the storyline that i, or anyone, comes up with is irrelevant. we aren't the storytellers.

for that matter then why have a whole season, why not just stop at the pilot and let everyone make up how the show will end.

if no one cared what happens to all the other characters then they wouldn't have been in the series the whole time. if you're gonna invest time with storylines then you need to see it through to the end.

I'm one of those people who thought the ending was incredibly pitiful, but then I'm not really a fan of the show - I thought that its best episodes were very, very good, but that there were more bad episodes than good episodes.

Ok, fine...Carm loses her house. What's her next step? Is she offering meatball samples in a supermarket? Why is her losing her house, without knowing what happens later, any more of an ending than what we saw?

We're going in circles here. I know what people like you want, so I'll just quote myself:


Here's another scenario:

Everything we originally saw happen, happens. At the end, 3/4ths of the Soprano family are sitting at the diner table eating their onion rings waiting for Meadow to show up. She finally does, sits down and eats an onion ring. Tony smiles, because he's with his family. Happy song comes on. Fade (not cut) to black.

How do you feel about that ending?

I'm really getting a kick out of the idea that the artist owes something to an audience.

You can increase or decrease a work's reception by including or deleting elements that make it more or less palatable to a wider audience. Clearly Chase was uninterested in providing standard closure. Bright people generally are more interested in new works than copies of old ones.

If you want closure, read some Mother Goose. One of the themes of The Sopranos is that closure is a fantasy -- Tony never gets psychiatric/emotional closure about his issues, his kids don't turn into the Cleavers, his marriage is a tattered mess, his mafia family is devastated, the feds are after him with no case being made throughout our viewing period...do you see a whole lot of closure with any of those themes? See why the core audience might be interested in aspects of the show that don't involve closure?

The Suck Generation needs to quit acting like they're owed a version of the show that is tailored to their aesthetic. The fact the show is a monumental achievement is because the people behind it are better at this than you. Just look at the landscape of failed series and films that tried to give an audience an expected, pat narrative. Put your own narcissistic, amateur arguments away and try to learn something from this work, because it's not going to change, but you might still be able to learn something from it.

Why not just have infinite seasons then until everyone dies? After all, if Tony's dead, well you have Carm, A.J., Meadow, etc. And what if Meadow has a kid later? Well, they probably invested time in that storyline, so we need to see that one through until the end. And if that kid has kid, ad infinitum.

We did see it through to the end. That was the end.

I mean do you usually rant and rave after every series finale (aside from Six Feet Under) because you don't know what happens afterwards to any character?

I get that you like the show, but I don't think not liking the ending means that I'm not "bright."

I think there's something to that. Liking or not liking an episode or show is fine, and can lead to good discussion. The annoying thing in this thread is the absolute statements regarding what a TV show is supposed to be. It's no different than if someone posted in here about how the Sopranos sucked because there shouldn't be violence on TV.

Just speaking generally about shows, I think there's a difference between ending the storylines and ending the characters/show itself. I think all people like HA are saying is that they introduced storylines that never were ended. The Carm house storyline (I didn't watch the show, I'm just taking from what you guys have posted) was introduced during the show, and some people would expect to see it conclude, having watched previous episodes in which that was a storyline. What happens after that, ad infinitum, is outside of what was introduced into the show itself. So there's not an expectation that the characters would be resolved until they die, but that storylines introduced into the show are concluded. Otherwise, I can understand the frustration of feeling like watching the series was largely for nothing, since major storylines (apparently) never went anywhere, ultimately.

I know there's a fine line between resolving storylines and tying up a series in a nice, neat package that comes off as cliche, but I can understand the frustration as a TV viewer of not having storylines we've invested ourselves in be resolved.

It will be interesting to revisit this issue when Lost ends. How pissed will people be if that show never really resolves (or leaves as ambiguous) certain mysterious storylines that the series has been built on?

I figured some might not like that depiction, which I anticipated by specifying that it's a general trait, and not a universal one. There are certainly bright people who are displeased with aesthetic decisions for very good reasons. I just haven't read any of those in this thread, nor elsewhere.

