Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.“‘Remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation.” So Tony Soprano once said on the topic of nostalgia. But remember and reminisce is precisely what the man who created the melancholy mafioso is invited to do for almost three hours in an HBO special marking 25 years since the beginning of The Sopranos. And while anniversary celebrations and wistful retrospectives might be seen as the lowest form of documentary, this surprisingly substantive two-part film by the Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney is a fitting, first-rate companion to TV’s greatest show. Part series history, part biography, part therapy session, Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos finds the showrunner discussing and dissecting his life and work in a replica of psychiatrist Dr Melfi’s study, where Tony would come to work through the mental toll of being a mob boss. Like his creation, Chase initially seems uneasy with opening up. After a breathless, semi-stream-of-consciousness opening segment, in which memories of formative experiences and deeply held traumas flow, he chastises himself for “the amount of fucking verbiage”. But Gibney (acting as interviewer) ably and affectionately manages his subject’s discomfort, asking thoughtful questions that draw out insights. Beyond a fascinating survey of Chase’s career prior to The Sopranos and how the series took shape, what emerges is a real sense of how his own neuroses, experiences of therapy and fraught relationship with his mother made their way into the show and gave it an authenticity. Testaments from former colleagues on his exacting, absolute, occasionally “toxic” approach to showrunning meanwhile lead Chase to concede that bits of Tony eventually also made their way into him. This monstrous, magnetic, complex character also weighed heavily on the man who played him: James Gandolfini, who died at 51 in 2013. While his co-stars — including Edie Falco, Lorraine Bracco, Michael Imperioli and Steven Van Zandt — share amusing anecdotes and insightful reflections on their roles, Gandolfini’s absence is keenly felt throughout. A section devoted to his performance and the demons that followed him off-camera is both a stirring tribute to a peerless actor and an affecting portrait of a troubled soul. If nobody watching this will need reminding of Gandolfini’s greatness or Chase’s genius, this is still essential viewing for Sopranos fans. There is a pleasing abundance of in-depth analysis of the series’ state-of-the-nation themes and myriad subtleties. But there is also a gabagool platter of out-takes and behind-the-scenes and audition footage that allows fans to see an old favourite from a fresh, insider perspective. And for anyone hoping Chase might confirm what really happened to Tony after the finale’s infamously abrupt ending, well, it turns out that . . . ★★★★☆Streaming on Now in the UK and Max in the US
