‘Have I said too much?' David Chase and Alex Gibney on revisiting ‘The Sopranos' for ‘Wise Guy' doc — and, yes, that finale

Yahoo

5 days ago

It's been 25 years since The Sopranos debuted, and arguably no drama has had more of a lasting impact on how modern series are made. It's that legacy that Oscar- and Emmy-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney sought to unpack in his two-part Max documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos, which is contending in the upcoming Emmy Awards. Gibney brings his famously well-honed interview and research skills to exploring the show as well as the man behind it, creator-writer-director — and 'Master Cylinder,' as we learn the cast referred to him — David Chase.
'To be able to look back, it was kind of past as prologue,' Gibney tells Gold Derby. 'I learned some things about the making of the show that I just didn't know. ... That's what you go into this for. That's why I do what I do.'
More from GoldDerby
Post-Cannes, here are 5 international films to watch out for at the 2026 Oscars
Jennifer Lopez sets Vegas residency, Richard Linklater's 'Nouvelle Vague' lands at Netflix, and more of today's top stories
How designer Marg Horwell transforms Sarah Snook in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' through quick costume changes (exclusive images)
The first part of the documentary explores the show's origin story, while part two dives deeper into the relationship between Chase, series star James Gandolfini, and the character at the center of it all, Tony Soprano. 'It's not like Jim is Tony or Tony is Jim or Tony is David — his is a creative work of art, and that's the goal,' says Gibney. 'But to dig into inevitably over time how those relationships inform the show, that was really interesting. … It's not predictable.'
Here, Gibney and Chase open up about how they truly felt about playing therapist and patient, why our 'gangster president' makes it more relevant than ever, and why (sound familiar?) it all cut to black at the end.
Alex, why did you want to take on the subject?
Alex Gibney: To be honest, I wasn't sure I did at the beginning. HBO asked me if I'd be interested in doing a doc on The Sopranos. And, of course, I love the show. But I wasn't sure whether I wanted to do a doc about it until I met David. I found David so engaging, so fascinating, and also, I found the origin story of the making of it so interesting. And that such a hugely successful series had come from such a personal place. So for all those reasons, I thought it would be a great thing to do. So I leaned in. And, thankfully, David was cooperative.
David, what was your reaction when you were approached with the idea?
David Chase: I was surprised. Well, to begin with, I was surprised that HBO wanted to do it. It had been a long time since the show was on. None of those studios like to spend money. And I was really surprised that Alex was interested in it, that we were getting someone who has made such great important documentaries. I said, 'Well, this is not important.'
It's important in pop culture.
Chase: But is pop culture important?
Alex, I'll let you answer that question.
Gibney: Honestly, I think it's important. I think it's a great creative work. And when you have [the opportunity] to figure out how it happened, and to dig into what it means and what its value is, I think it's important. You know, we live in a time when art itself is being devalued on purpose for political reasons. It's important for all of us to remember and understand how it elevates us and how it digs deep into issues. I would argue now that The Sopranos actually has always had an enduring value, but never more so than now when essentially, we have a gangster president.
Given that there's been so much written about the series, Alex, what were some of the questions you wanted to explore?
Gibney: Because I was interested in David and the origin story, I really wanted to dig into that. I think David was a little surprised when he walked on the set that we had constructed [a recreation of therapist Dr. Melfi's office], which I thought would be fun for all sorts of reasons. I don't want to take it too far, but there's something of the therapeutic endeavor in terms of talking to somebody — it's like the original idea of Freud as the talking cure. You talk yourself out, and inevitably something interesting emerges. I think David was surprised initially when I was asking him all these questions about his background and his upbringing, his relationship to his mother. 'Is this about me or The Sopranos,' which is something David kept asking throughout. I said, "I can't really decide which one it is, to be honest with you." When David wanted to get The Sopranos made, it was at a time when entertainment had become purposefully routinized because it was a mechanism by which you were renting viewers to sell to advertisers. That was essentially the model. And so you wanted to produce the most predictable, least offensive programming, which didn't lead to great art. But in this case, it was HBO that allowed the artist to speak directly to the audience, which is what changed everything.
David, what was your reaction when you walked on to that set? We do see some of it in the film.
