Hollywood Deep

The original HBO “The Sopranos” poster 1999

The last word on The Sopranos, and I’m done with it…for now.
Millions of fans of the HBO television mafia series “The Sopranos” watched the hit drama’s final episode two Sundays ago amid a flurry of speculation over the fate of its top mobster, Tony Soprano. Producer, creator writer, director and driving force of the show, David Chase said he knew “about three years ago” how the story would end, and that “from the beginning, my goal was always to do a little movie every week,”
He has said in recent interviews, “It has all been planned out, we always knew exactly where it was going, but within that framework, we left a lot of room for each episode to have its own character and to invent stories that would fit in with the continuing story.”

Rest In Peace, Sopranos. I always thought the show’s story would return in some form, but thinking about it for a couple of weeks, I now think it is over for good. Always a fan of the genre, I have to say I was a little skeptical at first. I mean what TV show has ever done justice to the Mafia, Cosa Nostra, Mob, Organized Crime genre. It does make for great dramatic and comedic subject matter, though.
Of course movies like “The Godfather”, “The Godfather Part II”, and “Goodfellas”, are the standards in classic Mafia film making. There has been other really good mob movies, “Donnie Brasco”, with Al Pacino and Johnny Depp, for one, is a great and authentic film. Way back, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and James Cagney made some great mob movies. “The Godfather”, however was the first to capture the sense of family, tradition and honor, but as the same time they were ruthless criminals. The Sopranos TV show was born on HBO, Sunday January 10, 1999. Over the run, the show became the best and most successful television portrayals of the genre of all time. We saw it unfold every week, when they happened to be airing their season, it became a weekly event for people. I had many a dinner with friends and family on a Sunday night and watching “The Sopranos”.
Hats off to David Chase, his genius shined through from the first moment the show came on the screen, until the last 10 seconds of black on the show’s final episode. He made some of the most riveting, and talked about television of all time. I give HBO credit for allowing Chase to make it real, no holds barred, and making it into a weekly event during their seasons, always the same night and same time. HBO notoriously among industry professionals can be cheap, and always try to make deals and pay lower rates. They can be hard to work for, but producers like my friend, Henry Bronchtein, stayed the course and made television history.
I was working with Henry, a 1st AD for many years, on a movie called “The Out of Towners”. I received a message for Henry to call, so and so at HBO about the Sopranos. That is exactly the way I wrote it down. I thought it was a TV show about opera singers and would never work. Henry filled me in a bit about the story line, but we were both skeptical that a TV show about the mafia could work, even on cable. I was wrong, and Henry went on to mega success with the show as a producer and director.
R.I.P. “The Sopranos”, a tribute to a show that was the winner of 6 Emmy Awards, and nominated for many others. The show and its cast also won and were nominated for several different awards over the years. Click Here for The Sopranos award deatails
I’m still crying in my sausage and peppers.
… 10 seconds of black…DEEP!

Henry Bronchtein and I. Pretty goofy, can’t remember why.

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