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Northern Exposure/The Sopranos -- David Chase, Recurring Actors -- And Dreams

posted 2 months ago by roger1 (3626)
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Interesting for me:

I'm one of those folks who watched The Sopranos from its first episode in 1999 all the way through to its final episode(and frustrating ending) in 2007. I have watched the series all the way through or individual episodes many times in the years since.

But it is only in the past few months -- thanks to Prime - that I have been able to binge a series that showrunner David Chase was on BEFORE The Sopranos -- Northern Exposure.

It looks like Northern Exposure ran from 1990 through 1995. I did not watch Northern Exposure first run -- except for an episode here or there, enough to "get the basics" of the New York City doctor forced by contract to work in Cicely, Alaska; the old guy/young chick relationship; the great Barry Corbin as the rich town kingpin and former astronaut, etc.

But that feels like a long time ago now. Its always amazing to me -- watching NOW -- and realizing that I'm looking at a series from so long ago that who I was back then was not only much younger but in a different place -- job-wise, town-wise, romantic partner wise. Just another era. But now I've seen Northern Exposure and what's interesting is the linkages TO The Sopranos which followed it.

Key: I vaguely knew that David Chase was affiliated with Northern Exposure, but I did NOT know that it took him all the way to Season ...4 or 5(I can't remember) to suddenly have his name at the end of the episode as the showrunner.

Did the show appreciably change when Chase took over? Did it decline? I'm not sure myself, so I'll speak to these two objective observations:

ONE: Several -- not a lot -- but several actors later to appear on The Sopranos appeared on Northern Exposure. Evidently Chase "took them with him":

Jerry Adler -- "Hesh" the Jewish music business mobster on The Sopranos, was Joel's Jewish(natch) Fantasy Rabbi on NX. (Adler is still alive as I post this in September 2024 -- age 95.)
Richard Romanus -- Dr. Melfi's Italian-American ex-husband on The Sopranos; an Italian-American Alaska transplant(and restauranteur) on NX.
Peter Bogdanovich -- Dr. Melfi's psychiatrist on The Sopranos; Himself(one episode guest) on NX.
...and...some other actor. At least one I know I saw but I can't name him or her. Anybody?

David Chase took at least one WRITER from NX with him to The Sopranos, too: Robin Green (who in a recent HBO documentary, revealed she quit or was fired from the show a couple seasons in.)

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But other than a few actors and one writer, David Chase seems to have carried forth to The Sopranos from NX one key thing:

TWO: Dream sequences.

I will here note that I am fairly "neutral" on the dream sequences -- some short, some very long(like EPISODES when Tony ended up in Costa Mesa CA - or the famous Dream Test episode.)

But I know of someone in my immediate circle who just could not STAND the dream sequences on The Sopranos. Which means they were out of luck for many Sopranos episodes and a LOT of NX episodes.

But here is the thing: NX has MORE dream sequences than The Sopranos and they were in episodes NOT written by David Chase and aired BEFORE he became the show runner.

Given that I believe ALL the episodes with dreams on The Sopranos were either written by (or "story by") David Chase, i guess we can determine he REALLY liked dream sequences going back to his NX days. Did he maybe "borrow" the concept FROM NX?

As I recall from my Sopranos watching days, it seemed that -- at least in later seasons -- if there WAS a dream sequence, the episode had David Chase's name on it.

And this: I always felt that though David Chase was certainly the brains behind the Sopranos concept -- based as he says in the recent HBO documentary on his OWN relationship with his mother, I can't help thinking that maybe a number of the OTHER writers on The Sopranos maybe brought more snap and insights to individual episodes than David Chase.

Terrence Winter for one. HE went on to write one big Scorsese hit -- The Wolf of Wall Street -- and wrote many fine Sopranos scripts. However, his Boardwalk Empire series was perhaps more rough, mean and violent than the humor-based Sopranos. So "Winter without Chase" wasn't quite the sucess.

Matt Weiner for another. Weiner came into The Sopranos late in the game, but wrote some fine scripts and went on to showrun Mad Men (David Chase hired Weiner on the basis of his unsold Mad Men pilot script.)

Meanwhile, in the new HBO documentary, David Chase claims that "I always wanted to write and make movies," that he never really could until The Sopranos made him famous. And yet his movies SINCE The Sopranos have been few and not successful. No matter. David Chase is very famous, very admired, and very, very rich.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

Still, I'm heading for this: Northern Exposure shows us 'the roots of David Chase" what with a few actors and all those dreams -- but maybe Chase himself was more "the boss" of The Sopranos than its key writer. Chase ultimately probably has to share a lot of the creative glory on The Sopranos with Terrence Winter and Matt Weiner and other writers of the show he birthed.

And it was David Chase who wrote the famously inconclusive final scene of The Sopranos. A rather easy cop out ending, I always thought(great movies all have great endings.) An ending written by a "TV guy" who wasn't going to make it in the movies.

Why is it I feel that Chase has been paying for that ending ever since in terms of lost movie deals, minimal movie output, and aborted series plans....

[–] ClementinaSpur (1201) 2 months ago

This was interesting reading. Thanks for putting your thoughts down.

I'm in the middle of a complete rewatch for the first time since it originally aired. I am quickly approaching the David Chase era of Northern Exposure, so I will reserve my own comments of how the show changed until I get a refresher. I will tell you that many fans believe he drove the show into the ground. He is on the record with open contempt for the show, admitting he only took the job for the money. He appears to have not cared what happened to it and believed broadcast TV was an inferior vehicle to cable.

If I received your points correctly, you seem to be saying that maybe the success of The Sopranos is less due to David Chase and more due to ideas he "borrowed" from others and the writers he brought on board. He did definitely "borrow" dream sequences from Northern Exposure which were quite a recurring device in the show. The first NX dream sequence appeared long before Chase showed up. It was in the fourth episode of season 1 called "Dreams, Schemes, and Putting Greens." There was another one in the very next episode "Russian Flu." Then again in the eighth episode "Aurora Borealis: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups." They continued to appear often as the series progressed.

If you would like a behind the scenes take on what happened with the show, look for the book Northern Exposed by Darren Burrows who played Ed Chigliak. He writes about the David Chase seasons.

I'll come back after I finish my rewatch with fresh eyes and perspective to offer some thoughts on how the show changed.

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

Thanks for putting your thoughts down.

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Thank you for reading...