Chase: I was just amused, really. It was fun, but it also brought out a level of concern, which he already alluded to, which is what was it really going to be about? Am I going to get psychoanalyzed? Which, believe me, I could go on for days talking about myself. Years. I have done that. So I was worried about that.
And how did you feel about the final result?
Chase: I think Alex did a really, really good job. I can see why people are entertained by it. They're more engaged than I thought they would be. This is going to sound silly, but it seems that people really look at it, like, as clues about the making of a piece of art, and they debate it. They debate things that are said in the documentary. But, you know, I've been working in television for so long that to me I'm not going to say that Sopranos is just a TV show. I know it's more than that. And I know that's what he was talking about, the commodification of entertainment. But still, it's a TV show. And I was amazed that people were looking that deeply into it. I'm glad they are. That's what I hoped would happen.
Alex, you've tackled some tough subjects over the course of your career. How does David rank among them?
Gibney: Except for the moment when he became uncomfortable with what we were doing, which was uncomfortable for me — we had built a big set, I didn't want David to walk. But at the same time, David is a delight to talk to because his interests are so wide and deep. That's what you hope for. I don't think of myself really as even doing interviews. I hope that when I sit down with somebody, it's really more like a conversation. To have a conversation with David is just a joy because you never know where it's going to go, which is always the best kind of conversation.
David, from your perspective, how did it feel being interviewed by Alex or having a conversation with Alex as he says?
Chase: I just enjoyed the conversation, and that made it easy. And that's why I was able to talk a lot. Because we have similar interests, a similar sense of what we think is stupid and absurd, that made it pleasant. And hearing gossip about people he had interviewed, that was great.
Gibney: It was a quirky thing to do because a lot of people wondered, well, why didn't you interview so-and-so. And those are good questions. But it was never meant to be a Wikipedia documentary, like everything you always wanted to know about The Sopranos. I started out thinking maybe I would only interview David. And it was only when other people came up organically that it seemed to make sense. Like I didn't interview Matt Weiner, who's an extraordinarily talented guy, not because he didn't have an enormous contribution on the show, but because he was more in the later seasons, and I was focusing more on the origin story. There was a period where I thought, well, I'm only going to show clips from Episode 1 and the last episode because those are also the two that David directed, which is something I didn't really realize when I got into it. Because Sopranos, in addition to the great writing and the great acting, changed TV a lot in terms of its willingness to engage in a different kind of shooting for a TV show instead of the more predictable three sizes — wide shot, medium, close-up — traditional coverage, which is what allows writers to rewrite in post, but it's very cinematically uninteresting. Sopranos did something different. Inevitably, stuff came up, and I just reacted intuitively. The funny thing about making a doc is that it's just like writing a feature film script, except you write the script at the end instead of the beginning.
Was it always intended to be a two-part series?
Gibney: Well, that was a funny story where normally, the network tells you to cut it down. And I said, well, I'd like to get in the notes I kept getting — we want you to go deeper into the casting process, we want you to look at this more. I said, 'Well, I know, but I've only got so much time.' They said, 'Well, take more time.'
How often do you get that note?
Gibney: I don't get that note very often. But with HBO, you do.
Chase: I have to say, I don't think they get enough credit. They really don't. You never hear that from other people. Take more time. Go deeper. That's just anathema.
But given that this project started with HBO, did they place any restrictions on you?
Chase: As far as HBO at the beginning, here's what [then-HBO head] Chris Albrecht said: 'Let's not do things just because we can do them. Let's not do things that are outrageous or attention-getting just because we can now do them. Let's not use language just because of that. Let's not have nudity because, 'Oh, look. We can capitalize on all that.'' I thought, 'Boy, that's really smart. It's artistic, and it's tasteful.' Most people, they'd be terrified of showing nudity. But if they got a chance to do it, it was a big deal. Like, is he gonna f--k the shrink or not? That was a big question all the time. You know how it would have been in a network show. Of course, they would have slept together.
Gibney: There were no constraints put on [the documentary]. There's a couple of moments of tension, talking about how HBO treated the final two seasons in terms of splitting them in two so they might not have to pay bumps that they would otherwise have to pay and so forth. But I didn't get any interference on any of that stuff. It was really good.
There's been a lot of conversation lately with documentaries about who has final cut. Assume you had final cut on this?
