From an Article by Simi Horwitz published in the Washington Post, 3/14/99

David Chase's HBO Series Mocks, Embraces Stereotypes

NEW YORK—Tony Soprano is one troubled mobster, or "waste management consultant," as he prefers to be called.

Yes, he's the mastermind behind break-ins and beatings -- in one episode of the HBO cable series he commits murder -- but he's also "bonding" with his 17-year-old daughter, suffering terminal guilt over his nursing home-bound mama, and deeply moved by a flock of ducks that have migrated to his swimming pool. When they fly away, he's awash in loss and consults a shrink.

Set in a New Jersey suburb, "The Sopranos," airing Sundays at 9 p.m., brings to mind Don Corleone in a Woody Allen script directed by David Lynch.

No doubt, it's a hybrid, asserted executive producer and creator David Chase, who defined the genre as a "family drama that's character-driven."

Beyond its pervasive quirkiness, what makes this show different from the usual fare, he stressed, "is that it's a look at contemporary mobsters. Other works on the subject are usually period pieces. My biggest challenge was to show gangsters in a new light. I had a picture of TV critics in tweed sitting in a room with skeet guns pointed at the screen going 'bmm-bmm-bmmm-bmmmm.' " Gun-fire noises.

Chase previously hit the target with both eccentric and controversial programs, as an executive producer (and writer and director) of "I'll Fly Away" and "Northern Exposure." He also wrote and directed "The Rockford Files" television movie.

"I described average people set against intense and dramatic backgrounds," he remarked in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.

"The Sopranos," meanwhile, are your average suburban mobsters. James Gandolfini portrays Tony Soprano. Lorraine Bracco is his therapist; Edie Falco plays his wife, Carmela; Michael Imperrioli, his ambitious nephew; and Nancy Marchand is his mother, Livia.

"The Sopranos" has gained a growing following since its January debut, especially among men over 35, said Chris Albrecht, HBO president of original programming. Thirteen episodes have been taped and another 13 are on the drawing board. Production will begin in New York and New Jersey in June.

Mobsters, as fictional genre and social phenomenon, are interrelated and peculiarly American, Chase pointed out. "Even though the mobster has its roots in Sicily, it is an American entity, a twisted form of capitalism. And audiences love the mob because it's made up of middle-class insiders. They're not radicals, renegades or serial killers. They're conservatives. In many ways, the mob is an American invention, one that has its roots, at least in part, in the movies."

"The Sopranos" takes note of those flicks, treading the thin line between homage and parody. And the show lies in that nether region that both mocks and embraces stereotypes, Chase said, acknowledging that he has received flak from Italian Americans who view "The Sopranos" as little more than a celebration of self-denigrating clichs. Chase, an Italian American (the family name De Cesare, was changed two generations back), is sensitive to the charge.

"My feeling is if what you're describing is truthful and entertaining -- truthfulness alone is not enough -- then there is nothing wrong with putting it on the air. With 'I'll Fly Away,' I got plenty of angry letters from African Americans who objected to blacks being shown in subservient roles. I got an equal number of angry letters from white Southerners who objected to being depicted as red-necked bigots. Look, there's a certain reality in the world, and that's just the way it is."

He paused. "I'm not saying all Italian Americans are mobsters. Every character in 'The Sopranos' is Italian American -- the therapist, the restaurant owner, and all the other hard-working people."

Chase, who directed "The Sopranos" pilot, considers that role an extension of writing.

"Still, directing has changed my view of writing," he said. "I understand that words have to breathe. If I write three dots following a word, that may mean something to me, but nothing to the actors. I've learned to write in more visual terms."

The ideal actor, he said, is one "who plays it straight, doesn't play the comedy at all. I dislike elbow-nudging or arrow-pointing. What I want is an audience unsure of whether it should laugh or cry. That kind of resonance can come only from actors who are absolutely real."

Bracco, who plays therapist Jennifer Melfi, understands Chase's goal. "You have to come from a place or a reality to say his words," she said. "That's why Scorsese cast me in 'GoodFellas.' I'm not aware of the comedy until I hear the audience laughing. The big challenge in acting David's words is that they're a mouthful. I'm constantly consulting medical dictionaries and psychiatrists."