That's the point I was getting at. Come on, the line has to be drawn somewhere. All the storylines HA brought up before...Carm's rising real estate empire and her own residence, Butchie trying to take over the NY family, Paulie's success/failure at taking over another part of Tony's empire...these are all secondary (if that) stories that could literally take years to play out. That's why I'm of the belief that people like HA would only be satisfied by the "quick screen flash displaying the ultimate fate" ending.

The artist owes his EXISTENCE to the audience. Obviously much of the audience for this show was ok with this ending, so that's not really an issue, but to suggest that the artist has no debt to the audience is just nonsense. Without an audience, Chase's story would take place entirely in his head, or on his laptop. So of course he has a debt to the audience - or, perhaps more accurately, the work has a debt to the audience.

Once again, he gave you his ending. You're just not happy with it.

But if you've watched the show, you'd realize that there were MANY unresolved stories throughout the series, even during the "glory years" of the first few season. Complaining about it now is silly. Again, it's like complaining the show is too violent. OK, great, this show ain't for you, watch something else.

No. The artist has no debt to the audience. In a collective and expensive art form ala tv you can make the argument that the artist has a debt to the producer, but the audience is removed from the equation as far as the artist is concerned.

I can only talk about my own work as a theatre artist, where I have a hope that the audience has an experience while watching my work. The type of experience will vary and often I don't care so long as it's an immediate experience. What I never do is try to figure out what the audience wants and then go about creating my work.

Chasing the expectations of the audience is a recipe for shitty art. The artist has to produce the work and then present it to an audience come what may.

The artist owes his existence to no one.

I get that, on some level, for some people, maybe even most people, the ending works. But is it "his" ending, or is it supposed to be an ending for the audience? If it was the latter, that's one thing, and the question is whether it worked - I say it didn't, others say it did. If it was the former, however, I think that's nothing less than a rejection of art's potential.

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not talking about "chasing an audience's expectations." I'm pointing out that there is an expectation that there will BE an audience. Otherwise, is it art? If you perform a play, and don't let anybody into the theater, what is that?

It still art, just like if I painted something in my house.

I think it's an interesting point you're hitting on though. Commercial art (tv, movies), varies widely in how much is art and how much is negotiated art-like content. Here, I think it's assumed that Chase had pretty much free reign to do what he wanted. It network sitcoms, the network has more influence in the creative process, it's less about one person's work, and more about a negotiated conglomerate of ideas from people with different motivations.

When the former situation jumps into the mainstream, the results can be unsettling and jarring for many (see ABC's experiment with Twin Peaks)

But saying that the audience is part of the equation is much different than arguing that the artist's work has a debt to that audience.

Maybe so.

Indeed, and that's basically my answer to Ksyrup's point. I understand what he's saying, but THIS show, the Sopranos has always left dangling storylines. Chase has said that's because in life, things aren't always resolved and things are left hanging. That's just the way the show has been.

To expect something completely different in the series finale is really being silly.

tv is not art. sorry for all you wannabe intellectuals. tv is something to entice us to sit down long enough to watch commercials or continue paying for the premium channels. tv is not art.

people like NoMyths will never say they didn't like the ending, because then that would mean they're an Average Joe who wants to see a shoot 'em up and watch everyone die in the finale. how do you know the joke isn't on you people. the ones who would come to Chase's defense so you get to stay on the high horse you're on.

i agree a lot with what st cronin is saying. he clearly "gets it".

you're completely wrong. shows are ALWAYS leaving things dangling - they're called cliffhangers. meant to ensure the audience returns the next season. as you may know, Sopranos won't be back next season - thus, the rules are different. just cuz Chase thinks things aren't always resolved in life doesn't mean he should end the show with Tony buying some pork at Satriale's.

stories (the good ones) always have an ending. The Wizard of Oz doesn't end when Dorothy throws water on the Wicked Witch. we find out what happens afterwards. we find out what happens to all the major characters introduced in the story. that is a story.

Yes it is. Thank you for playing, have a parting gift as you exit.

