March 12, 2006

The Sopranos, Television, and the Human Sewer

By Thomas Lifson
It has been more than 21 months since I last saw a brand new episode of The Sopranos, an artistic achievement that has begun to make a lasting impact on the medium of television. Artistically superior to the vast majority of movies, The Sopranos has the ability to develop characters and plot lines that speak to fundamental issues of human existence, and which trace the arc of tragedy across generations. Like The Godfather trilogy before it, the peculiar circumstances of a mafia don — unconstrained by the normal moral and legal restraints of ordinary mortals — are used to probe deeply into what makes all of us tick. As I wrote when it left the air last in 2004, one of the reasons I love The Sopranos so much is the simultaneous moral complexity and moral certainty it portrays. 'This life we have chosen' becomes a curse, eating away at those who embrace it, and often enough destroying them, along with their loved ones. Tony himself, a powerful and physically imposing thug,...(Read Full Article)