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I'm in the middle of a complete rewatch for the first time since it originally aired.

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Well I chose to binge the series across mid-2024. I understand the show only recently became available for streaming.
My interesting 'stimlus" to view the series - which I did not watch in its first run -- was a 2023 "holiday"(not Xmas alone) video starring 90s faves Lisa Loeb and Rob Morrow. Catchy tune _- "Shake Things Up" -- and they were entertaining in it. That sent me to double-check on Loeb and Morrow's careers(then AND now) and I recalled Morrow on NE, and it arrived on streaming (in my life) shortly thereafter and i took a look.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I am quickly approaching the David Chase era of Northern Exposure, so I will reserve my own comments of how the show changed until I get a refresher.

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Fair enough.

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I will tell you that many fans believe he drove the show into the ground. --

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I can't say I noticed a MASSIVE difference, but then I'm not sharp on these things. (SPOILERS). Once it reached the point where Morrow was conclusively off the show(the big clue: when episodes opened with "Starring Barry Corbin") and the "married doctor couple" took over(thus avoiding the "will they won't they?" romance with Maggie), I did feel the thing coming off the rails. The show had turned into a star vehicle for Rob Morrow. Sometimes replacements are accepted, sometimes not. The married couple came in to late for us to "warm" to them as we had to Joel and Maggie.

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(Chase) is on the record with open contempt for the show,

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Chase is a guy with a certain contempt for LOTS of things...including Sopranos fans who gave him grief on the ending and other false leads.

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admitting he only took the job for the money. He appears to have not cared what happened to it and believed broadcast TV was an inferior vehicle to cable.

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Well, broadcast TV WAS an inferior vehicle to cable, but not right away, actually Not in the beginning when HBO ran subpar comedies(with nudity) like Dream On and that OJ Simpson football comedy. It took HBO "upping its writing game" with The Larry Sanders Show to prove itself a good place for good writing and production.

Meanwhile: Chase knew that not only couldn't his NE characters cuss and kill like the ones on The Sopranos, certain happy endings were required for practically everybody on NE. Not so on pay cable.

I have suggested however that once David Chase got his wish -- the power to make theatrical movies -- it didn't go very far. A coupla movies -- one starring James Gandolfini and one an offshoot of The Sopranos and -- not much else. Did studios reject his pitches or his scripts?

Perhaps Chase was ONLY ready for prime time.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

If I received your points correctly, you seem to be saying that maybe the success of The Sopranos is less due to David Chase and more due to ideas he "borrowed" from others and the writers he brought on board.

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Yeah, I think so. I can't particularly prove it but "reversibly" it seems that any time David Chase wrote -- or co-wrote -- a script -- it had a dream sequence in . We predicted that anytime his name showed up at the beginning of an episode as a writer.

Both "Whoever Did This" and "Long Term Parking" did NOT have Chase listed as a writer. They were a bit better than most.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

He did definitely "borrow" dream sequences from Northern Exposure which were quite a recurring device in the show.

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The series was THICK with dream sequences, which I put down to a need on the (network) showrunners part to "open up the story' beyond the main street and few buildings od Cicely. Chase shows up -- continues the dreams -- and takes them with him to The Sopranos. No harm, no foul.

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The first NX dream sequence appeared long before Chase showed up.

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Aha.

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It was in the fourth episode of season 1 called "Dreams, Schemes, and Putting Greens." There was another one in the very next episode "Russian Flu." Then again in the eighth episode "Aurora Borealis: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups." They continued to appear often as the series progressed.

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Yes, I started to pick up on the dreams and I thought: "So this is where David Chase got the idea."

However, I advanced that in my OP as a theory and...not backed up. So..." a draw."

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Here is a disclaimer I shall use in any written "attacks"(too harsh a word) on David Chase about his showrunner decisions and opinions:

He is incredibly famous around the world. I am not.

The Sopranos made him fabulously rich. I am not.

He does not have to work again. I do.

HOWEVER: a "bargain" of fame" (if not a price) is to allow people to discuss your work as an artist and your OPINIONS as an artist. David Chase got famous and so we can analyze him and "debate with him here in absentia."

...and I think David Chase EARNED some pushback and derision because..after his famous "non-ending ending" played...he seemed to go out of his way to INSULT fans of the show for not liking it. Well, some fans -- some in his feverish imagination whom, he said "Wanted to see Tony dead face down in a plate of spaghetti"(or was it lasagna?)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I also felt that Chase "laid the groundwork" for these final insults with some of his EARLIER rather smug, rather superior attacks on his fans for "demanding closure" on various storylines, famously:

What happened to Dr. Melfi's rapist?
What happened to the Pine Barrens Russian?
Did Ralphie kill the horse Pie-O-My...or not?
Did Livia contrive on a hit of her own son?

Its not so much that these things HAD to be explained but:

That rapist seemed to be working in a pizza parlor in New Jersey and might rape again.
The disappearance of the Russian seemed to be setting up a big dramatic war twist the Italian and Russian mobs..you could FEEL the excitement and then..Chase threw it all away.

(Similarly, the entire series seemed to be telegraphing actual mortal danger to Dr. Melfi from Tony's foes -- but not once did the Mafia enemies(or friends) come after Dr. Melfi. Chase didn't WANT to offer audiences that kind of drama. And HER ending was weak too. She had known she was enabling Tony in most other seasons, so why dump him NOW(cuz end of series); who's to say she wouldn't have let him right back a week later?)

I'll give credence to this one: "Did Ralphie kill Pie-O-My or not?? We get only the information available: Ralphie swears he didn't but his "SO WHAT?" helps trigger Tony to murder. Still, understandable. We will never know. And it doesn't MATTER if Chase knows. He never showed us if Ralphie did it or not. Its in Chase's mind.

I dunno. I think Chase was a "sore winner" when his ending wasn't accepted by ALL. (Yes, some loved it, but a gossip gal named Nikki Finke wrote that Chase had shit on all his fans -- and he reacted to that quote, angrily. Eventually Hollywood power brokers bought out Finke's gossip attack website and silenced her.. She's dead now. Hmm.)

Chast kept insulting US for wanting closure, US for wanting justice, US for feeling cheated.

And when really, really, really pressed, he'd say things like "Well its true for all of us -- we may die today, we may die tomorrow, we may die decades from now. Death is inevitable."

Spoken like a true TV writer.

