David Chase makes us listen to people whose excuses we ought to recognise, then gives us reasons to doubt them. We recommend The Sopranos without hesitation, though its patience with Tony can become excessive.
Fi1m perspective
A gangster goes to therapy, and David Chase gives him time to explain himself. In The Sopranos (1999), Tony Soprano's anxiety is taken seriously without making his account of himself reliable. We were unsettled by how readily we listened to him, because James Gandolfini makes those excuses so persuasive. Chase finds humour in grievances we recognise, then asks us to keep watching a man we might prefer to dismiss.
His writing and producing work on The Rockford Files (1974) helped develop that attention to character. Almost Grown (1988–89) gave him a series of his own. The Sopranos began as a feature idea, but television gave Chase room to stay with these people far longer. He directed the pilot and finale as well as writing or co-writing many episodes. His writing collaborators include Terence Winter, Matthew Weiner, Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, a reminder to resist giving one man credit for every good line.
Chase uses music, film references and dreams to get at thoughts his characters cannot explain in conversation. That gives The Sopranos more ways into Tony's mind than the therapy premise alone could offer. Individual episodes have enough shape to work on their own while carrying the longer story forward. Our reservation is that the programme sometimes attends too long to Tony's grievances, allowing complaints we already understand to occupy time they have not earned.
Not Fade Away (2012), his feature directing debut, takes family tensions and music into a story of young people in 1960s New Jersey. It is a useful reminder that his interests extend beyond organised crime, though The Sopranos remains the firm basis of our enthusiasm. On The Many Saints of Newark (2021), the prequel about Tony's youth, his roles were writer and producer, not director. Start with the series, even if a gangster in therapy sounds like the sort of joke that would soon wear thin.
Biography
David Chase is an American screenwriter, producer and director. He created, wrote for and directed episodes of the HBO series The Sopranos (1999–2007), serving as showrunner and head writer.
Chase was born on 22 August 1945 in Mount Vernon, New York, and raised in New Jersey. He studied at New York University and received a master's degree in film from Stanford University. Earlier in his career he wrote and produced for series including The Rockford Files (1974) and Northern Exposure (1990). He also wrote the feature films Not Fade Away (2012), which he directed, and The Many Saints of Newark (2021).
Chase has won seven Primetime Emmy Awards.
