Something to watch tonight: Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos

Just in time for Christmas, The Sopranos is get­ting the col­lect­ors’ item treat­ment with a com­plete box set with all 86 epis­odes remastered in 4K – plus an extens­ive bunch of extras.

All of which reminds me of a review I wrote a couple of years ago for the Substack newsletter:

I’ve only seen a couple of epis­odes of The Sopranos, and not likely to per­severe bey­ond that, but I am extremely inter­ested in its place in the pan­theon of prestige series tele­vi­sion and the growth of HBO over the past 25 years, so I was glad to watch Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos, a new two-part doc­u­ment­ary by Alex Gibney.

The first thing it taught me was that for years I have thought that David Chase (The Sopranos) and David Milch (Deadwood) were the same per­son and I’m glad to be able to make that dis­tinc­tion finally.

The second was the real­isa­tion that in 1999, when The Sopranos first aired, HBO was mainly known for movies and box­ing and that the exec­ut­ives who green­lit the show didn’t really know what they were doing either, giv­ing Chase plenty of lee­way to basic­ally invent 21^st cen­tury tele­vi­sion as he went along.

Gibney’s film is built around an exten­ded – and some­what reluct­ant – inter­view with Chase and the abund­ant behind-the-scenes mater­i­al that HBO have made avail­able. Fans will love the insights into favour­ite char­ac­ters and moments but I enjoyed the insight into the mys­ter­ies of storytelling and how import­ant cast­ing is. And what a gamble it is.

The pro­lif­ic Alex Gibney has a new film in fest­ivals at the moment – an incen­di­ary four-hour doc­u­ment­ary called Musk. Three guesses who it is about (and how he feels about it).

That September 2024 news­let­ter also fea­tured reviews of Blumhouse hor­ror Speak No Evil with James McAvoy, Kiwi body-horror Grafted, French drama Marguerite’s Theorem and excel­lent Aussie sports doc­u­ment­ary The Blind Sea.

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Where to watch Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos

Aotearoa: Streaming on HBO Max

Australia: Streaming on Binge, FoxtelNow and HBO Max

Canada: Streaming on Crave

Ireland: Streaming on Sky

India: Streaming on Hotstar

USA: Streaming on HBO Max

UK: Streaming on Sky