[–] ClementinaSpur (1201) 2 months ago

I have really enjoyed reading your breakdown and analysis. I know this took time, and I appreciate it!

You wrote of all the loose ends left in the Sopranos, and David Chase's attack on fans for wanting closure. I have a theory about this...

Have you ever watched Mad Men? Matthew Weiner created, produced, directed, and wrote that show. It relied heavily on story lines that just floated out into the ether never to be touched on again that made so many fans wonder what ever became of them. Mad Men also had a confusing series finale that drove people to find out what it meant. I remember watching it and thinking it was just odd. The overarching question about Don Draper that underpinned Mad Men from the very first episode was never resolved.

So, I said all that to say this.....is it possible Matthew Weiner was responsible for the dissipating story lines and weak, confusing finale for The Sopranos? You have already established that David Chase is heavily influenced by others' work and ideas. It seems plausible to me that he picked up Matthew Weiner's style for that finale.

When somebody has a series in their hands that is known for pushing boundaries, I think the "soft" endings for both The Sopranos and Mad Men are a bit too esoteric. It sounds like Chase takes his art a bit too seriously and gets angry when the commoners don't care for what he's dishing up.

It's quite the cool thing that we've drawn connections across three different TV shows. This has been fun!

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I know this took time, and I appreciate it!

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Well, thank you for reading it. There are pressures in life "outside of moviechat" and it strikes me as a good place to relax and maybe take the time -- with an interesting movie, TV series(broadcast, cable, or streaming) -- to discuss the project in a little more detail sometimes.

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You wrote of all the loose ends left in the Sopranos, and David Chase's attack on fans for wanting closure. I have a theory about this...

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Very good!

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Have you ever watched Mad Men?

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Yes, I have. From when it first aired. It is my second favorite cable series BEHIND The Sopranos at Number One and the "crossover" from The Sopranos to Mad Men was two-fold: (1) Weiner came to Mad Men FROM The Sopranos and (2) Mad Men started playing (on AMC, with commercials) just a few weeks after the final episode of The Sopranos (on HBO, without commercials.) I recall feeling that it was as if "the same creative force simply moved to a new series" -- almost as if the two series were a continuous "one."

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Matthew Weiner created, produced, directed, and wrote that show.

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That's right. Indeed Weiner submitted his UNSOLD Mad Men pilot script to David Chase (to produce it?) and ended up instead with a writer's job ON The Sopranos.

Just as David Chase struggled for years to sell The Sopranos, Weiner struggled for years to sell Mad Men.

Also, when Weiner was a writer on The Sopranos, it is said, David Chase had to order him out of the writers room and send him home(not to his room? ha) until he would "calm down with his story ideas and trying to take over the room." Said Chase, "I always told Matt that he needed to have a show of his own to run on his own." And that happened.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

It relied heavily on story lines that just floated out into the ether never to be touched on again that made so many fans wonder what ever became of them.

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...just like The Sopranos, huh? Well, I didn't notice it then -- except in a couple ways I will note below -- but I am certainly taking your point NOW. Interesting.

-- Mad Men also had a confusing series finale that drove people to find out what it meant. I remember watching it and thinking it was just odd.

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I think the world was waiting to see if Matt Weiner was going to "pull a Sopranos" with his ending, but I felt it went a few steps better towards "clarity": you could pretty much guess the ending and feeli that it didn't cheat. SPOILERS:

Don Draper makes a "vision queast journey" from New York City all the way to the Northern California at Big Sur, deep in that state's "mystical guru touchy feely" period. He ends up dressing like a hippie and taking part in a morning Buddist sit and hum on a coastal cliff. And....

....boom(or rather the "ding" of a Buddhist bell): a cut to a REAL 1970 TV commercial with a group of young hippie types singing "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing in Perfect Harmony." The ad was for Coke, and the theme song became a REAL radio hit with the word "Coke" changed out.

That's all we get but I figured it meant: Don returned to NYC from his vision quest to begin his "new life": the mother of his children dying, those children needing him more; a return to ad man status launched by "the most successful TV ad of 1970" to take Don THROUGH the seventies. We can hope he would now "be a better man."

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I liked that ending better than the ending of The Sopranos , I thought it was closure enough. "Mad Men" fan Jerry Seinfeld declared it(recently) the best ending to a series ever(including his own.) Interesting: Seinfeld cast Jon Hamm and John Slattery from "Mad Men" in HIS (rather bad) Netflix movie about advertising the PopTart -- the two men weren't called Don and Roger, but they WERE Don and Roger . The scene was OK(Hamm's ad campaign is all sex-based) but not good enough. And Hamm was carrying considerable more girth in his slimming suit than on Mad Men. Time gets ya.

Here is a curve ball specific to me:

In real life, I had an uncle named Don. A young uncle for most of his years known to me. From the 60s into the 70s, he was a handsome man who went from 60s slim suit cool to 70's love beads and beard.

And he was in advertising: creative.

Uncle Don died before Mad Men came on the air. I asked his surviving wife if she watched Mad Men and she said "once or twice. It was too painful. In real life I think the pressure of that world killed Don."

But WOW at the end: The "Teach the World to Sing" commercial. While he was still alive, Uncle Don had worked on a SPOOF of that commercial, well known in our family.

I felt that the end of Mad Men was "the return of Uncle Don."

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

The overarching question about Don Draper that underpinned Mad Men from the very first episode was never resolved.

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You mean how he had taken on the name of a dead Korean War colleague and feared being caught in the "Big Secret Lie of his entire life"? Not to mention, I think he officially deserted after making that switch on the battlefield. Possible jail time.

Some thoughts on that:

I always felt that Matt Weiner knew that these two key components of Mad Men weren't saleable all by themselves:

ONE: A study of the 60s. (In which WE know that the assassinations are coming but the characters don't...suspense, per the Hitchocck definition.)
TWO: A study of the dog-eat-capitalistic dog world of Madison Avenue(with plenty o' sex and cheating for flavor.)

No, the series needed more of a hook...SO we got the "Don Draper is really poor boy Dick Whitman" suspense. Not to mention: the poor boy was raised in a whorehouse, which drove his sexual philandering (not to mention: Dick was handsome.)

The risk of the discovery of Dick Whitman drove Season One and led to the very exciting climax in which Pete Campbell revealed the Big Secret to Old Boss Bert Cooper and Cooper famously replied: "Who cares? Each of us is the man we are in the room at the time."

