It’s hard to believe it, but it’s been twenty-five years since The Sopranos debuted in 1999 on HBO. For six seasons, millions of fans spent their Sunday nights with Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and company before going to work the next day to discuss the shocking episode they’d just witnessed the night. David Chase is the creator of The Sopranos and was the showrunner for its entirety. Now, in the new HBO docuseries Wise Guy, Chase is back, along with the cast and crew from The Sopranos, to talk about how the show came to be and what it meant to them and pop culture. If you’re a fan, get your tissues ready. Wise Guy is a fun ride, but the emotional impact of the nostalgia and the reminder of the loss of Gandolfini will have you wiping away your tears.
What Is ‘Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos’ About?
Wise Guy is a two-part docuseries, with both episodes lasting over an hour. HBO is dividing it into two parts that will air back to back, but for all intents and purposes, it’s a nearly three-hour documentary. Helmed by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, Wise Guy takes a look at the history of The Sopranos, from its early beginnings as an idea in David Chase’s mind, to its massive impact on pop culture, and the tragic death of star James Gandolfini in 2013.
We’ve had looks at The Sopranos before, but this one goes beyond the superficial or the dissection of favorite episodes. While that is all there, Wise Guys covers everything you can think of. Want to know how Chase first got the idea? It’s there. Want to know how James Gandolfini got cast? It’s there, as are other casting stories, with some fun audition tapes included. Actors Edie Falco, Lorraine Bracco, Michael Imperioli, Steven Van Zandt, and Drea de Matteo are all interviewed, giving their own thoughts on the series, but also speaking about Gandolfini, since he sadly isn’t around to chime in. Still, Wise Guy finds a way to include him through archival interviews. If there are any disappointments in those interviews it’s that not even more actors are involved. It would have been fun to hear from the likes of Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Robert Iler, and others, but as you’ll quickly find out, this isn’t about them. Wise Guy is about David Chase, even though he didn’t want it to be.
‘Wise Guy’ Centers on David Chase Most of All
Wise Guy has a rather clever setting, with Alex Gibney sitting across from David Chase on a set made up to look exactly like Dr. Melfi’s (Bracco) office from The Sopranos. That’s not just a cute reference but also meaningful, as a vast majority of the docuseries is about Gibney speaking with Chase in personal moments that feel almost like a therapy session. Early on, Chase realizes that Wise Guy is going to be more about him than he thought, and even though he is uncomfortable with the idea, he doesn’t hold back at all with the show that set him up for life.
Some stories David Chase tells hardcore fans might already know about, while others are more detailed than you may have previously heard before. Gibney takes Chase back to the beginning of his life, not because this is going to be a documentary more about him than The Sopranos (don’t worry, it’s not), but because The Sopranos was formed through Chase’s life. Chase is an Italian who grew up in a similar atmosphere as The Sopranos, and Tony’s mother, Livia (Nancy Marchand), is modeled after his own. Listen to David Chase talk, and you get the impression that The Sopranos is all about him trying to find a way through issues with his mother, which makes the therapy session setup even more impactful.
Chase leads the audience through the very first inklings of The Sopranos, from how he first envisioned it as a feature film, to how every network rejected it, and what it finally took for HBO to be interested. Having a show on HBO is now seen as a sign of greatness. If you’re on HBO, you must be good, but in the late ’90s, it was still predominantly a movie channel, and a series ending up on there was a risk that no other network wanted to be part of. We all know now that the risk paid off abundantly, but Wise Guys covers the insecurities of HBO’s early days, when no one understood why anyone would ever want to see a mob show about a bad guy in therapy.
‘Wise Guy’ Isn’t Afraid To Look at the Negatives of ‘The Sopranos’
Chase isn’t the most joyful-looking person with his perpetual scowl, but he does speak positively, for the most part, about his time with The Sopranos. He only intended to remain on the show initially, but admits that he loved it so much that he couldn’t leave. Still, that doesn’t mean that producers and writers don’t share stories about how angry and controlling he could be. Even a fired part of the staff is brought back to give her experience. Wise Guy isn’t interested in a glossy portrayal of the making of The Sopranos. It gets down in the dirt, but without being sleazy and negative, like a tabloid series. Instead, Wise Guy is simply honest, warts and all.
The actors from The Sopranos get a lot of time to speak, but what’s refreshing is how much time is also given to the writers and the producers. We get to see the writing room and learn about how episodes were built from nothing. Archival footage is shown of Chase sitting with writers at a table trying to figure their way through The Sopranos. While the first part of Wise Guy deals with the creation of the first highly successful season, part two discusses the impact and the stress of keeping up the quality for six long seasons.
Then there’s James Gandolfini. He was the star of The Sopranos, and although Chase is the star of Wise Guy, it’s Gandolfini that many of us are here for. Tony Soprano is discussed heavily throughout, as is the emotional and physical toll the role took on Gandolfini. Playing such an angry and violent character wasn’t easy on a kind soul, leading to some off-set issues for the star. These conversations are not disrespectful or exploitative, however, but show us the real man behind the character and the places he had to go to give us one of TV’s greatest icons. It’s sad to witness, but it’s necessary to understand the impact Gandolfini had on people. If you’re a fan of The Sopranos, from its unpredictable beginning until that frustrating end, Wise Guys is a must-watch that will make you want to revisit Tony and his gang all over again. It also has the most perfect ending for a documentary that this writer has seen in a long while.
Wise Guy debuts on HBO on Saturday, September 7, with two back-to-back parts.
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