Mad Moods

When I've been reading a novel a lot or watching a novel-like show a lot, it alters my default thoughts, moods, and my inner dialog. I'll be walking across campus, between appointments, distracted from work for a moment, and my thoughts will drift back to a song from the TV show or a certain moment from the narrative. In some sense, I'm always occupying that world, whether or not I'm reading or watching the story at any given moment.

So it goes w/ Mad Men right now. I'd just re-discovered the first season, watching all of season 1 in a week. Now, I'm making my way through season 2 for the second time in preparation for the beginning of the third season next weekend. The mood of Mad Men is something like the mood of The Sopranos - pretty dark w/ touches of detached, sarcastic levity. Hardly the mood you would choose to be in all the time. Did I choose to watch Mad Men because it had qualities that helped me put my life in perspective in some way, as Mary Beth Oliver hypothesizes in her writings about sad and meaningful media? Maybe. But thinking about it strictly in terms of mood, the show puts me in a somewhat reflective mood but seems to have inoculated me against slipping into very bad moods. If I had watched some comedy like Arrested Development, or some other distraction, I might have experienced a temporary boost in mood that might have even carried over a bit into the rest of my life. But then I would be reminded of some dark thought that would bring my mood way down and nothing about my media experience could help with that. If anything, it might even hurt more given the contrast between the two moods and the two worlds. But w/ Mad Men and similar "bad mood" shows, those unhappy thoughts and the events that trigger them can happen to me (and they will always happen to me - that's life) and I won't be brought as low by them.

We could call shows like Mad Men "reflective media," something that had this carry-over effect on mood after you've stopped watching (but only if you're really into the show), enhancing your ability to deal w/ situations and other bad thoughts and bad moods.

Still, it might be causing me to dwell on unhappier aspects of my life. Or it might just give color and shape to the moods and thoughts that are results of my real life situations and material experience. Maybe I'm pulling the darker moments out of a show full of dark & light moments b/c that's what I need at this time. That's what makes this so fascinating to study: I don't have an intuitive grasp on whether my mood is affecting my interpretation of the show, the show is affecting my mood, or both or neither is affecting each other. Its too glib to say that they both affect each other, though that may be true. I need to know the degree to which they affect each other and the circumstances in which those effects hold up. Not to say that mood is all that matters. I wouldn't want media or anything else to make me a happy idiot, and I wouldn't want people to stop reading Hamlet b/c its too depressing. Still, I'd like to know a bit more about what causes what, especially when it comes to these indirect, lingering effects on my default moods.

Mood Matters

Looking at my Netflix queue can be pretty depressing. By that, I mean that many of the movies I've put in the queue aren't exactly uplifting fare. The movie I watched tonight, L'Enfant, is a perfect example: critically acclaimed, but sad as hell. I have a really tough time getting in the mood for such films so I tend to bump them down in my queue. Turns out I'm not alone in this kind of behavior, as this article from the Wall Street Journal indicates. Even better, someone did an empirical study on the phenomenon of thinking you'll be up for a high-brow film on a later date, and then once that date rolls around, you'd much rather see "low brow" fare (though I take issue with Read et al's categorization of Groundhog Day and The Breakfast Club as low-brow).

Though the study and the article pertained to the high-brow/low-brow distinction, there's an implicit assumption in both: critically acclaimed = downer. Here's the interesting thing that my Netflix queue, with its swelling number of TV shows, points to: this is NOT true of critically acclaimed TV. In particular, I'm thinking of several shows from HBO (The Wire, The Sopranos, Rome) but I think you could apply it to any of the most critically acclaimed TV shows ever. Its not that the aforementioned shows are lighthearted, exactly. In fact, all of them can be quite depressing at times. However, they've all got moments of humor (albeit dark humor) and its those lighter touches that keep me coming back, and make me unafraid of diving in to 13 hours of a show even though I'm in a pretty good mood these days and don't particularly want to be brought down. When I think about settling in for a season of any of those shows, I think it won't put me in a bad mood. I cannot say the same for many of the "better" films of the past 10 years.

Earlier, I wrote about the tone of The Sopranos and that tone seems to pervade HBO dramas in general. Somehow, those shows manage to be deep and insightful without being horribly depressing. Is it the length of films that prevent them from being insightful and wry instead of insightful and leaden? Is it merely a convention, a habit? Whatever it is, its keeping me away from more and more films and making me more enthusiastic about the future of serial motion picture narratives, on TV and online.