On the emotionally charged subject of "The Sopranos' " appeal to stereotypes, Bracco bristled: "People who say that are not looking at the big picture. The main character here is a bread-winning family man who happens to do things against the law. The fact that he's Italian-American is incidental. He could be Colombian or Archie Bunker or a CEO at General Electric. What a drag for artists to have to constantly worry about being P.C. Thank God for Larry Flynt!"

Falco, who plays wife Carmela Soprano, also insisted she was comfortable with the material.

Still, a stereotypical character poses acting challenges, Falco admitted. "You cannot play a woman who is obsessed with her fingernails and hair," she said. "Those elements have to be stripped away and then later gently layered into the character, who first and foremost loves her husband and family."

Chase, a native of Mount Vernon, N.Y., who grew up in Clifton and North Caldwell, N.J., is the son of a hardware store owner. Though not a child of the mob, he was aware of its presence. "We knew that the guy above the tailor shop was a bookie and loan shark, the bedrock of all mob activity. Or you might go to a wedding and there'd be whispers about some guy in the room: 'You know he's blah, blah, blah.' It wasn't said openly, but his mob connection was suspected."

Chase always wanted to be a writer, he recalled. At New York University, he majored in English literature. "But when I saw Roman Polanski's 'Cul-De-Sac,' I became interested in filmmaking. The idea that one person's sensibility could define a picture was new to me. You have to remember, it was the era of the auteur theory."

Chase earned a master's degree in film from Stanford University with his sights set on direction. But early on, he concluded, "The movie business has more use for scripts than finished short films."

The contacts he made at Stanford led to a series of television writing gigs, which in turned paved the way for his first major break as a writer on "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," starring Darren McGavin as the determined reporter -- complete with pork-pie hat, bow tie and padded shoes -- in search of supernatural occurrences, mythological figures and monsters, all in and around urban areas.

"People are talking about dramedy -- the combination of drama and comedy -- as if it's something new. I was doing it years ago. 'Kolchak' [1974] was drama with a skewed sense of humor. So was 'The Rockford Files.' "

Television writing and the demands of the industry are now second nature to Chase, he said, but he had to adapt when he first came on board.

"Because of the hot films of the '60s and '70s that always surprised audiences, I assumed my job was to do the same, not tell them what to think and feel. But that's not what the networks want. Yes, it's true, 'Hill Street Blues' and 'L.A. Law' had contradictory elements and surprised the audience. And because those shows were successful, the networks would look at [creator] Steven Bochco's next idea. But if someone else came up with anything quite that risky, they'd say, 'What is this?' "

Over his two-and-a-half-decade television career, Chase has noted a changing sensibility.

"At one time, you could have a private eye, an anti-hero, on TV, someone like Rockford. Today you don't see him or his hard-headedness. And that's a loss.

"Instead, you see nice people getting nicer, rich people getting richer, and nobody is ever depressed. Do doctors and lawyers on these shows ever have real pain? Institutions, like hospitals and law firms, are very popular. I don't know why. But there is the idea that institutions work, and all problems are solvable."

Chase admitted that he's not much of a television watcher, short of HBO's now-defunct "Larry Sanders Show," which he admired for its "contradictions, total unexpectedness."

Chase said he prefers writing for HBO rather than the networks. In addition to providing "great promotion, HBO is more receptive to allowing the writer to be as smart as he wants. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that HBO gives us freedom, because that leads into the notion of shootups and strange sexual positions as the elements that define the show as opposed to a different kind of storytelling: the chance to be unsettling and have slower rhythms, allowing the narrative pieces to fit together little by little. That's in contrast to network TV, which is mostly concerned with accessibility, writing for the least-common denominator."

HBO's Albrecht said

"The Sopranos" is accessible precisely because of its unexpected juxtapositions: "Tony [Soprano], like many men, is going through a mid-life crisis. But unlike too many TV mid-life crisis stories, it's not whiney and tedious. By putting it in this context -- David has a phenomenal ear for the wonderful and horrible ironies in life -- audiences are able to look at their own lives while being entertained."