‘Sopranos’ documentary examines legendary show’s origins
“For years, everybody told me that I had to write something about my mother,” David Chase says, but chances are they never imagined he would find a way to do that in a television show about … the New Jersey mob? In the HBO documentary “Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos” (streaming on Max), director Alex Gibney puts all of it under the microscope.
The series premiered 25 years ago, which is as good an excuse as any to look back at a pop cultural phenomenon that not only reshaped Hollywood gangster stories, but our ideas about what TV could even be.
“The Sopranos” was among the earliest examples of “prestige” and Gibney’s documentary is aiming for something prestige-adjacent. It’s on the selfserious side, but maybe jokily so? Their interview takes place on a set that’s a replica of Dr. Melfi’s office, where the psychiatrist and Tony Soprano held their therapy sessions.
There’s something funny in the idea of putting Chase in the very same hot seat he created, but it’s a surprisingly flat visual motif meant to underscore the idea that he’s here to spill his guts. He claims to be a reluctant participant, then talks his head off. Make of that what you will, but the parallels to Tony’s mixed feelings about his own psychoanalysis aren’t as interesting as Gibney might have hoped. Even so, if you liked the show, this is an enjoyable revisit through the eyes of key talent.
It’s the kind of behind-thescenes material that used to be featured as a DVD extra, and it’s satisfying on those terms. But in today’s landscape, it can only exist as a stand-alone project, which creates more portent around it than it probably warrants. The first 10 minutes are saddled with nervous, chaotic, overlapping editing that speeds through Chase’s biography to better focus on the show itself. Once the documentary takes a breath and starts telling a story, it suddenly becomes watchable. But “Wise Guy” ends by mimicking the show’s divisively abrupt final note, which leaves the impression that there’s a
deficit of original ideas animating this endeavor.
Split into two episodes, it includes interviews from writers, cast members and HBO executives who talk about the show’s origins, evolution and struggles. There are grainy clips from audition tapes, plus old photos of Chase when he was young, and you realize he has always had what one colleague describes as resting dour face. Is that innate or shaped by a taxing
relationship with his mother, Norma?
He spent much of his childhood in the same New Jersey town where the show was filmed, and when he got married in 1968, “a couple of my uncles took me aside and said, ‘You’ve got to get out of here. You’re not going to stay married if you stay here.’ Because they knew what my parents were like and they