What HBO Taught Me That Ethnographies Couldn't

After reading a play based on Harry Wolcott's controversial ethnography of Sneaky Kid and after making my way through another qualitative study of a marginalized group, I became frustrated with the mission of qualitative research geared toward social reform. Of course, I agree with the motives and ethics behind the research, which aspire to make the world a more tolerant, egalitarian place, but the actual experience of reading this work gives me the impression that its authors are trying to wrap their politics in the guise of science. Maybe there's nothing wrong with that per se, but at the end of the day, I think the most important question is: is it effective? Does it actually change minds and behavior, or does it just make its authors feel good and boost their chances at tenure?

It should be obvious by now that I feel that the latter is more true than the former. So then I asked, what could change people's minds and behavior towards marginalized groups? What had changed my mind about such things? The most valuable attitude/politics-changing information comes from 1st hand experience. Spend a few years in a poor neighborhood or a poor country, or befriend members of a marginalized group, and you're bound to sympathize more than you did before (although Robert Putnam's work on diversity and distrust might disprove this) . In the absence of such experience, I think a well-told fictional story can do the trick. At least that's what's worked best for me.

After watching The Wire and The Sopranos, I feel differently about the cause and remedy of pretty much every social ill. At first, you wouldn't think that qualitative research and TV shows have all that much in common, but I think that they have or could potentially address a lot of the same issues. If you take a close look at any aspect of society, you start to see how messy things really are, how everyone is guilty to one degree or another - something that these shows are able to convey.

Both shows even have stand-ins for the ethnographer that act at proxies for both the audience and the author - Melfi in The Sopranos and the entire police force (particularly McNutty) in The Wire. Both Melfi and McNulty wonder whether what they're doing really makes a difference. They wonder whether they can possibly help reform society, and wonder what gives them the right to intervene the ways that they do, just as an ethnographer would. I wondered along with these characters whether or not I merely used my hope that Tony would reform as an excuse to vicariously experience his supreme selfishness, and also whether that vain sense of professional competitive satisfaction mattered more than actually helping people, which might be impossible given the extent of corruption in 21st century urban America.

Supposedly, it is up to the reader of the qualitative study to decide if qualitative researchers' work is generalizable beyond the population that was studied, but the very fact that they're bothering to publish this work implies that they do see it as indicative of larger patterns. Wolcott gets into a whole mess of trouble by becoming involved with his subject of study. Its hard to fault the subject because, really, who likes to be scrutinized to that degree and used as an example of a certain type of social problem? Even if you make the study anonymous so as to protect the reputation of the subject, I still feel uneasy about the relationship between ethnographer and subject. Either they make these people into bad guys, repaying their openness with harsh criticism of every aspect of their lives, or they lionize them, which isn't telling the whole story and ultimately helps no one.

That's what you need the protective layer of fiction for. Not only does it protect the identities of the not-so-innocent. It also doesn't necessarily claim to be realistic and generalizable the way that qualitative research does. If people happen to think The Wire and The Sopranos are realistic, great. And as much as the creators and fans of the shows crow about the "realism" of the show, what makes them both great, what sucks people in and keeps them watching, is the entertainment value of the show. They're exciting, hilarious, dramatic, ironic, and moving. Ehtnographic studies can be all of these things, but its much easier to make a story reliably entertaining if you're permitted to take massive liberties with reality, and that's something qualitative researches have no business doing.

Mad Men - an HBO show by any other name?

While watching the series premier of Mad Men on AMC, I was straining to see the similarities between this show and the show its creator- Matthew Weiner - used to write for, The Sopranos. Usually, writer/producers leave the stifling confines of network TV for the liberating ad-free world of HBO (the 3 Davids are all former network scribes). So, what happens when they go the other way, and what influence is more powerful in determining the flavor of a show - the network brand or a staff writer? This is sort of a flawed question, b/c Weiner isn't David Chase, but still, I think you could look at Mad Men and ask whether it was an HBO-type show just by seeing how much it resembled the show Weiner used to write for.