OK, so I think we can all come to this consensus:

All people who like the ending = Fake-intellectual snobs who are too proud to realize they are being fooled

All people who do not like the ending = Shallow individuals who are only attracted to endings which involve little to no thought process.

I think those are the two categories, right?

No, he doesn't. My book comes out at the end of the month, and nothing in it has been written to satisfy any kind of audience outside of myself. Would it do better sales-wise if I revised the poems inside to suit the most popular mode of contemporary poetry? Probably, but it'd be a weaker collection for those changes.

The fact that other people might be interested in a work is almost entirely independent of its artistic value, particularly because of the nature of the critic vs. the amateur. The more achieved a work, the more critically-minded people will be compelled to seriously consider it. A poem like "Dulce et Decorum Est" would be just as achieved a piece of art if nobody had ever discovered it. In fact, important artists are rediscovered from time to time precisely because the audience of the time didn't notice/accept/praise the work.

Even if one expects that there will be an audience, the decision to give them what they're probably already expecting vs. following your own vision is a tricky one. I tend to side with the camp that feels art gives us experiences we wouldn't have generated on our own, and the experience generated by the finale of The Sopranos certainly did that for most of the audience.


This is more accurate. Audience consideration always plays some kind of role, if only when one is thinking "Well, how will this be read/interpreted?" It's just up to each artist to decide whether they're willing to adjust their vision to fit their perception of the audience's reaction. For major film and television projects, that almost always ties into how one can achieve the widest audience possible. It's refreshing that The Sopranos was successful enough on its own terms that the pressure to satisfy the widest audience wasn't enough to alter Chase's vision for the finale. Giving up one's own expectations is part of the joy of art -- we are supposed to be surprised by great work, because it defies or readjusts our expectations.

Art is a combination of voice/vision and craft. The finale of The Sopranos masterfully displayed both. The best art generates debate, because it challenges us to interpret something that doesn't fit into our pre-defined expectations (such as advertising, which nobody argues much about, except for when it defies tradition). The Sopranos finale is generating a discussion of aesthetic theory on a forum devoted to a text football sim -- I'd say that's a pretty good indication that there is at least some artistic merit to the episode based on that reason alone, outside of all of the other good reasons to discuss it.

We've had this discussion before, actually...a forum search would yield more discussion of the issue.

NoMyths (Published author) >>> HA (Molester of midgets)

the whole point behind me bringing up Carmela and her living situation is this has happened before. the Boss of the NYC mob got thrown in jail, and wound up having to sell his huge house that his wife and kids were living in to Bobby and Tony's Sister. so, if Tony got whacked or throwin in jail - does the NJ mob step up and continue payments to her? Paulie and Gay Vito waited until Tony came out of a coma to finally bring their kickbacks to Carm, otherwise they weren't gonna pay her. what happens? her whole side business (selling houses) was based on Tony being able to lean on the inspectors to get them to approve the poorly built houses she was developing. so there goes her source of income. what happens?

if Tony gets whacked, does that once again force AJ to try to be a man and avenge him? he clearly has the means with his associates in the Next Generation of young gangsters. does that throw him over the deep end or does he finally wind up killing himself (successfully, this time)?

these are the things i'd like to know. take me from Point A to Point B.

Cliffhangers aren't dangling for long... they get resolved the next season.

And have you ever SEEN this show before? Have you ever seen a Season Finale for this show? There are so many storylines that are just simply dropped to never be seen again.

Actually people would probably like it better if Tony just bought some pork at Satriale's at the end. It'd be more obvious "life goes on". This one is a question mark whether he's alive or dead.


What happened 'afterwards' to the characters in Frasier after he moves on? What happens to the characters in Seinfeld? What happens to the characters in Arrested Development?

Sometimes there is no ending and it doesn't matter.. or makes the story that much more intriguing.

And speaking of which, talk about a boring finale... the Wizard of Oz? It was all a dream... ugh.

so you're saying Beauty And The Geek, American Idol and Who Wants To Marry My Dad is art? if Chase wants to be an artist he could have wrote "The Sopranos - A Novel". tv isn't the medium to excercise poetic justice. in case you didn't get the memo, tv doesn't exist to entertain you. it exists to sell ads. sorry i ruined the surprise for you. there is no Santa Claus, either.