Gibney: I did. HBO still retains that DNA, that idea that they're investing not in the channel, they're investing in the creator. And they assume that because they have confidence in the creator and they invest in that person, that'll ultimately redound at the success of the channel. It should be so simple, but not many networks operate that way.
Chase: No. They don't. Even still, they do not. They hire people and they don't trust them in the end.
What did you learn from the experience of making and watching the doc?
Gibney: Some of the things that I discovered came out of stuff we literally discovered in in the vaults of HBO and David. One of those things were the casting tapes. After years of seeing The Sopranos and watching it over and over again, of course, these are naturally the people who should have been cast. Well, when you're starting, you don't know who's going to be cast. The universe is infinite. None of the people with the exception of Lorraine Bracco had any real star power in terms of recognizability. So to see the choices that were presented, that was really revelatory, Jim Gandolfini literally walked out, like he was disgusted with his own performance. And then David had to bring him back. But then when you see Nancy Marchand do it the first time in her audition tape, you think, "Wow."
Chase: That was an incredible moment because we had been through many, many actresses and were all over the place and not good. All were similar in a way, 'I'm gonna do the crazy Italian lady.' [With Marchand,] it was like my mother had been reincarnated.
David, what about you? What did you learn?
Chase: I learned who my enemies are. (Laughs.) I learned I had no idea that a documentary could be that attractive to people, or that so many people would be interested in any documentary — even though the film school I went to was a documentary film school. And what I'm saying is ridiculous because I know people have loved Gimme Shelter and a lot of other documentaries. I was surprised at actually how much non-documentary creativity Alex put into it. It wasn't just straight shot after shot after shot. There was so much more going on.
Gibney: I think that that ultimately is the fun part of the process. I started out as a scripted film editor. So to some extent, I'm always wearing two hats when I'm making a doc. But one of the things we talk about in the cutting room is the old Chekhov line — if there's a gun in on the mantle in the first act, it better go off in the third act. But very often, you're retrofitting. You realize the gun has gone off, but now you have to search for the guns on the mantles earlier on. That's part of the editing process. It's to make sure that everything kind of deepens everything else.
Chase: Because, you know, film is such so plastic. Sometimes you really don't know what the movie is about. When Chekhov said that, he probably was talking about writing. If you put a gun in there, better write a gun in the third act.
Given all of the debate about the series finale, Alex, how did you come up with your approach to it?
Gibney: I didn't know. Of course I knew I was going to talk about it. And then we got to a solution at the end that seemed just obvious, particularly when David said the immortal words, 'The truth is…' That seemed like the ultimate kicker for all sorts of reasons. What is the truth? I didn't know how I was going to approach it, but I think we came up with the right solution.
David, do you agree?
Chase: I do. Although I've been blamed for it. They'll say, 'That a--hole ended [the doc] the same way.' I didn't do it. They'll talk about what a great documentary, and they'll blame me for the ending.
Gibney: That you can lay that on us. I mean, I was hired by David, but you can lay that one on me.
Chase: I don't use this word too much, but it was fun in a way, that ending.
Gibney: That was the idea — how to do something that's fun and deep at the same time. There were little bits and pieces I stumbled onto along the way, like David's enormous love for the Meadowlands.
Chase: It's the largest urban wildlife area in the world. It's wildlife in the middle of an urban sprawl.
Gibney: So there's a sense of mystery and contradiction in it that that all you can do is show it, and you get the sense, you get the feeling — did you just trip over Hoffa's body? But the idea of having fun and also digging deep, that was the intent. Andy Grieve, who's my editor, he was the one who started leaning into the idea of the rapid-fire biography that we do at the beginning where David's talking about where he grew up and how he's made it and his mother. Every line is tripping over itself. We push it even further because it's a send-up of the traditional documentary at the same time as it's an acceleration of the talk everything out idea, which then ends with David wondering, 'Wait a minute, have I said too much?'
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Best of GoldDerby
'The Pitt' star Supriya Ganesh on Mohan 'reworking' her trauma and when she'll realize Abbot is flirting with her
Dream Team: 'Étoile' creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino on the secrets of their partnership: 'You want to be jealous of something someone has done'
TV sound editors roundtable: 'Adolescence' and 'Secret Level'
Click here to read the full article.