AMC (and F/X, which has a few critically acclaimed shows like Rescue Me and The Shield) aren't network TV, but still, they have ads. Therefore, shows on those networks are broken up, interrupted by distracting advertising, and can't allow much in the way of swearing, nudity, violence, etc. Perhaps they're less likely to stand by a ratings challenged show, though its worth noting that even HBO has its limits in that regard. What I identify with HBO shows goes beyond profanity and violence. Its dramas (I'm thinking primarily of The Sopranos and The Wire, though I'm going to check out Deadwood and 6 Feet Under to see if it applies to them) seem to be:

• more serialized - the stories unfold over many episodes, and not much is wrapped up in each ep
  
• more dense in terms of plotlines and information doled out by the narration
• less redundant in terms of that information
  
• slower-paced - more scenes that work to develop character and don't advance the plot
  

I've surmised that these qualities are direct results of not having the interruption of ads. According to this theory, no show on an ad-driven network (like Man Men) could possess these qualities and maintain enough of an audience to survive for a few seasons. The ads take a viewer's attention away from the narrative, and if the show is too complex, then the viewer will become lost. Mind you, complex shows like The Sopranos or The Wire can be shown on ad-driven networks in syndication and have a significant audience b/c they've already built up an audience on distraction-free HBO. But to start out on the distraction-heavy medium of ad-TV and gain an audience while maintaining narrative complexity of this nature - impossible!

There's also a certain moral position on class in America that some HBO shows share (again, I'm thinking of The Sopranos, The Wire, maybe Deadwood): there is not one hierarchy but many, some on the right side of the law, others on the wrong side, though there seems to be very little meaningful difference between the two. Protagonists pursue success on their own terms, trying to climb the ladder and beat the other guy while vaguely aware that the whole point of their existence - to climb that ladder - may be utterly bereft of meaning.

I can't think of any network shows that address themes of class, power, and culture in that way. Though I can't say for sure, I've heard that ad-driven cable net shows like The Shield, Rescue Me, and Battlestar Gallactica do. As far as Mad Men goes, so far it seems to resemble the HBO thematic preoccupations. One of the main characters - Don Draper - is at or near the top of the game, but seems to slip into reveries every now and then, perhaps having doubts about the life he's living (but, unlike Tony Soprano, he can't blame it on not getting in on the ground floor). There's also the detached wit of those HBO shows, the way they occasionally cue us to laugh at the whole backwards culture, so seldom seen on network TV and even the aforementioned ad-driven cable net shows, which are more geared towards getting us to identify with the protagonist. Again, Man Men seems to be mocking the culture as much as it presents it as hip and appealing.

One way Weiner could maintain a certain integrity while working on advertising-driven TV: by having his show be about advertising. Its a bit too early to tell, but it seems to take a somewhat cynical approach towards advertising in general. The show would seem to offer more opportunities for product placement than any scripted show in TV history. But what does it mean for a brand to be featured in a show that's message is: ads are lies created to manipulate the masses into buying things they had no previous intention of buying, to convince them, as the protagonist so eloquently put it, that everything is OK? So, there's two questions: does a brand (like Lucky Strike, which was featured in the first ep and, not coincidentally, just stopped selling products in North America last year) suffer from being featured in the show; does a brand suffer from being featured in the interstitial ads during the show?

The answer to question two is most likely no, but perhaps sales wouldn't be boosted as much as if the product were featured in a more ad/product-friendly show.

In the end, I hope that this show, along with the other show created by an HBO ex-pat - Damages) embody some of the characteristics of The Sopranos. Given the lasting popularity of that show, in syndication and on DVD, maybe TV execs of all stripes will get the message that there's an audience for that type of show. Even if its inevitably watered-down, that distinct mix of narrative complexity, detached wit, and class consciousness that HBO pioneered in the beginning of this decade would be a welcome change from what we've seen so far.

Who Thinks Ambiguity Sucks?

The finale of The Sopranos has sparked familiar discussion over the merits of open-ended narratives, but perhaps on an unprecedented scale. Its the IMDB debate over Mulholland Drive writ large, with familiar defenses (its consistent with the rest of the author's work; though it has no definable narrative meaning, it has allegorical/thematic meaning - that Tony's life will always be full of threats and dread) and derisions (ambiguity and vagueness is a sign of laziness or contempt on the part of the author). Both camps seem intensely aware of one another, thanks to the internet, and assume that divining the intention of the author is akin to knowing the true meaning of the episode. I'm beginning to think that if Last Year at Marienbad were released today, there would be a time-travel theory about it and Robbe-Grillet would be called a self-indulgent asshole.