That's nice. Debate it yourself. Obviously Chase doesn't care about those things (really, neither do I... doesn't matter to me how Carm survives afterwards or what AJ does).

The reason you want to know all of those things, HA, is because the artists have done a great job of engaging you enough imaginatively to believe that a collection of images overlaid on a story actually has a more thorough existence than what it really does. As an audience member, you're supposed to wonder about things like that. It's how we build our imaginative worlds.

The Sopranos had an end -- we were supposed to be left at the peak of tension for the scene. We are given enough to draw conclusions from what we've seen, but whether or not we're "right" is unimportant -- what's important is that we're still engaging in our imaginative experience of the work, and that's one of the major keys to art.

ok, we've reached the "going in circles" part of this discussion. i've made my point clear, as have others. i'll rejoin when someone says something different/interesting/new.

Just because it sucks doesn't mean its not part of an art form. There are banal and unimaginative paintings out there as well.

Btw, there is a reason TV CAN sells ads... because people want entertainment in whatever form that is. If it wasn't entertaining, then ads wouldn't make any money. Sorry to spoil THAT surprise for you.

No, I didn't get the memo, and nobody else did either because THERE'S NO RULES ABOUT ART. You can do a lot of things with the television medium, and Chase gave us something brand new. It's okay to like it or not like it, but it's silly to say he didn't follow the "rules".

And if you truly believe TV exists only to sell ads, you really should be embracing The Sopranos for a) not following that formula and b) not taking commercial breaks. Really, this show isn't a good example for your argument. There are commercial aspects, certainly, but the point of the show was far different than the points of just about every other show on TV.

I love this I really do. I think the answer to Tony's fate is that it didn't matter, he was beyond redemption and thus everything he came into contact with was likewise. I mean if I wanted to see a psychiatrist changing a mobster to do good, I would've watched "Analyze This".

Whether TV is art or not, can be brought up for debate in some other post.

HA: Just because television is a business doesn't mean that individual programs can't be art. Publishing is a business, but would you say that there are no books that are art?

You're right in that the argument is going in circles. You're a neo-classicist and don't see value in stories that don't conform to a semi-Aristotelian form. Shockingly enough this thread has become a replay of debates in the French Academy circa 1700.

the show was only called "The Sopranos", so yeah, what did his family matter to the show. :rolleyes: they only appeared in every episode. AJ himself unexepectedly was given a more prominent role in these last episodes, glad i could see where that was all going.

tv/movie writers are our eyes/ears to the universe they create. nothing is revealed/shown by accident. these characters clearly meant something to the overall plot of the series or else they would have been written off or not introduced altogether.

if Tony did get whacked by the Members Only guy, that clearly went against how Chase depicted mob hits the whole series. his mob hits were quick - get in quick, make the hit and non-chalantly exit. none of this stalking the mark, pearing over the shoulder and going to the bathroom nonsense. so what was the reason for this guy acting like that? he's clearly featured for a reason - so give me the reason.

That's not what I'm talking about at all. Your book was created FOR an audience - it is intended to be a shared experience between you and the audience. That experience is the work, not the words on the page - and that experience is impossible without the audience. Now, maybe there are different philosophies than mine, but I don't think its possible for art to have meaning without an audience - and that's what I'm talking about.

you paid for HBO, right? what you don't pay for in time (watching commercials) you paid for in actual money to watch the show. commercials or not, you paid something to see this show. it's a tv show all the same.

St. cronin: I would agree with you. But, there is no single meaning and that's crucial. Each audience member interprets a work's meaning differently based on their own history, prejudices, emotional state, etc. That's why I don't believe it's beneficial for the audience to try to please the audience. That attempt demands a singular experience and I don't believe that exists. The best the artist can do is provide a perspective and allow the audience to experience it.

An audience gives art a large portion of one aspect of its experience, but it is not the only -- and certainly not the most important -- aspect. That doesn't change the fact, though, that art relies on surprise and newness to generate a lot of that interest, and if the audience is arguing that they are owed a certain kind of experience from the artist, they're simply wrong.


