February 29, 2004
The Real Boss of 'The Sopranos'
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

Next Sunday, after a hiatus of 15 months, "The Sopranos" returns to
HBO for its fifth season ­ led, as ever, by David Chase, the show's
creator and executive producer. Mr. Chase recently spoke with
Virginia Heffernan about the show's legacy, the pitfalls of therapy
and the horror of network television.

HEFFERNAN: How is "The Sopranos" different from the rest of
television?

CHASE: The function of an hour drama is to reassure the American
people that it's O.K. to go out and buy stuff. It's all about
flattering the audience, making them feel as if all the authority
figures have our best interests at heart. Doctors, lawyers,
psychiatrists: sure, they have their little foibles, some of them
are grouchy, but by God, they care.

[...]

HEFFERNAN: HBO has allowed you a lot of liberties with this show,
but it seems like the biggest one would be getting to produce
60-minute hours instead of the 42-minute hour of network dramas.

CHASE: We don't have to deliver 60 minutes. Our shows usually run 52
minutes to an hour. I can tell you from working in networks for a
long time: to have to cut something to 42 minutes for an hour show
is absurd. It's despicable. We're sold something that's supposed to
be an hour, and it's 18 minutes of commercials. It's less than a
therapy hour. I'm amazed that we Americans put up with this.

HEFFERNAN: Do you think TV's bad for us? Worse than, say, movies?

CHASE: Television is at the base of a lot of our problems. It
trivializes everything. So there's no more mystery, we've seen it
all 50,000 times. And in order to make the boring interesting,
everything is hyped. I think, for example, terrorism is a television
question: what those images do on TV ­ how they're played and played
and played until they have no meaning whatsoever. And the next one
has to be even bigger. There is something about a motion picture. I
think Bertolucci said a movie is like a cathedral. The faces are 40
feet high. It's a more magical experience. In television you're
sitting there in your own home, on your crummy couch, and it takes
away ­ there's something missing.

HEFFERNAN: But there's also something so consoling about it. It's
close to family; it's at home.

CHASE: Yeah, but family doesn't really watch it together. There was
a four-month period in 1956 where families watched it together. It
seems to be very divisive, and I think it's very isolating,
actually.

HEFFERNAN: Do you have any moral qualms about working in TV, then?

CHASE: Yes, I do. I never wanted to work in television. I did it for
the money. I've always wanted to be working in movies and I never
could make that jump.

HEFFERNAN: You could now. Will you take "The Sopranos" to the big
screen?

CHASE: I don't know about "The Sopranos" movie. "The Sopranos" has
been the best creative experience of my life. None of us who work on
the show ever expected to last beyond a season, if that. The whole
thing came about because I thought I would be able to take HBO's
money and make a pilot, which would catapult me into the very
stratosphere of feature-film directing. But it didn't work out that
way. It's been ­ you know, I'm really lucky. People like the show,
and I've got a great group of actors, a great group of directors.
But I don't want to do any more TV. I'm tired of television. I'm
tired of the form. I've always wanted to go into movies.

HEFFERNAN: But before you do ­ how's the show going to end?

CHASE: We're going to tell you that everything's O.K. And that you
should go out and buy stuff.