Oddly, sports guys and morning DJs were analyzing the conclusion as much as media critics were. Debates of this fervor and scale only really happen with texts that attract split audiences: jocks and nerds, melodrama addicts and sci-fi freaks (see Lost). European art film ambiguity doesn't ruffle feathers, but TV, with its relatively broad appeal, cannot help but do so. Michael Wilbon of ESPN's PTI claimed that the ambiguity was Chase's way of not following his vision, of trying to be all things to all people. Scott Tobias of The Onion AV Club thought that the ambiguous ending was evidence that Chase had maintained his unique vision, refusing to bow to audience or studio executive pressure. Even the meaning/worth of discrete attributes of the conclusion are debatable.

Lost in some of the debate over the merit of the final scene are the extensions of thematic concerns of the series in the last episode. Among the small details: TVs in the background of the episode providing an incongruous or enervating distraction (Little Miss Sunshine on TV in Sil's hospital room; AJ watching a politician dance mashup with his model girlfriend; the clip from The Twilight Zone episode entitled "The Hack" in the back of the Bing; the TVs in the loony bin with Junior). This is in keeping with Jeffrey Goldberg's assessment of Chase's motives as "anti-television." Its an argument I'm sympathetic to, especially when it comes to TVs in public places which essentially control public emotion (an effect that the security forces designing and running American airports are surely familiar with). The fact that many viewers think that a guy walking into a bathroom is a sign of impending doom is a sign of how deeply influenced we all are by mob stories, on the big or small screen. AJ's decision (caving to his parents' wills) to go into movies instead of the Army is another way of saying that we use media as an opiate more than catalyst for action.

I also liked how AJ got shamed out of being smart again. Before, it was "Nitch." This time, its "Yeets." Can you really blame him for taking the easy way out - helping to churn out forgettable shitty Hollywood movies - instead of getting smart when people laugh at his attempts to learn? Another knock at a society Chase seems to have stopped hiding his contempt for. The episode, after all, is titled "Made in America."

I made some remark at the conclusion of a class I taught on TV & Post TV about the arbitrariness of endings of serial narratives. The only true end to any story (to paraphrase Jonathan Franzen and countless others, I'm sure) is death. If characters ride off into the sunset, if they get married, there will always be something after that. The last 30 seconds of The Graduate offer a rare authorial acknowledgment of this fact (its rather telling that Hollywood simply couldn't accept this rare instance of brilliant open-endedness, and somehow churned out a semi-sequel 35 years later). There's the "Waiting for Godot" ending, sitting in an unchanging room, waiting forever. I suppose David Chase could've locked up Tony in a prison cell and remained consistent with the plot of the show, but it might've seemed too moral, and certainly too reminiscent of Seinfeld's much-hated conclusion. So, you can either snuff out the lead consciousness of the show, or you can acknowledge the fact that things just keep going, after our view on them ceases to exist. At the conclusion of the British Office, Tim mentions this - after the audience leaves, the characters' lives go on, one failure after another victory until death. The Sopranos gave us both options - death or simply the end of our view on their lives. As I see it, there really aren't any other options.

Lastly, its kinda funny that a sudden cut to black (often mislabled as a fade to black) will, for the time being, be read as a humorous reference to The Sopranos. In fact, any loss of picture due to technical difficulties may cause me to think back to this episode.

The Sopranos Final Moments

Its been said that David Chase didn't want to send a typical mob-story message with the conclusion of The Sopranos. If Tony was triumphant, that would essentially say that crime pays. If Tony died or was thrown in jail, that would say what most Hays code era mob stories said: crime doesn't pay. How, then, can you end The Sopranos (or any story, for that matter) without sending a message?

The Sopranos always distanced us from the main characters to some extent. We sympathized with them, but we also analyzed them and laughed at them. It was never about getting sucked into a narrative where you were more emotionally involved than you were intellectually involved. The immersion in the diegetic world you felt was a secondary pleasure. At most, its a hybrid between family drama and aloof satire. Though its been said that messages aren't David Chase's style, I'd argue that he still likes to use the show to comment (albeit in subtle and often ambiguous ways) on life, rather than as a way to get viewers emotionally involved in the lives of fictional characters. The show was, of course, marketed and talked about like any other show. We were supposed to care whether or not Tony died, and I suppose a lot of viewers did (the ones who are probably extremely pissed off after the conclusion of the series). But personally, I never got that involved in the story. The show was never really about the war between the two families. There weren't that many cliffhangers. So the ending of the show doesn't really piss me off. I'm still not sure that I like it, though.