That was "kinda sorta" RESOLVED in Season One, but they kept it up. I believe his first wife found it out eventually. And some government investigations risked exposing him.

In the very final "half season," for one last time The Big Secret had final suspense: on the road, Don stumbled onto a Veteran's Hall dinner and ALMOST gave the secret away to the other veterans at his table. He thought they were his friends; turned out they resented his looks and pegged him as the person who stole charity proceeds and beat him. A most cruel and sad finish to THAT storyline.

So I'd say...the Dick Whitman/Don Draper Big Secret DID get resolved a few times, a few ways, but would always hang over him, I suppose.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

So, I said all that to say this.....is it possible Matthew Weiner was responsible for the dissipating story lines and weak, confusing finale for The Sopranos?

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Hey..wow. THAT's quite a connection. I had not thought of it.

I did a little research. The episodes with the Rapist and the Russian (both with dissipating storylines) were broadcast in 2001. Matt Weiner did not join the writing staff until 2004.

So Chase was into "dissipating storylines"(great phrase) before Matt Weiner came aboard BUT...certainly this would account for the MAD MEN disipating storylines(ie. Chase influenced Weiner) or perhaps Chase AND Weiner shared this taste in storytelling.

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You have already established that David Chase is heavily influenced by others' work and ideas. It seems plausible to me that he picked up Matthew Weiner's style for that finale.

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Well, by then Weiner was clearly on the show and influential so...maybe?

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

Here is another "curve ball."

A cable series that DID have a clear ending, and that DID end pretty much every story line and character arc conclusively was... Breaking Bad.

There WAS a conclusive (and to me, most satisfying) end for Walter White and pretty much everybody else. I recall my only slight frustration that we did not CONCLUSIVELY see the death of the pretty, high-strung, murderous, and quite evil young woman cartel employee. She was poisoned and ended the series hospitalized In a "stand alone sequel" (El Camino) it is STILL reported that she is not dead yet(the sequel begins as the original series ends.)

Otherwise: no loose ends in Breaking Bad. BUT...I still much prefer the overall series of The Sopranos to Breaking Bad. Various reasons: I think Tony Soprano is a more amusing, sexual and interesting man than Walter White(the character with Tony Soprano charisma on Breaking Bad to me, was enforcer Mike Ehrmantraut) ; I felt the on-their-way-out Mafioso were less depressing than the all-too-flourishing and monstrous cartels, and -- this is the big one -- I think The Sopranos was just a much better comedy.

Still, Breaking Bad beat The Sopranos all to hell, closure wise.

Note in passing: None of this is proveable, but it is said that many people cancelled their subscriptions right after The Sopranos finale. Some say it was in protest to HBO for allowing that ending. Others say people were only SUBSCRIBING to HBO FOR The Sopranos.

Still, the reviews for the ending split good and bad and another 'unproveable" thing is that from then on, all showrunners had to PROMISE(in contract?) that their storyline would have an ending (but then The Sopranos spoiled the use of ITS ending forever more.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

When somebody has a series in their hands that is known for pushing boundaries, I think the "soft" endings for both The Sopranos and Mad Men are a bit too esoteric.

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Well, The Sopranos definitely; Mad Men somewhat. I will say that Mad Men had dialogue in its scripts that could rank with some of the great modern novels. It played on a very high-falutin' level indeed. Interesting: because it was on "basic cable AMC," Mad Men, unlike The Sopranos, could not use nudity and cussing. I do recall Don Draper getting a fairly graphic sex scene or two "under covers." But this was all odd because Mad Men was very much ABOUT sex: everybody cheated on everybody. Which got depressing after awhile, frankly.

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It sounds like Chase takes his art a bit too seriously and gets angry when the commoners don't care for what he's dishing up.

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Yes, and this is why I think if one doesn't LIKE the Sopranos ending(and I don't) Chase's rather snooty and derisive insults to his own viewers should be "met" by the harsh truth: as a movie writer and director -- he was a bust. He wasn't good enough.

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It's quite the cool thing that we've drawn connections across three different TV shows. This has been fun!

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Well, thank you for participating. I find that these conversations sort of have to end eventually. So if this one DOES, I'm glad we had it.

And we got it across FOUR TV shows: Northern Exposure, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad.

[–] ClementinaSpur (1201) 2 months ago

Great research on who possibly influenced whom regarding the dissipating story lines. You have proven the disappearing plot lines in The Sopranos occurred prior to Matthew Weiner's arrival.

I should've known you'd also have a wealth of information about Mad Men! Your analysis of the Mad Men finale as Don's vision quest makes so much sense to me! It does seem that cutting to the Coke commercial means that Don could leave advertising, but it would never leave him. Even when he's so far away in body and spirit from Madison Avenue, he can't help but be inspired and return with this idea that takes over the world. Thanks for bringing this clarity!

You are correct that the Don/Dick mystery was resolved enough, but in my world of preferring neat and tidy closures, I kept waiting until the last moment for the other shoe to drop and Don to be exposed to everyone beyond a shadow of a doubt. I was expecting a court martial and decision on his deserter status with possible jail time like you said. By the way, another disappearing plot line that still haunts my thoughts is Pete, Peggy, and their baby.

Maybe Weiner's (and Chase's) style of putting plots on paths to eventual nowhere is a nod to how things are in life. People don't get closure on situations and relationships many, many times. Goals and dreams drop away, people disappear, etc. Speaking for myself, I wonder what drives my desire for clear-cut conclusions to books, TV, movies.

What an amazing story of your Uncle Don and connection to Mad Men! I imagined my mother in that office when I watched. She worked from 1964-1969 in accounts receivable for Genesco at their headquarters in Nashville. She didn't watch the show, but I asked her about the dynamics the show presented for the female characters. She said those kinds of things happened, but not to her. The show made my mother before her marriage to my dad more real to me.

I'm going to borrow your idea to put...

CONT

[–] ClementinaSpur (1201) 2 months ago

I looked up David Chase and learned that he has done precious little since The Sopranos just like you said. That could be due to his wealth from The Sopranos, or maybe he's just difficult? Picky?

That is interesting to me that future show runners had to promise to not do such a vague final scene. By the way, would you care to say what would be your ideal final Sopranos scene?