I was thinking the same thing. :)


Right, I pay for the right to watch what HBO broadcasts. Sometimes they broadcast things that are designed solely to please as many people as possible -- Spiderman 2, for example -- and sometimes they broadcast things that are targeted for a narrower audience, such as The Sopranos. As an audience member, I have no more right to dictate the experience I receive than any other viewer -- I can write and complain or praise, but that doesn't change the fact that I have no real role in the process, and the creators can see fit to listen to my concerns or ignore them at their pleasure. Just because I paid to receive the channel doesn't mean they owe me anything other than whatever they choose to air, some of which is not going to be in line with my personal aesthetic.

Why, because you are too lazy to think about it yourself? They obviously were not interested in giving you a reason. Maybe they thought you'd think about it yourself. The story is over and what is left is up to you.

Plenty of stories have fan fiction. Come up with some yourself if it is so important to you. The writers of the Sopranos wanted to do the ending their way (and they said they knew how they were going to do it by the middle of Season 1). Why should they have to rely on cliches to please you?

Imagine if Michelangelo had been forced to conform to audience expectation. We'd not have the Sistine Chapel frescoes, nor anything that transformed art's role from celebrating the divine to elevating the human to a position of importance in art.

I don't believe NoMyths understands me at all.

HA = Rousseau?

Emily Dickinson was almost completely unpublished during her lifetime -- she had no audience. Whatever experience is possible with an audience, it doesn't alter the artistic merit of a work -- for many artists, satisfying themselves (as audience) is of more concern than worrying about an outside audience. Thus, a work always has a built-in audience (the maker), regardless of any concerns that come later with an outside audience.

The theatre, actually, is significantly different than most of the other arts in regards to its relationship to an audience. The Greeks had some compelling arguments about the necessity of audience to dramatic performances.

It's certainly not a wingnut position to argue that the arts exist solely to satisfy a wider audience, but it's not an argument in which I find as much merit as with the positions I've outlined in this thread.

Emily Dickinson's poetry was read by literary types during her lifetime, and was absolutely composed for an audience. That that audience didn't show up until later has nothing to do with that fact.

Your depiction of her work being "read by literary types", while partially true in certain regards, is not supported by historical fact. The editor who she sent her poems to for advice, in fact, tried to change her work to fit the contemporary mold in order to reach a wider audience, and Dickinson didn't follow along. She published ten poems in her lifetime, and most of those in a single daily newspaper.

And she certainly wasn't writing to meet the expectations of her contemporary audience -- her voice was unprecedented. It wasn't until many, many decades after her death that her work came to be recognized as important. I'm not foolhardy enough to claim I know what her intentions were in regards to audience, but her behavior and career (or lack thereof) certainly doesn't support the argument that she was trying to connect on their terms. And I likewise don't believe she felt that her work was meaningless since she just made books out of her poems and stuck them in drawers.

You keep talking about "writing for expectations" which has nothing to do with what I'm talking about at all.

My claim is that the starting premise of any art is that there is an audience, and an artist. The reason I'm talking about this in this thread is that I've been told (I forget if it was in this thread or somewhere else) that the ending for the Sopranos was Chase's personal ending, that he gave the audience no consideration at all. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, how can that possibly be art?

There is a difference between not considering the audience when creating, and the work not ever actually reaching an audience. Chase knew his creation would reach an audience... whether or not he considered them in the creation of the work is irrelevant.

My apologies if this has been posted, but I don't recall seeing it. Pretty quick work. Is the Parrot being retired?

I completely disagree with that last statement. However, I don't think that makes you "not bright."

The starting premise of any art is not that there is an audience -- rather, the starting premise is that there is an artist. If they are compelled to create, it doesn't matter if anyone else besides them values the work, EVEN IF they do eventually want an audience for it. Chase presented his vision, and we're debating its aesthetic merit. It's not a wrong or bad ending because it defies expectations -- it's a good or bad ending on the merits of whether the work achieves artistic excellence, outside of audience.