At the very least, I admired it because it left me with a unique feeling, which is pretty hard to do after several millennia of storytelling. I imagine that a lot of people would write off the ending as lazy ambiguity, ending a show in medias res because he couldn't think of any satisfying way to end it - the ultimate cop out or, worse, a prank. Maybe, but I think that's oversimplifying. In the last scene, there's a very conscious build-up of tension through cross cutting between Tony & Carmela, Meadow (safely?) outside the restaurant, and the shady dude who walked in with AJ. Clearly, we are meant to think that this shady dude will abruptly spoil the familial idyll at the diner table. The family is finally getting along for once, and now it will be shattered. I knew this trope, and yet my heart was still beating a mile a minute at the end.

There's some dramatic irony at the conclusion: the characters think they're fine, but because of what the narration shows us, and because we're well versed in tension building exercises that have littered Hollywood since the days of D.W. Griffith, we're convinced that they're not fine at all. That's the tension at the end: between the lives the characters know and what we know of their world. True ambiguity would've given us and the characters competing cues as to what was about to happen. If it had been a "choose-you-own-adventure" or a "viewer-supplies-the-ending," like many are mistaking it for, it would've presented us with competing cues of at least 2 possible (and equally likely) outcomes. While one could argue that it was equally possible that what Tony was looking at in the final frame was either is killer or Meadow, its telling that one of those possibilities is extremely mundane. If you're 50% sure that a person coming through a door, any door, at any time, is coming to kill you, then that's not the same as when a character is in a temporary state of mortal danger (always the case with choose-your-own-adventures) and he/she may or may not make it out alive.

Instead of wondering whether he'll be fine or whether he'll die, we're nearly certain that he's going to die. The final emotion is one of dread and unrealized fear, not curiousity. The final violent act is unseen, and perhaps is all the more powerful because of that. Then again, maybe he's fucking with us and I'm overanalyzing. I've found that most people err on the side of "the writer is fucking w/ us" simply because they're afraid of being made to look like fools. At the same time, there are those blind acolytes who will find meaning in anything, regardless of whether the author intended it, or whether other people find that meaning. Another possibility that isn't considered by many: maybe he's doing both. Maybe he's telling the closure-junkies raised on serial TV to go fuck themselves, and he's leaving those willing to look deeper with a unique ending that was as unpredictable as the show always was. As with David Lynch films and TV shows, the ambiguity reveals cultural differences, what we find acceptable in our art, or if we believe that TV is a place for art.

Speaking of Lynch, I kept thinking back to the most provocative conclusion of a story I'd ever seen, one that sparked my interest in the possibilities of TV, film, pop culture, and art: Twin Peaks. Its worth noting that David Chase claims to be a big fan of that series, and that Lynch catches plenty of shit for not concluding his stories in a classical, unambiguous manner. The Twin Peaks ending more obviously evoked feelings of dread, but the more I think about the conclusion of The Sopranos, the more I see parallels between the two endings. They're both deeply unsettling, partly because we're aware of some horrible thing that the characters are not aware of.

I think this will come out on subsequent viewings. There was so much build-up, so much general hype and momentum that it was hard, even for the distanced viewer, not to get caught up in expecting what they were about to see. As time passes, perhaps the feeling of being cheated will, too.

Footnote: I actually mis-remembered the last shot. I thought I saw Meadow coming through the door, when in fact I only saw Tony's reaction. There is not shot of Meadow entering. Such is the power of great editing. Also, Bill on Time magazine's article's comments caught a significant bit of editing I noticed but quickly forgot about: we see a shot of Tony glancing into the diner followed by an impossible POV shot of Tony sitting at a table. A witness to his own death?

Anti-Heroes and the Therapists who Love Them

After reading the analysis of last night's episode of The Sopranos on Slate, I buy what Jeff Goldberg said: that like Dr. Melfi, the viewers tricked themselves into believing that they were doing something good by analyzing this person that they knew was evil. But now, at the end, finally we wake up and realize that we need to stop, that if we’re going to be good, reasonable people, we can’t enable this person any longer.

There’s also something interesting going on in terms of the ambiguity of viewer identification with characters on The Sopranos. For me, Dr. Melfi has always been more sympathetic, if for no other reason than that she’s from a socio-economic class closer to my own than most of the other characters are. That’s probably true for a lot (but maybe not most) of the audience. We think of ourselves as superior to Tony, who isn’t terribly bright, but we think that he wants to be good. We feel his anger and his sorrow. We’re occasionally empathetic. But we also have known all along that he’s a murderer, that he’s a bad person.