Superb work stretching the analysis to four shows! I have not watched Breaking Bad, but it has been highly recommended by several people. Knowing there are clear conclusions puts it higher on the watch list.

I hope you don't mind that I say this, but you have an identical posting style with the quotes and an encyclopedic knowledge just like another poster I've seen here -- ecarle. I also see that you post a lot about Hitchcock movies just like he does. I love Hitchcock myself. Vertigo is tops for me of his filmography. Maybe I'll see you around on some of the Hitchcock boards!

Thanks again for a great discussion! :)

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I should've known you'd also have a wealth of information about Mad Men!

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Well, I watched that show as religiously as The Sopranos. They seemed very alike in "tone" for some reason.

I always liked how Mad Men actually "misdirected me" that it would be EXACTLY like The Sopranos in one particular way: I thought that the terrible marriage of Don and Betty Draper would stretch across the entire series as did Tony and Carmela, all the way to the end in marriage. But Betty divorced Don at the end of Season Three -- presaged, oddly enough, by the JFK assassination as a precursor -- and Betty stayed on the show but as Don's EX wife even as he picked up a new one.

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Your analysis of the Mad Men finale as Don's vision quest makes so much sense to me!

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Been awhile since I watched those final episodes, but as I recall, as he made his way to California he: (1) accepted divorce from his second wife and paid her a million; (2) sold his expenisve NYC condo; (3) gave away his CAR! and (4) took a bus to the coast. It was if he was "stripping away" all his material concerns, Buddhist like(perhaps another crossover to The Sopranos, where Buddism came in strong near the end.)

For all that, Don evidently still had a job to come back to, so I"m guessing that he did. Betty didn't want the children to live with him after her death (she had other relatives in mind), but he would HAVE to be in their lives. And just how would Don handle the 70s? Keep in mind, the "arc of the show" was as much about Peggy rising as a woman as Don declining as a man -- perhaps they could meet in the middle?

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

You are correct that the Don/Dick mystery was resolved enough, but in my world of preferring neat and tidy closures, I kept waiting until the last moment for the other shoe to drop and Don to be exposed to everyone beyond a shadow of a doubt. I was expecting a court martial and decision on his deserter status with possible jail time like you said.

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I think we ALL were.

In a similar fashion, I recall TV critics predicting that eventually The Sopranos would turn into "the trial of Tony Soprano." Of course, at the inconclusive ending, Tony IS likely to go to trial(a key man has flipped) but I figured that the Uncle Junior story suggested Tony would win that, too.

It sure does seem that Chase and Weiner SHARED an interest not only in not finishing stories, but in setting up situations that "in the usual TV series" WOULD have led to something big. Like a war between the Mafia and the Russians. Or the Mafia guys coming after Dr. Melfi. Or a court martial and jail time for Dick Whitman. But...no. And some of that state of mind was actually aggravating to the point of engendering anger. Hitchcock himself said that you must never build up suspense and not offer relief at the end.

A stray thought: another show that DID HAVE an ending was the Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul. Star Bob Odenkirk said that various viewers had offered various endings on the internet -- and "some of them picked the right one." See, I think David Chase did NOT want any ending that could be picked(Tony lives, Tony gets killed, Tony goes to prison)...so he offered nothing. But an ending that SOME viewers guess(and others do not) is still an ending.

---

By the way, another disappearing plot line that still haunts my thoughts is Pete, Peggy, and their baby.

---

Yes. I suppose "the typical show" would have had Pete or Peggy or both re-uniting with their son(it was a boy, right?) but in real life many adoptees (at least of that time) never met their birth parents.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

Me and my real life stories: I went to high school with a girl who was adopted. It haunted her for decades, not knowing who her real parents were. And DECADES later(I have kept in touch) her adoptive parents died and somehow she DID get the name of her mother, still alive. I think they met. Must have been heartwarming and a shock to the system at the same time. I think her real father was "long gone."

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

Maybe Weiner's (and Chase's) style of putting plots on paths to eventual nowhere is a nod to how things are in life. People don't get closure on situations and relationships many, many times. Goals and dreams drop away, people disappear, etc.

---

I accept that, to be sure, but I also like to "fight the Sopranos ending" by saying that real life has LOTS of endings: the end of high school, the end of college, the end of a job(switching, retiring, getting fired), the end of a romance, the end of a marriage(divorce OR death). Endings are a big part of life and I suppose that's why we like them in our movies.

--

Speaking for myself, I wonder what drives my desire for clear-cut conclusions to books, TV, movies.

---

I repeat(hah): Endings are a big part of life and I suppose that's why we like them in our movies, books, and TV shows.

The late superstar Paul Newman said "the ending is the most important part of any movie." If it is good to great, THAT's what the audience remembers: leaving the theater satisfied -- happy, sad, surprised, etc. Newman's own "The Sting" had a spectacular ending in terms of both surprise and happiness.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

What an amazing story of your Uncle Don and connection to Mad Men!

--

Well, its true. Our family talked about and thought about Uncle Don all through the run of Mad Men(he died before it aired). But the KICKER was that final Coke ad, because he had engineered a spoof of it in real life. It was a "whoa!" moment.

---

I imagined my mother in that office when I watched.

---

I think Matt Weiner said that the key audience for Mad Men was adults who would have been the age of young Sally Draper through the sixties. Or maybe the brother.
We felt that we were getting to watch "our parents as young people." I mean "Uncle Don" was a special case but my own parents were represented in Mad Men, I felt. Sadly, they were dead as well before Mad Men started. But I always felt that the series might have cut too close to the bone for them(marital problems, family strife.) If they were alive when Mad Men was on the air...they might have turned it off.

--

She worked from 1964-1969 in accounts receivable for Genesco at their headquarters in Nashville. She didn't watch the show,

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Aha, your parent was ALIVE when it was on. Hopefully still so.

---

but I asked her about the dynamics the show presented for the female characters. She said those kinds of things happened, but not to her.

---

Yes. One of the problems with Mad Men, I felt, was that Matt Weiner was too young to have lived in the 60's so he "guessed" a lot of sexism that wasn't there (at least not that I saw.) This isn't to say that sexism towards secretaries didn't occur, but I knew of several women who had careers in the 60's when I was a child.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

And he had one scene that really irked me: the two kids come running into the kitchen with cellophane dry cleaning bags on their heads and sealing off their mouths for play and Betty doesn't notice at all. In MY home, we got warned EARLY and OFTEN that dry cleaning bags could suffocate you. I think Weiner simply guessed wrong on that one, or maybe parents "split" on those bags.