I see where you're coming from, but we disagree about the importance of the audience to a work. From my perspective as a practicing artist, I can tell you that audience consideration for literary work is nearly zero. Popular work, on the other hand, makes audience expectation a primary concern. The Sopranos was a series that was massively popular despite being "literary" in its execution -- for the gifts Chase gave the audience (the constant malaprops, the references to outside events and such that would be resonant with the popular audience), the narrative was at its core a literary one, and the "story" ended in a similar way to many literary narratives. In fact, I'd argue that an audience steeped in literature is less likely to be put off by the finale because our expectations are refined by exposure to similar methods of dealing with narrative closure, especially in short stories.

I'd also argue that Chase did give the audience what they wanted -- something unprecedented in television history that would guarantee interesting debate.

One other thought: if artists were concerned with giving something other than their personal vision, you'd be talking about dumbed down art. We should want our artists to create works that challenge and expand our aesthetics. It is that individual artist's vision that makes a work art, and not merely craft (as in a table that you can build a blueprint for and have many people copy exactly).

Interesting discussion, but I have one question. Is the object (book, movie, painting, etc) art itself, or is it just the mode of communication which is really the art?

The object or event is the art because it is in some manner fixed. The interpretation of the art will vary from person to person and era to era. To use the above example, Emily Dickinson's poems are still the same, but the interpretation of her work has changed over time and will vary from individual to individual.

St. Cronin: I believe I remember that your girlfriend is a photographer. Do you have any idea how she considers the audience as she's taking photos?

Depends on which mode of art to which you refer. Object-based art (painting, sculpture, etc.) clearly falls into one camp, while performance-based art (theatre, song, etc.) takes elements from several modes.

This is actually key, key, key. In achieved art, there is a depth that allows for critics of any era to dig in and explore. In limited art, there's no interest and thus no reason. Same reason why Citizen Kane is beloved and Deuce Bigelow is not -- we see Kane with fresh eyes each time, while the other film is what it is in every viewing. Dickinson's work offers something different to a wide range of critics. Rod McKuen, not so much.

I think we do want our artists to do that - but, not to get redundant, wanting that presupposes the existence of an audience.


Photography is mostly a hobby for her, but she has sold wood burnings and paintings and has also written a couple of children's books (unpublished). When she is working, I think she is mostly thinking about unicorns and puppies. I suspect there's a way in which the philosophy of art is actually inaccessible to an artist, at least when they're actually in creative mode.

No offense, but this conversation has gotten very boring, very quickly.

What about the Parrot-y?

Presupposing (or praying for) the existence of an audience is a separate issue from creating a work that takes audience consideration into account in a serious way (e.g. making a narrative decision in opposition to an artist's original vision based on perceived reaction). An artist can want an audience without altering his vision (raises hand). Speaking personally, I tend to assume that my readers will not notice most of the stuff I've built in craftwise to make the machine work -- and if I'm doing a good job, they generally won't. It's kind of like with music -- you don't notice every instrument the first time you listen, or understand all the words.

To reiterate, I don't think you're unbright from the argument you're making -- you're certainly not alone in feeling that audience is important in art, but we just disagree as to the role of that relationship. But I would wager that most serious artists are concerned with any eventual audience for aspects of their career that are unconnected from their work, and generally create work that satisfies themselves and their ideas of what any artists who are important to them might think or have thought.

No offense, but discussions of aesthetic theory aren't really for amateurs or the easily bored. ;)

This is an interesting statement, and one with which I find a lot of sympathy. Most artists are not the best critics of their own work. And when you are in a creative mode--at least for this writer--one is generally shutting out any kinds of outside distractions, and listening very closely to their internal voice (or imaginative wandering, with its occasional unicorn).

You're telling me...I don't even remember what was originally debated.

Given the actions of the Pirate in the 80s, it's not that hard to envision him as a criminal mastermind.

if the finale was 60 minutes of just tv static that would guarantee interesting debate. what's your point?

Was he involved with the cocaine thing, too?

This is nonsense. The work is what it is. The audience chooses to embrace it or not. When the artist begins listening to the audience for direction, he's lost. And he ain't finding his way back.