In Scorsese on Scorsese, Marty talks about wanting to portray people normally thought of as bad or evil, particularly Jake Lamotta and Travis Bickle, as something more sympathetic, or perhaps more complex. This wouldn’t excuse their actions (or would it?), but would somehow be more realistic, and therefore preferable to the black-and-white unrealistic morality of traditional Hollywood. While describing the sympathy that viewers might feel for the main characters in Goodfellas, Scorsese talks about it in terms of growing up: “It raises a moral question, like a kid getting older and realizing what these people have done, but still having those first feelings for them as people.” At the conclusion of most of their narratives, Scorsese’s anti-heroes are either praised by a backwards society (Taxi Driver, King of Comedy), thus indicting society, or they’re leading undesirable, unglamorous lives (Goodfellas, Raging Bull), which, in a culture where glamour and fame are indistinguishable from respect, can only be considered a fate worse than death. None of the films really let the immoral protagonist (or the viewer who identifies with him) off the hook, but it doesn’t punish them the way the old Hays code would’ve demanded that they do. This moral gray area is defended on the grounds that it is more realistic than Hollywood’s depiction of evil.

Dr. Melfi hasn’t really played too prominently in the last few seasons of The Sopranos, so this second-to-last episode, in which Melfi recognizes that she’s been mollycoddling a murderer, seems like a bit of an unsatisfying cheat, an escape hatch for those of us who always felt uncomfortable with the prospect of a murderous protagonist. I’ve spent so much more time with Tony that I’m more inclined to identify with him, but when I take a step back, I clearly identify with Melfi more, feeling that, as Scorsese put it, its time to grow up and judge this person for his actions. What might’ve been praised by some as the realistic, gray-area depiction of evil is really just an attempt to excuse the voyeuristic pleasure of the therapist/viewer.

Because it has two points of viewer identification, the show can have it both ways. We can wash our hands of Tony and the show, giving up our vicarious addiction to the pleasures of acting selfishly, or we can believe, like Tony believes, that we're the last of a dying breed, and that there's a nobility in that.

Then there's the nascent terrorist AJ, but maybe it'll be better to write about that after the series concludes.

Is The Sopranos a Unified, Coherent Text?

As The Sopranos concludes next Sunday, I keep wondering whether it could be watched (or taught) in the same way that an epic novel could be read. The amount of time one would need to watch it roughly corresponds to the time it would take to read an epic novel - about a semesters' worth of watching, at a leisurely pace of 6 hours per week.

The most obvious thing working against any TV show aspiring to be be great, lasting art is the fact that they are written as they go along. Everyone loves to point out that Dickens wrote classics in serial format, and that some great works of literature and film were parts of a serial that was written as they went along, but generally, the most read, most cited, most resonant works tend to be conceived of at once, with an overarching plot, OR they have such a structure imposed on them afterwards.

Even if David Chase was more secure than most show runners, virtually guaranteed the right to end the show on his terms, there's still the issue of multiple writers and directors with separate visions. Naturally, these visions must pass muster with the show runner, but still there are more likely to be tangents that don't tie into the whole arc of the story. Of course, these tangents may develop the characters, or be thematically resonant with the rest of the show, but there seems to be the expectation on the part of critics and viewers that each episode and season provide a certain amount of plot points related to a story that carries through from the start of the show to the end.

The critical discourse on Slate often describes ways in which themes and actions that occur in the final season tie into themes and actions that happened in earlier seasons. The mere fact that the show achieved some unity despite being on television (which is assumed to work against authors' efforts to created a unified text) is worthy of praise; so much the better if those themes resonate with the culture and all cultures in general.

But is this kind of unity unlike what Terry Winter laments about network TV: "where everything is wrapped up in neat little bows"? On one end of the spectrum, we have "reality," where there are no conclusions until each of our consciousnesses are snuffed out, where there are infinite vantage points instead of the lone POV of the narration. On the other end, we have the half-hour sitcom, where no actions have lasting consequences, and we're offered a single point of view and many "neat and tidy" conclusions. Somewhere in the middle are the great works of narrative art. But I think that their inner unity or cohesion isn't praiseworthy because its more realistic than sitcoms and such (though that may be true), but more because of a long standing rule of aesthetic judgment: unity = quality.

