dies.
If Chase asked to have dinner or lunch with a cast member, it meant they were about to get whacked.
Speaking of getting whacked, the cast begged Chase not to kill off Salvatore "Big [kittycat]" Bonpensiero. Chase’s response? “This is a mob show. People gotta go!”
Also, still speaking of getting whacked, Chase didn’t have the heart to kill Adriana on screen, so the camera pans to the sky instead, and the audience only hears the gunshot.
David Chase’s agent encouraged him to leave the show after the second season to pursue feature films, but he declined. He’d fallen in love with the characters and wanted to keep world-building.
Evidently, James Gandolfini was a goofball on set. “He would [fork] around,” recalls Lorraine Bracco who played Dr. Melfi. “He would throw kisses at me and moon me. He was just a lunatic.”
He also tried to quit the show every other day, according to Steven Van Zandt. The two would go to the bar after work, get drunk—and then, like clockwork, Gandolfini would claim he was going to quit the next day. He would inevitably change his mind when Van Zandt reminded him he had 100 people depending on him
After Gandolfini negotiated a blockbuster $ 1 million-per-episode salary, he felt bad and gave every cast member $30,000 to make up for it. Well, everyone except Edie Falco. She didn’t know about it until Alex Gibney mentioned it to her on camera.
Albrecht staged an intervention for James Gandolfini, and when the actor entered Albrecht’s apartment and saw everyone sitting there, he said “Fire me!” and walked out.
James Gandolfini would walk around with a rock on his shoe all day, bang his head on things, or drink six cups of coffee to get really angry in preparation for a violent scene.
Everybody was up in arms about Chase’s decision to use the Journey song “Don’t Stop Believin'” in the finale. The overwhelming response from the cast? “Are you [fork]ing kidding me?” Stars! They’re just like us.
Chase took inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey for the finale. “The astronaut begins to see himself,” Chase says. “He turns a corner and sees himself as an old man. This simple technique always mesmerized me.” Watch the finale again and you may notice how Tony walks into his own POV with everyone he goes to see. “It made me think of time and approaching death,” Chase says of the technique. (Wait. Did David Chase just admit that Tony dies??)
James Gandolfini didn’t know how The Sopranos was going to end until it aired. According to Lorraine Bracco, she and James Gandolfini were together during the finale, and when the scene infamously cut to black, he screamed, “That’s it?” (Hey, didn't we all?)
All Chase wanted to do after The Sopranos ended was “make a f-ing movie.” And so the legendary TV show that was never supposed to be a TV show ended just as it began. To quote Journey, “It goes on and on and on and on.”
OK, I just gave away a whole bunch of stuff from "Wise Guy", but still you should see it (on HBO and MAZ) if only for all the auditions for the major roles, and for the numerous clips from eight outstanding seasons.