The Sopranos is much, much more than a show about mobsters in the city. It is “widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time,” and, with its many accolades and the fact that is still in syndication, that is not a statement that is difficult to understand (Wikipedia, “The Sopranos”). But what makes The Sopranos so highly regarded is not necessarily the murders, exploitations, and trouble that the mobsters get into (or even really any of the crimes at all). Instead it is the sense of personhood and character development the audience gets to experience with them; in an innovative new method of storytelling for the crime genre, the audience sticks with the “bad guy,” watching from Tony Soprano’s view.
The pilot episode of The Sopranos opens with Tony Soprano going to visit his psychiatrist for the first time. As he starts telling her about why he is there and what has been going on in his life, he reminisces on a family of ducks that came to live in his pool. The flashback of Tony’s day-to-day begins and the audience sees Tony in his pool, only in a robe, throwing pieces of bread and talking to the family of ducks (The Sopranos, 00:04:40- 00:05:33). From this moment forward, it is understood that this is no ordinary ‘mobsters in New Jersey’ show. Tony Soprano is given a sense of heart within the first five minutes of the first episode- and not only this, but he is given a family too. Carmela, Tony’s wife, prepares food in the kitchen for Anthony Jr.’s (Tony’s son) birthday while Melody (Tony’s daughter) gossips with her friend. On top of this, it isn’t revealed what Tony actually does for a living until the tenth minute when Tony and his nephew chase down a man who owes them money and break his leg (The Sopranos, 00:09:39- 00:11:49).
Continuing throughout the episode, Tony’s voice narrates over flashbacks while, in real time, he sits in his psychiatrist’s office. The focus of the pilot is to understand why Tony is having panic attacks that bring him to therapy in the first place. His stresses revolve around his mother, his wife and daughter’s fight, and, lastly, his job. His aging and solitary mother refuses to consider living in a senior-living facility, though it is obvious that Tony thinks that is what is best; when the Soprano family takes his mother to visit one, her reaction directly causes one of Tony’s panic attacks. This on top of his wife and daughter’s fight about a ski trip to Aspen adds to his stress. Here, it is important to note that there are moments such as Carmela and Melody’s tea party fight in which Tony is not directly involved, nor does he narrate, yet the audience understands that is directly effecting Tony and his stress; it builds his character from afar while contributing to the episode’s plot (The Sopranos, 00:35:51- 00:37:21).
As Tony’s psychiatrist visit comes to a close, Tony finally realizes that the ducks, whose departure caused his first panic attack, is actually a metaphor for his family. He cries and expresses how he is “afraid [he’s] gonna lose [his] family like [he] lost the ducks” (The Sopranos, 00:52:00-00:53:26). His job is a dangerous one and he might be a rough and tough mobster, but at the end of the day he has a family he does not want to lose- he has a mind with feelings that shines through like few crime dramas dared to show.
Works Cited
“The Sopranos.” The Sopranos, created by David Chase, presented by James Gandolfini, HBO, 1999.
“The Sopranos.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 July 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sopranos.
댓글