---

The show made my mother before her marriage to my dad more real to me.

---

There's that point again. Many Mad Men fans were "Sally Draper, all grown up."
On the other hand, many Mad Men fans were the children OF Sally Draper, learning about the 1960s as one would learn about the 1860s -- distant history, or "their parents as children."

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I looked up David Chase and learned that he has done precious little since The Sopranos just like you said. That could be due to his wealth from The Sopranos, or maybe he's just difficult? Picky?

---

Hard to say. Certainly he had earned more than enough money to "never work again," so there wasn't much drive to try something else. Still, I think I read that he actually made some MORE pitches to HBO that didn't pan out. And his movies were few and not well reviewed.

(His "Many Saints of Newark" felt way too short --the length of two Sopranos episodes -- and since it was REALLY based on Chase's script about the Newark race riots, the Sopranos characters had to be shoehorned in and -- certain things that happened at the end seemed rushed and amateur to me.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

Matt Weiner ended up roughly in the same place.

The only Weiner credit I can find after Mad Men was something called "The Romanoffs," which had 8 unrelated episodes, starred a few Mad Men actors, was fairly intelligent but...no real impact.

And no word from Weiner since.

I'm more hopeful that Weiner will come back with something because he is a lot younger than David Chase.

Meanwhile, Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad, came back as strong with Better Call Saul -- that's TWO great series in a row. Of course, Gilligan operated at a somewhat less high falutin' level than Chase and Weiner. For instance, one Breaking Bad episode had a troubled air traffic controller send two airliners into a fatal collision because of grief over a loved one's overdose -- that was just far more melodramatic than the more reality-based Sopranos and Mad Men(where no one ever got whacked...just fired.)

Dropping down further, one finds the work of showrunner Ryan Murphy and the showrunners on ABC, etc. They simply never gave themselves the quality requirements of Chase and Weiner...but they are still successful multimillionaires.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

That is interesting to me that future show runners had to promise to not do such a vague final scene.

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Its funny, you would figure that nobody COULD do such a vague final scene again(even Mad Men had more closure.) As I recall, the idea was to assure VIEWERS that they WOULD not be wasting their time., The first one of these to say that were the people who made "Lost."

Note in passing: I recall reading about some network soap opera that got cancelled mid-season before the main story had finished. To satisfy fans, they were directed to a website (CBS? ABC?) where they could READ the endings for all the characters and the main storyline. Hah. Just skip broadcast and write it out.

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By the way, would you care to say what would be your ideal final Sopranos scene?

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Well, that's a good question and I would have indeed picked an ending that COULD be picked.

A little detail:

I wanted punishment for Tony. ANOTHER of David Chase's aggravating assumptions about his viewers is that we LOVED Tony Soprano and WANTED him to get away with all his evil. I sure didn't.

The Sopranos was about Tony "getting out of trouble" every season. Usually that was through the death of a worse Mafia character(and his sister surprisingly took one of them out.) And he kept outfoxing the buffoonish FBI guys. But when Tony had Adrianna killed I figured he HAD to pay. Only Christopher did -- and Silvio, a little bit(but not conclusively for HIM, either. Sheesh.)

Given that mob guys can set up a pretty good life in prison..I wanted Tony to die. And I wanted Carmella to feel the heat of that loss and to get her own comeuppance accordingly.

I recall my mind shifting to how Michael Corleone didn't die in the first 2 Godfathers, and he died of old age at the end of the lesser 3. So some Mafia bad guys DO stay free til old age and death.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I will spare the spoilers, but Scarface, Carlito's Way, Goodfellas, and Casino all delivered fates to the main characters. Death or prison. I liked the ones with death. The only question is: how creative could have the death of Tony Soprano been?

Here's a possible: let the series KEEP its blackout ending...and then, indeed, fade in on dead Tony and Carmela and the family all in shock.
Close ups on Carmela, Meadow, AJ.

And a shot of a figure running out the front door.

You wouldn't even have to have someone say "he didn't hear it coming." Because WE didn't.

And Chase would get to make his statement.

It sounds cliche as a write it BUT if the black out was used to create the sense of "Tony's sudden lights out," and then on a fade IN, we get to actually SEE him dead (and importantly, his family's reactions) I think it would work.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

Superb work stretching the analysis to four shows! I have not watched Breaking Bad, but it has been highly recommended by several people. Knowing there are clear conclusions puts it higher on the watch list.

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Yes, there are clear conclusions -- satisfying, all.

Better Call Saul is a "prequel" to Breaking Bad so it had this weird effect: we would "re-meet" many characters from Breaking Bad but with each one we KNEW they wouldn't die during Better Call Saul because we knew they would be ALIVE in the "later" Breaking Bad. Better still: "Better Call Saul" went in a totally different direction than Breaking Bad in the main. And oh..Walter White was used very sparingly in the prequel.

So I recommend both Breaking Bad and THEN Better Call Saul.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I hope you don't mind that I say this, but you have an identical posting style with the quotes and an encyclopedic knowledge just like another poster I've seen here -- ecarle.

--

To paraphrase Darth Vader: "I AM ecarle." And I'm not the same since I lost that monicker. From time to time I investigate how to get it back. It was the switch to a new computer that took it away. Worse: ecarle used to be able to to come in on a cell phone to correct grammar when I wasn't on the desktop. Now I can't do that. Glaring errors in spelling can be up for weeks before I can fix them.

Still, maybe someday ecarle will come back. He still has more posts than roger1.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I also see that you post a lot about Hitchcock movies just like he does.

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Just like I do. Hah. Confusing, isn't it.

--

I love Hitchcock myself. Vertigo is tops for me of his filmography. Maybe I'll see you around on some of the Hitchcock boards!

--

Sure. I go to them as roger1. And I can trace a pretty direct line from the best of Hitchcock's work on to The Sopranos and the rest. "Quality control."

David Chase referenced Psycho quite a few times. The Sopranos had a scene in a mental institution. There was a cut from one inmate laughing to another inmate crying. Chase was basically dramatizing Norman Bates' famous line about institutions: "Have you ever seen the inside of one of those places? The laughter and the tears?''

