Arrested Development in a nut shell.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
The Wire is the Greatest Show of All Time
There are quite a few contenders for this title, but for now I will only talk about why The Wire is great and save the refutations for a later post. HBO uses a formula with almost all of its dramas, which goes something like this: design a huge set, get a huge ensemble cast and have each episode touch upon each character in their interactions with the set. It is part of their production standards that the environment factor heavily into the psychosis of their characters, that it inflict and impose, give breadth to every breath, so to speak. Their reasons for doing this is that it makes everything more realistic to the viewer. The set becomes this strong current that the characters are forced to fight against, and so they grab hold of each other and form little eddies, pools of reprieve from this constant pressure. Bigger characters attract the smaller, usually dumber, ones, building hierarchies that eventually come to clash with one another, creating white water surges that douse the viewer in pure dramatic tension. It is, by all measures, a fantastic formula, and one that The Wire abides by entirely. However, there are a few aspects to its production that place it at the summit of HBO, and therefore, all of television.
Firstly, the set of Baltimore is not created. Simon wrote for the Sun before making the show, following the breadcrumbs of criminal activity that trails from the mouth of virtually every policy maker and breaker in the city. Baltimore is therefore shot in the most realistic mode ever put to screen. No special effects, no vaseline on the lens, no austere filters added to give a shot more gravity. Baltimore is a kingpin, a God whose desire and greed infiltrates and motivates each individual with a democratic corruption. From the Baroque Revival of City Hall to the dessicated brick of the Hamsterdam houses, Baltimore establishes itself as a city state, surviving in the twin shadows of Washington and Annapolis (the Federal and State seats of Government for those that were seriously sleeping during middle school Civics classes). Many of the ancillary actors used for The Wire are actually hoodrats culled from the real Towers, young men and women whose faces belie the forced maturity of life in the ghetto. Concomitantly, many of the police are still active officers of the law. Simon, like Francois Truffaut, demands the most from his city, demands that it resonate with the sirens of night, buzz with the huddled masses that call themselves residents. In many ways, McNulty is exactly like Antoine Doinel in 400 Blows; he feels more comfortable passing the midnight hours in the street trying to figure out the puzzle that surrounds him. Family is a more alien fraternity than the one granted by the city, the one that kisses you on the lips while it stabs you in the guts. To belong to a family is to partake in unconditional love, which, for many, is fucking bullshit. Baltimore does not love her residents unconditionally by any measure, but she ensures that they are yolked to her breast nonetheless; ensnared within her streets, they all try to find some way to find peace with this lifelong imprisonment.
Language is another pedestal that puts The Wire at a higher vantage than its competitors. Yes, there are great lines in virtually every great show, lines that we think of as we fall asleep and makes us laugh back into wakefulness, lines that we recite to loved ones when our own words fail. But no show has ever had dialogue that made the viewer think they were simply watching real life. The artifice of most dramas is immediately palpable. Though we often fall under the shroud cast by a great actor over our eyes, we still on some subliminal level perceive them as an actor. In The Wire, one gets the sense that David Simon has been following real Baltimoreans around with a small hand held and has only edited it to fit neatly into a story board. The sheer profundity that can be found nestled in some of the coarsest and job-related language is something to be marveled at. Very few of the individuals in The Wire speak eloquently, and when they do, it is often to lie. Many shows aim to construct their mini-hierarchies on this dialectic of language, using the base underlings to add relief to the lofty bosses, but The Wire subverts this notion, leveling all dialogue into a gritty articulation. The result is that, on the most immediate level, the viewer takes this world to be homogeneous, of a single voice, which would be lazy if that were as deep as it goes. But what this allows for is dissent from this voice, fort he little chinks in the armor where characters question the language given to them. These are the moments where The Wire elevates to the ethereal level of social conscience, the pure analysis of the human condition.
The Wire is an angry show at heart, a show made in the same vein as City of God or On the Waterfront. It wasn't created because David Simon thought that he had met enough interesting people in his days as a journalist that they could be arranged in some funny and engaging universe that an astute audience would appreciate. The Wire exists because Baltimore was a broken fucking city, a place where the line between good and evil was as thin as the mattress on the floor of a crack den. Its festering wounds needed to be ripped open, prodded, examined with the most objective tools possible. Thus it is a show about everything that the post 9/11 urban American gets confronted with on a daily basis, but doesn't recognize the confrontation. Too many of us were coming home from work and flipping on the telly because it was the easiest way to escape our thoughts. Will is gay and Grace is hapless, but they both have nice apartments in the most expensive city in the Americas right across from each other and are both blessed with each other's adoring company. This is an easy thing to get lost in, to mindlessly absorb with our Stouffers Salisbury Steak. David Simon said fuck that, fuck it right in the ear. The last thing you are going to endure this weekend, the last thoughts in your head before you mentally prepare for the week ahead is the plight of this gloriously ramshackle city and its denizens. You will endure that shit eating required of police Sargeants, corner boys, crane operators and mayors. You will be assaulted by the dense penumbra of street talk. You will see how fucking pointless it is that some deaths register in our social conscience while others are buried in a file in a drawer in the basement of a dingy district office. Most of all, you will be confronted with the fact that, in cities like Baltimore, the more you improve your status, the more you debase your soul. These sour doses of reality are sweetened with irreverent humor and classless fornication, which, by the end of the hour, leaves you enlightened and charged with a sense of pride that you partook in the greatest experiment ever to grace the screen (with the exception of Battle of the Network Stars).