No, it wouldn't lead to interesting debate, in part because unlike the finale that aired, it would bear little relation to the characters, the narrative, or the series as a whole. There would be only a couple of things one could say about that decision, and none of them would be good. As you're clearly missing the points I've been making throughout this thread, though, I doubt any further explanations will enlighten you.

.

Oh geez, now I've seen everything. st.cronin debating with NoMyths about poets, poetry and art.

He was implicated for buying cocaine and introducing players to drug dealers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_drug_trials

Amazing that 7 players were given a full season suspension, but then had it waived for a 10% donation of their salary to drug charities.

You say its nonsense, but then with your third sentence you assume that the audience exists. THAT is my point.

Chase decided the static would be a metaphor. afterall, isn't Chase allowed to be an artist and create for himself and not care what the audience thinks? so apparently you are deciding what is art and what isn't? isn't that the same thing here what people are saying?

the medium of tv - a story one watches - calls for a beginning, a middle and an end. there is art and silent beauty in a construction worker using a jackhammer on concrete, but that doesn't mean the construction worker is free to do as he pleases and take creative license to express himself without an obligation to others.

HA: That's really a jumbled mess. First, there's a big difference between ending the story in the way Chase chose and completely obliterating the story by airing static. As Nomyths pointed out, one continues the narrative and one doesn't.

Second, you're confusing convention and obligation. I'll give you that the convention of almost every tv show is a neoclassical beginning/middle/end structure, but there's nothing that says it has to be that way. As in any artistic medium people, when given the opportunity, experiment. This experiment may not have been successful in your opinion, but you're wrong to say it somehow violated a set of rules.

Third, I don't get the jackhammer analogy. I'm assuming you're arguing that the jackhammer is confined by safety and the rules of his employer. Chase wasn't bound by either of those. If the jackhammer operator were working on his own with no safety issues of course he could do as he pleased.

I was thinking a lot about this discussion last night. I think the big issue is whether or not you want art that answers questions or poses questions. I personally want to be provoked to explore issues raised by art. Art that leaves nothing unanswered, for me at least, is dull.

You're confused about the nature of metaphor. If it's detached from everything else in the episode, it's not metaphor -- it has to connect with something else to resonate in its alternate form. If he decided to run an hour of static (and HBO let him), it wouldn't be an episode of The Sopranos -- it would be an experiment, and it wouldn't generate nearly the kind of support the current finale does. It's not a matter of me deciding what is and isn't art -- it's about me applying the guiding criteria for art: a combination of voice and craft.


This sounds nice, but it's not an accurate depiction of art. Remember: art is a combination of voice and craft. A jackhammering construction worker is engaging in a craft, and it can be beautiful to watch a craft done well. But his jackhammering does not exist because he is creating art -- he is engaging in craft, the end of which is not artistic in nature but purely functional (and we could get into the whole "but is functional craft art" discussion, but I'd prefer not to) and not meant to satisfy any of the aims of art (or almost none of them). Watching him, a viewer may be awed by the beauty of the craft, but the worker is not intentionally engaging in an artistic pursuit. Slow anything down on 16mm film and add a soundtrack and even a bowl of porridge can seem artistic. Everything is not art, though there is beauty in most things.

The "medium of TV" calls for no such thing. You're trying to tell me that variety shows, game shows, infomercials, sitcoms, network and cable dramas, shopping channels, and the whole gamut of other niche programming satisfies your theoretical rule of "beginning, middle, and end"? Speaking as an expert: not all narratives have structures that satisfy that mode in the way you're describing. Certainly The Sopranos finale doesn't offer the obvious b,m,e structure, and the disruption of that model is compelling to many of us who enjoyed the episode.

The construction worker doesn't have artistic license because he's not being paid to create art -- he's being paid to destroy concrete. Even if his technique for destroying concrete is more beautiful to watch than another man's, he will get canned if he isn't doing his job effectively. He is engaging in a craft, not an art -- and while a craft can elevated to the level of art (again: combination of voice and craft), in and of itself its aims are different than those of art.