And in Season Two of Mad Men, each WEEK had a Hitchcock movie reference. Don Draper ended up in the Glen Cove police station in Cary Grant's suit, tie and socks. There was a Vertigo one and a Rear Window one, and a Rope one.

--

I would here like to show how I feel David Chase emulated Hitchcock in one key way:

I've said that I don't think Chase's writing was always as good as Terrence Winter and Matt Weiner. But Chase was a great BOSS...a great "story editor."

I read once that Chase sent a "lower producer" to go fire a writer. The producer told the writer: "We're sorry but we just don't think your writing is at the level David Chase can approve." So Chase may not have been a great writer himself, but he KNEW good (and bad) writing when he saw it.

Switch to: Alfred Hitchcock on Psycho. Before Joe Stefano wrote the final script, a writer named James Cavenaugh got a shot. And Hitchcock HATED that version of Robert Bloch's novel. The timid Cavenaugh converted mother in the fruit cellar to "a giant doll with button eyes," for instance. He thought he was writing for TV maybe? Hitchcock fired Cavenaugh, paid him off and moved on an entirely new script by Stefano.

CONT"

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

So David Chase and Alfred Hitchcock were "quality control" story editors -- though Chase did SOME of his own writing and Hitchcock (though he never took a screenplay credit) evidently shaped everything in scripts except dialogue.

--

Thanks again for a great discussion! :)

---

And thank you!

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

PS.

A link to my post at the Sopranos as to where David Chase may have REALLY gotten the final scene of The Sopranos:

https://moviechat.org/tt0141842/The-Sopranos/66eeff4ac068ab7a41e44e7a/Endings-The-Sopranos-and-Patriot-Games-1992

[–] ClementinaSpur (1201) a month ago

Hello again, roger1/ecarle! I'm very sorry that you lost ecarle, and I hope you can get back into that account! The General Discussion board occasionally talks about who is the "dean" of Movie Chat. You're the provost, even going back to the IMDb days!

Please forgive my delay in replying. I had a stressful work week, but actually they are all stressful to be honest.

You said you wanted punishment for Tony. I felt that way about Don Draper. Even though he had the occasional moment of goodness (I felt particularly empathetic towards him in that amazingly beautiful Carousel pitch scene with the Kodak execs), he was deeply flawed. I remember an episode when Betty, the ice queen she was, told Don he was not a "good person." I find it ironic that Betty seemed to get the definitive kick in the gut with her cancer diagnosis while Don emerged stronger than ever after his vision quest.

I didn't pick up on the Hitchcock allusions in season 2 of Mad Men, or maybe I did and have forgotten! I will look for those when I rewatch. You draw excellent connections between David Chase and Hitchcock. I am very impressed at how much nuance you pick up in the shows that are connections to others. How have you acquired all of your knowledge that helps you make all of these connections?

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Hello again, roger1/ecarle! I'm very sorry that you lost ecarle, and I hope you can get back into that account!

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I hope so too, but I've kind of figured out the problem and I don't think I CAN fix it from my end. New computer, different email address.

But if I can get the name back some other way, I'll try. ("ecarle2"...failed.)

---

The General Discussion board occasionally talks about who is the "dean" of Movie Chat. You're the provost, even going back to the IMDb days!

---

Ha. Oh there are more famous and active and young and "now" people here. I've carved out my slot. The funny part is I know I'm "the old guy"(or one of them) but in real life, I feel quite young. Maybe all this "movie nostalgia from my youth" keeps me young.

I don't profess to belong with "the young," but I've found some age peers here and I believe movies can be discussed at ALL ages. Kids start writing reviews in their pre-teens, I think and adults can KEEP writing(or talking) about movies into their 80's, it seems(many critics lasted that long.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Please forgive my delay in replying. I had a stressful work week, but actually they are all stressful to be honest.

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I'm sorry. Well, that's one reason we can and do wait for folks' schedules to get where they CAN write here. No pressure, no deadlines. Its meant to be relaxing. I'm glad you could check in.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

You said you wanted punishment for Tony.

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Yes, I did.

One of the things that made me mad towards David Chase(even as I DO thank him for the depth and humor of the show) was that he kept saying "all us fans out here were making too much of a hero out of Tony Soprano."

I can't say I ever did AND my hope was that he received some sort of comeuppance. Now I realize that Michael Corleone pretty much ended Godfather I in power - but he killed off all those "worse" gangsters who belittled him. By Godfather II, he has killed a close family member and we learn how it will haunt him and he will pay. But, still, Michael made it to old age, no prison, not killed.

And maybe if we SAW something like that with Tony, I would have felt closure even if he didn't get punishment.

It was surmised that Tony got SOME mental anguish from killing or ordering the killings of: his best friend(Pussy), his closest cousin(Tony B) and the rather innocent (but not THAT innocent) Adrianna. Still, he seemed to take those killings in stride, two of them were "rats" who "had to go."

I always cite Martin Scorsese in three films -- GoodFellas, Casino and The Irishman -- as pretty much punishing almost everybody. There are mass killings of the mob guys at the end of GoodFellas and Casino that prove "the good life of the mob eventually requires payment" and The Irishman keeps introducing mob characters with titles telling how and when each would die..violently. (Except one who "was liked by all, died of old age.") The Irishman also sends most of its old mobsters to prison for bad medical care and death. Except one.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Versus Scorsese's "crime can be fun and wealth-making but doesn't pay" (Catholic-based?) sense of punishment, while David Chase killed off MOST of his mobsters, he left the biggest one of them all ...unresolved. And I think THAT was a crime.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

I felt that way about Don Draper. (Wanted him punished.)

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Well, unlike Tony, he didn't KILL anybody. And he was as good a father as he could be(sometimes VERY good...sometimes not.)
And he tried to show compassion at work to people like the guy who got fired for alcolism(and turned out to be a WWII hero who killed many men.) It was rather a "photo finish" with him and Peggy -- sometimes supporting her, sometimes humiliating her, ultimately losing ground to her.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Even though he had the occasional moment of goodness (I felt particularly empathetic towards him in that amazingly beautiful Carousel pitch scene with the Kodak execs),

---

That came in Season One and rather "made the show." It was poetic and emotional and became famous -- it was both spoofed on SNL(with Hamm in his role) AND later mocked on Mad Men itself...when a drunken Don tried to make the same speech and sounded like an idiot.

That carousel speech reminded me of something I personally witnessed among the parents of my 60's generation: the men who cheated or switched wives and suddenly realized...they had just lost their family in the process (oh there would be custody and visits but...it was never the same).

