I always think, in comparison to the other big shows of that period, the Sopranos had the balance right. The Wire tended more towards the wordy, Mad Men towards the visual.
I don't think there's been such a perfect melding of character and actor on American TV since Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker before Gandolfini created Tony.
Even if you take away his dialogue, Gandolfini's gestures and facial expressions, his heavy breathing, the hunch of his shoulders, his ability to convey all sorts of contradictory emotions just with his eyes and eyebrows, his enormous physical presence with the range to take it back and forth between giant vulnerable teddy bear and menacing murderer.
Tony lives and breathes so intensely every time he's on the screen, with another actor the show would have probably been very good, but with his performance it gains all sorts of menace and grandeur and serious moral and artistic weight (heh heh).
And speaking of heh heh: at the very end when he's on the boat with Paulie, and you know Tony's seriously contemplating murderering him and having him sleep with the fishes, the tension conveyed in Tony's eyes and the aggressive way he spits out the dialogue, it's as engaging, suspenseful and disturbing as anything in Hitchock or Scorsese.
Jimmy gave his life to this thing! and that's why Tony Soprano is maybe the last great fictional character in American culture of the 20th century, unless he's the first great character of the 21st century (but the former seems more apt, as Ben says—he was much more a man of the old school and if he were still alive, he'd be smacking iPhones out of people's hands left and right).
You'd really go as far as "dimwitted," with Christopher? Maybe I'm misremembering, or only remembering the first season or two I've seen far more than the others, but he always struck me more as a fuck-up than a dumbass.
Fair. I think he'd do better on a High School English exam than the others, but I guess that speaks more to the utility of expository essay-writing in the face of mafiosa than anything else.
The Sopranos is still, 25 years later, Breaking Bad and Dexter included, God’s gift to TV.
True!
I always think, in comparison to the other big shows of that period, the Sopranos had the balance right. The Wire tended more towards the wordy, Mad Men towards the visual.
Sepaking as a Yank ovvva heeeeaa,
I don't think there's been such a perfect melding of character and actor on American TV since Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker before Gandolfini created Tony.
Even if you take away his dialogue, Gandolfini's gestures and facial expressions, his heavy breathing, the hunch of his shoulders, his ability to convey all sorts of contradictory emotions just with his eyes and eyebrows, his enormous physical presence with the range to take it back and forth between giant vulnerable teddy bear and menacing murderer.
Tony lives and breathes so intensely every time he's on the screen, with another actor the show would have probably been very good, but with his performance it gains all sorts of menace and grandeur and serious moral and artistic weight (heh heh).
And speaking of heh heh: at the very end when he's on the boat with Paulie, and you know Tony's seriously contemplating murderering him and having him sleep with the fishes, the tension conveyed in Tony's eyes and the aggressive way he spits out the dialogue, it's as engaging, suspenseful and disturbing as anything in Hitchock or Scorsese.
Jimmy gave his life to this thing! and that's why Tony Soprano is maybe the last great fictional character in American culture of the 20th century, unless he's the first great character of the 21st century (but the former seems more apt, as Ben says—he was much more a man of the old school and if he were still alive, he'd be smacking iPhones out of people's hands left and right).
You'd really go as far as "dimwitted," with Christopher? Maybe I'm misremembering, or only remembering the first season or two I've seen far more than the others, but he always struck me more as a fuck-up than a dumbass.
I think he was both - ballsy and tenacious but it's hard to think of his wily schemes or sound decisions.
Nevermind. Just rewatched Christopher and Paulie get lost chasing an indestructible Russian through the woods. Dimwitted spot on.
"We should eat these berries!"
Totally different guy to the one I remember.
Fair. I think he'd do better on a High School English exam than the others, but I guess that speaks more to the utility of expository essay-writing in the face of mafiosa than anything else.