The last episode didn't quite cohere with the rest of the show to the degree that other episodes in the final season did. It featured a lot of Tony "checking in" with various characters (e.g. Uncle Junior, Janice, Paulie) who were no longer causally connected with the major plotlines that were still in play - will Tony be indicted or murdered by Phil, etc. AJ's multiple reversals were consistent with his confused adolescent character, but still felt a little haphazard. The show did, however, maintain a thematic unity, commenting on American entertainment (particularly TV), depression, and corruption from the very beginning to the very end (though the observations about AJ's depression seemed to run out of steam in the last episode). As for the last scene, I think that it was more consistent with the rest of the show than many are likely to realize.

Of course, unity isn't everything. There are a million reasons why The Sopranos is a great show, or why any story that isn't particularly well unified can be just as affecting as any other.

Neither Melodrama nor Satire

With whom do we identify when watching a TV show/Movie: the writer or the character?

In examining my own feelings for a fictional narrative, I find that I go back and forth from moment to moment between identifying with an imagined author (or audience) and a character. Maybe the most interesting stories, the stories that last, are the ones in which you seem to inhabit both positions. You feel distanced from the fiction, able to pass judgment on the actions of characters, and yet you're also part of those actions.

I think my experience of The Sopranos bears this out. Most times, I'm laughing at Tony, at his malapropisms, his child-like impatience, his lack of foresight. I feel as though the author is making a general point about society (or a certain type of person) and the audience is understanding that point. The point might be something like: the contemporary American pursuit of professional success and familial stability and/or attempts to live by an old, outdated code in a modern world can often lead to absurd situations, or a feeling of hollowness (my interpretation only).

At times like this, the show plays as satire, at which points I feel as though I'm identifying with the imagined author/audience, agreeing with their critique of society. Other times, I feel immersed in the fiction, just as happy or as upset as the characters are.

The moments from the series that stick with me, that pop into my mind periodically, are just that: moments. Not extended stories, not concepts, not even actions. But moments in which characters seem to reflect on their lives. How odd that this visual medium that concentrates so much on action and spectacle only really sticks with me when I'm watching characters who are thinking. And I suppose that they mean more to me because I only have a sense of what those characters are thinking and feeling. Its never spelled out in a voice-over.

Example: Season 6.5, Episode 1: Tony sitting at the edge of the lake after getting the shit kicked out of him by Bobby.

What makes this moment resonate with me? Its everything around the moment, the long history of the character leading up to that scene. I'm only able to feel that sense of weariness because I've seen Tony go through so much, and I know that he doesn't like to lose, but that he has a reflective side, and is capable of seeing the hollowness of his pursuit of power.

The scene also sticks with me because of how its presented. The fact that the sequence features a straight-on close-up of Tony, battered and bruised, and a POV shot of the lake, with no music, make it mean something different than if it had been a single, slow dolly shot circling the character who is expressing his thoughts through dialogue to another character with poignant strings on the soundtrack. In fact, the scene (if I'm remembering it correctly. Maybe its a later scene) punctures the idea of non-diegetic music guiding our emotions by having the radio that's on in the background switch away from "This Magic Moment" to news coverage of the war in Iraq. This reveals the narration to be less manipulative than I thought it was, and pulls me (with Tony) out of my reverie.

Its all based around whether or not the character is aware of the absurdity of his/her situation to the degree that we, the audience, are. What I love about The Sopranos is it goes back and forth, giving me a break from identifying with the characters, allowing me to step back and laugh at the entire situation. It doesn't allow me to settle into that glib, above-it-all point of view that most satires prompt, but it doesn't rely on cheap tricks to guide my emotions the way most televised melodrama does.

Its not that I think melodrama or satire are inherently inferior to this hybrid mode of storytelling/identification, but I do believe that the stories that allow us room to vacillate between identification positions, between author and character - are ultimately the stories that we keep coming back to, the ones that withstand the test of time, that become classics. Stories with a fixed audience identification position (melodrama, horror, satire) are, in a sense, disposable. We cycle through them at a faster rate. They're like amusement rides or non-fiction essays. That said, there's plenty of subtle satire within a lot of melodrama (Douglas Sirk comes to mind), and some melodramatic moments in your average satire. But I haven't come across many shows or movies that balance the two in the way that The Sopranos does.

Its likely that its conclusion will be filled with more earnest, reflective moments than distanced, satiric ones. Here's hoping we're allowed to have another laugh or two at Tony's expense. Or at least Little Carmine's.