--

he was deeply flawed. I remember an episode when Betty, the ice queen she was, told Don he was not a "good person."

--

Not a good person PERSONALLY. I think it was Matt Weiner who said that all these "bad protagonists" COULD be bad AS LONG AS THEY WERE GOOD AT THEIR JOBS. Mob boss. Ad man. Meth chemist and businessman.

--

I find it ironic that Betty seemed to get the definitive kick in the gut with her cancer diagnosis while Don emerged stronger than ever after his vision quest.

---

It was a tough outcome though in some ways, Betty's fate was meant to "haunt" Don -- now HE would truly be responsible for his children's futures -- even with the stepfather and other relatives around to help.

And remember: Betty was HATED by many fans. As Carmela on The Sopranos was hated by many fans. Betty's own personality was too snobbish, too cold, too mean(towards the children) for fans to warm up to her. (Plus, fans can be mean people, too!)

In a series filled with smokers, the question "who will die from lung cancer?" was a series long tickler. And the dart hit the board and it was..Betty. Though we can figure that others would die too young from the same thing later. CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

I didn't pick up on the Hitchcock allusions in season 2 of Mad Men, or maybe I did and have forgotten!

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Its possible. I recall that they were sort of "blatant" early in the season(Don ending up at the Glen Cove Police Station as Cary Grant did in NXNW) and then it became a game to spot them per episode. (In one episode, Pete actually mentioned the movie Rope.)

By the way, Season Two was roughly set in the early 60s when Hitchocck was peaking. As the series moved on into the 60s, Weiner made allusions to "international film" and eventually to Kubrick and 2001 in one late 60s episode. But Hitchocck is the "foundation" for shows aimed at boomers and wannabee boomers.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Keep in mind that critics saw the opening credits of Mad Men to be a mix of North by Northwest(which sports a dapper ladies man ad man, too) and Vertigo("falling.")

And some of the characters got "Hitchcock names" Roger Sterling. Roger Thornhill in NXNW. Harry Crane. Marion Crane in Psycho. Midge Daniels. Midge in Vertigo. Melanie Daniels in The Birds. ETC.

Plus one "daughter of a Hitchocck actor": Talia Balsam(the on screen AND real life wife of John Slattery -- Roger -- was the daughter of Martin Balsam, detective Arbogast in Psycho.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

You draw excellent connections between David Chase and Hitchcock.

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Well, as I noted, I think some of these "quality" showrunners -- particularly an older one of the age of David Chase -- have a certain respect for the mix of entertainment and art(and murder, in Chase's case) that Hitchcock represented.

Matt Weiner clearly stocked "Mad Men" with a main dose of "North by Northwest" and then filmed the early episodes in the "classical" style of Hitchocck before going a bit more avant garde as the series went on -- but not a lot. The series was too "rich and elegant" to get TOO "hippie-ish," even as the character LOOKED like hippies near the end.

There is one other Hitchcock movie which rather informs Mad Men, IMHO. It is Hitchocck's final film, and it was written by the screenwriter of North by Northwest: Ernest Lehman. Whlie not at top Hitchocck level, it was Hitchocck enough: Family Plot(1976). In it, William Devane played a young man named Edward(Eddie) Shoebridge who found reason to change his name to Arthur Adamson, begin a new life as a jeweler, and to erase his old life(which included murder.) I felt a bit of Eddie Shoebridge/Arthur Adamson in Dick Whitman/Don Draper.

Not to mention, "identity" had been a big part of numerous Hitchcock classics: how Roger Thornhill is mistaken for "George Kaplan" in NXNW; how a "Madeleine" is really "Judy" in Vertigo. And how Mrs. Bates was not really Mrs. Bates in Psycho.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Whereas Matt Weiner underlaid a pretty big foundation of Hitchcock in Mad Men, David Chase seems to have zeroed in on this: a sympathetic villain(Tony) with a monstrous mother.

This was the foundation of Psycho, of course, but also of Strangers on a Train, and Notorious, and..in a less murderous, more realistic way: The Birds, Marnie, North by Northwest and To Catch a Thief, in all of which the widowed mother rather intrudes on the life of the grown child.

Add in the template of "Tony seeing a therapist" (think of the various Hitchock pictures with a psychiatrist in them) and...Hitchcock rather appeared in The Sopranos in a different way.

That said, Hitchcock told his interviewer Francois Truffaut that he would never direct "gangster type pictures"(even as his anthology TV SERIES was rife with them.) So The Sopranos sounded more in Coppola and Scorsese than Hitchcock (with some shared actors.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

I am very impressed at how much nuance you pick up in the shows that are connections to others.

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It can be fun...and it keeps the mind working, y'know? I grew up with Hitchcock, read all about him and perhaps he's the first touchstone in finding connection but...the decades SINCE Hitchcock have certainly created a new generation of filmmakers with "connection" to today: Coppola, Friedkin, Bogdanovich(in their day), Lucas and Spielberg(in their day), Scorsese and now Tarantino.

Still Hitchcock is a touchstone. It was only in writing some posts on David Chase that I realized as a showrunner(which Hitchocck SORT OF WAS for HIS TV show...even though others were the official showrunners) could demand good scripts from people even if they themselves couldn't always(Chase) or ever(Hitchcock) write as well.

---

How have you acquired all of your knowledge that helps you make all of these connections?

--

Well...seeing a lot of movies (though not NEARLY as many or as artful and/or foreign as others here -- see: swanstep) and READING a lot of books and articles.

I really do try to share what I have read , here at moviechat, because I'm guessing readers here will never get the chance TO read those things. So...these are not always "just my opinions." I like to present the opinions (and stories) of OTHERS I have read.

One of my favorite finds (sad though it was): a 1961 interview with Anthony Perkins where he made the mistake of telling the reporter(about upcoming Oscar nomination announcements) that, for Psycho: "I think I'll get nominated, Janet too." And he WASN'T nominated , and he had CONFESSED his belief. "Janet" (Leigh) DID get nominated.

I stumbled onto that article doing some research on Psycho and Perkins words sting (on his behalf.)

What's funny though: those articles about Hitchcock and Psycho and Tony Perkins are from "long ago and far away." There are PLENTY of articles to read right NOW about The Sopranos and Mad Men.

And even Northern Exposure.