I don't think that's the question, not for me. I would say its more like this: Is art supposed to be a sharing of something, a transmission of some experience or imagination? And if not, then what is it?

Seeing as how my art is theatre I think art is about communication. However, as I've said before, the artist is only in control of the object or event. The experience is had by the audience and while it can be guided by the artist, it can never be completely controlled. Each individual in the audience defines the experience for themselves.

For me as an artist what happens in that space between my objective and the audience's understanding is what's exciting. Every time I direct a show I am surprised by perceptions of audience members. Each time I learn a little about how people respond to my work, but I will never be able to provide an audience with what they believe they want. That's why I try to be true to my vision, along with that of the playwright and see what happens.

I guess there's not really one explanation you could put to art as a whole, but for me it is the act of creatively expressing either a thing or a statement in an abstract form. That definition does not require an audience to express a thing, although expression of a statement would imply that some sort of audience was sought.

I have finally finished the series after starting this summer using the power of Netflix. My conclusion on the finale is that he's dead. I don't see how anybody can watch that episode and not believe he's dead. I also believe nobody else was killed and that the point of the song is that life is going to go on for everybody else. The story continues after his death just like it will for all of our families/friends upon our death.

David Chase disagrees with you.

David Chase reveals the truth behind 'The Sopranos' ending

Interesting...however, I just read an EW article and it made it seem like he was never going to say one way or another...

Talking with David Chase | The Sopranos | DVD News | DVD | Entertainment Weekly

EW: You've been mum about the ultimate meaning of the show's finale. But in the DVD supplements you do admit that you were partly invoking the finale of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Keir Dullea's character watches himself age. Does that onion-rings-at-the-diner scene even actually happen, or is Tony just ruminating?
DC: [Long pause.] There's more than one way of looking at the ending. That's all I'll say. [Laughs]

With that said, I think the only other way that scene could be taken is in that way...the cut from Tony when he comes in to when his family is there is so abrupt it made me think he was seeing what could happen.

Hopefully, at some point, he comes clean with what his true intentions were.

Why? People would then stop talking about it. One of the greatest ploys in cinema (and TV) are the not-so-tidy endings and the subtle clues along the way. It keeps it alive, some for generations. It is a fine line because it can go overboard with a vague and nonsensical ending and really backfire, esp. among fans (The Pretender comes to mind).

Agreed...even if he left it in his will to be given out after he dies, that would be fine with me.

What makes you think he had a clear decision? As a theatre director I've often done things without making a clear decision on what happens. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he never made the choice on whether or not Tony is dead. AFterall, if he made that choice he likely would have shown us.

Dang...I'd forgotten about this discussion. Glad it was necroed. :)

Me, too. I read through the entire thread earlier today. Man, it's almost weird now to think there was a time when I could watch a new episode every Sunday.

So is Tony still alive?

He was the last time he was on my TV.

June 2007. Wow, time flies.

Just read back through this whole thread. Fun read. My favorite part was seeing this...


...and thinking, "come on did anyone really think they would replicate Beverly Hills 90210?"...only to see three hours later:



Nice to know I still have the same stupid thoughts nearly 5 years later. I also enjoyed this post of mine (in reference to the finale running 5 mins extra):

Timely bump. Vanity Fair just released an entertaining oral history of the show.

The Family Hour: An Oral History of The Sopranos | Hollywood | Vanity Fair

Great read. Thanks for the link.

+1. Just finished it.

Has anyone else done a rewatch lately? To me, and maybe it's cause I've taken a few film theory classes, the ending is way more satisfying the second time around.

For me, it was a lot more satisfying after I found articles like this to explain it to me.

Page 1 | The Sopranos: Definitive Explanation of "The END"

Still, it wasn't at all the kind of ending I desired or hoped for at the time. Which is OK, the Sopranos has never been about traditional TV story-telling or endings, like a Breaking Bad is. It's a big slice-of-life piece, you can really jump in anywhere and be entertained. Any random clip, any random season, the show still has a way to grab me.

That's what I was saying right after it aired, albeit in many fewer words. :D