Firstly, the set of Baltimore is not created. Simon wrote for the Sun before making the show, following the breadcrumbs of criminal activity that trails from the mouth of virtually every policy maker and breaker in the city. Baltimore is therefore shot in the most realistic mode ever put to screen. No special effects, no vaseline on the lens, no austere filters added to give a shot more gravity. Baltimore is a kingpin, a God whose desire and greed infiltrates and motivates each individual with a democratic corruption. From the Baroque Revival of City Hall to the dessicated brick of the Hamsterdam houses, Baltimore establishes itself as a city state, surviving in the twin shadows of Washington and Annapolis (the Federal and State seats of Government for those that were seriously sleeping during middle school Civics classes). Many of the ancillary actors used for The Wire are actually hoodrats culled from the real Towers, young men and women whose faces belie the forced maturity of life in the ghetto. Concomitantly, many of the police are still active officers of the law. Simon, like Francois Truffaut, demands the most from his city, demands that it resonate with the sirens of night, buzz with the huddled masses that call themselves residents. In many ways, McNulty is exactly like Antoine Doinel in 400 Blows; he feels more comfortable passing the midnight hours in the street trying to figure out the puzzle that surrounds him. Family is a more alien fraternity than the one granted by the city, the one that kisses you on the lips while it stabs you in the guts. To belong to a family is to partake in unconditional love, which, for many, is fucking bullshit. Baltimore does not love her residents unconditionally by any measure, but she ensures that they are yolked to her breast nonetheless; ensnared within her streets, they all try to find some way to find peace with this lifelong imprisonment.
Language is another pedestal that puts The Wire at a higher vantage than its competitors. Yes, there are great lines in virtually every great show, lines that we think of as we fall asleep and makes us laugh back into wakefulness, lines that we recite to loved ones when our own words fail. But no show has ever had dialogue that made the viewer think they were simply watching real life. The artifice of most dramas is immediately palpable. Though we often fall under the shroud cast by a great actor over our eyes, we still on some subliminal level perceive them as an actor. In The Wire, one gets the sense that David Simon has been following real Baltimoreans around with a small hand held and has only edited it to fit neatly into a story board. The sheer profundity that can be found nestled in some of the coarsest and job-related language is something to be marveled at. Very few of the individuals in The Wire speak eloquently, and when they do, it is often to lie. Many shows aim to construct their mini-hierarchies on this dialectic of language, using the base underlings to add relief to the lofty bosses, but The Wire subverts this notion, leveling all dialogue into a gritty articulation. The result is that, on the most immediate level, the viewer takes this world to be homogeneous, of a single voice, which would be lazy if that were as deep as it goes. But what this allows for is dissent from this voice, fort he little chinks in the armor where characters question the language given to them. These are the moments where The Wire elevates to the ethereal level of social conscience, the pure analysis of the human condition.
The Wire is an angry show at heart, a show made in the same vein as City of God or On the Waterfront. It wasn't created because David Simon thought that he had met enough interesting people in his days as a journalist that they could be arranged in some funny and engaging universe that an astute audience would appreciate. The Wire exists because Baltimore was a broken fucking city, a place where the line between good and evil was as thin as the mattress on the floor of a crack den. Its festering wounds needed to be ripped open, prodded, examined with the most objective tools possible. Thus it is a show about everything that the post 9/11 urban American gets confronted with on a daily basis, but doesn't recognize the confrontation. Too many of us were coming home from work and flipping on the telly because it was the easiest way to escape our thoughts. Will is gay and Grace is hapless, but they both have nice apartments in the most expensive city in the Americas right across from each other and are both blessed with each other's adoring company. This is an easy thing to get lost in, to mindlessly absorb with our Stouffers Salisbury Steak. David Simon said fuck that, fuck it right in the ear. The last thing you are going to endure this weekend, the last thoughts in your head before you mentally prepare for the week ahead is the plight of this gloriously ramshackle city and its denizens. You will endure that shit eating required of police Sargeants, corner boys, crane operators and mayors. You will be assaulted by the dense penumbra of street talk. You will see how fucking pointless it is that some deaths register in our social conscience while others are buried in a file in a drawer in the basement of a dingy district office. Most of all, you will be confronted with the fact that, in cities like Baltimore, the more you improve your status, the more you debase your soul. These sour doses of reality are sweetened with irreverent humor and classless fornication, which, by the end of the hour, leaves you enlightened and charged with a sense of pride that you partook in the greatest experiment ever to grace the screen (with the exception of Battle of the Network Stars).
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