Game of Thrones
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The NYT today reviewed the new HBO series Game of Thrones. It wasn’t a good review. The reviewer says at one point that HBO at its best is a corporate auteur making television that examines institutions and how they fall apart. Deadwood is The West, The Sopranos is The Mafia, The Wire is The City, etc. But my take on the Sopranos and what it spawned (the serious television series with lots of sex and violence) is that the institution under examination is the Man. By extension it is also the family and the TV genre. I haven’t watched The Wire, but I want to pursue this a little: The Sopranos, Dexter and Madmen are examples (Dexter an extreme one) of shows dominated by a male protagonist who is uncomfortably suspended between two worlds, that of the old, clearly defined masculine hero of yesterday, and the uncertain, not-quite defined masculine hero of today. They are men with secrets. They are men who have tragic flaws that prevent them from being totally evil. They have insight and empathy because they are outsiders in their own milieu but this insight, this empathy, isn’t enough to change them. Tony and Don are compulsive womanizers. Tony is a sociopathic killer. He also feels sorry for the gay guy. He wants his kids to grow up be normal, sort of. He wants a divorce but he doesn’t. He is in therapy, sure. He even eats pussy. Don votes republican but loathes Roger’s racism to the point that he can’t talk to him. He wants a bimbo wife but is closest to the woman whose husband’s identity he stole. He reads Frank O’hara and smokes pot, but is comfortable sitting in the Rainbow Room. Dexter is the most extreme of these because his secret is that he has no feelings. He is afraid of sex because it will reveal his lack of depth, his inability to be truly intimate. He appears to the world to be the modern sensitive man. But as soon as anyone gets close they see the vacuum within. Like Tony and Don he has an internal psycho-drama, in which repressed memories of a violent and chaotic childhood are revealed. Their complexity and weakness allows the viewer to identify with them just enough to keep it going, while the characters’ anti-social violence goes on: Don’s philandering and business prowess, Tony’s rule of a mob family, and Dexter’s serial killing. The other aspect to all of this is that HBO and the others are taking traditional TV genres and infusing them with the sex that wouldn’t make it to the big screen, and the violence that does. The sex is much more important. It actually is ridiculous in shows like The Tudors or Rome, where it feels like it was a soft porn track laid on to the main plot. (Like Caligula, I Claudius with actual orgies). There was a scene in Boardwalk Empire (another equivocal male, Steve Buscemi…) in which a woman has sex with a man. She’s on top and it’s full frontal nudity, with thrusting. I can’t remember ever seeing an R rated movie with such a long or explicit sex scene. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that now we have Sword and Sorcerer epic with bouncing boobies. HBO hasn’t done sci fi yet with the blood gouts and pubic hair. Battlestar Galactica went as far as the Sci Fi Channel would go. Of course, it’s my dream that the Man Who Can’t Die would correct that. And the other thing of course is that the best of these shows (Battlestar Galactica, The Sopranos, Madmen) are the only serious popular writing in America today. It’s what separates them from the Very Mannered Deadwood, or the laughable The Tudors.
Deadwood was mannered, but I loved the weird mix of vulgarity and gentility in the dialogue. I liked that show quite a bit and was disappointed they never at least tied it all up with a movie.
Another current show to consider is Breaking Bad. I would include this as one of the shows with “serious popular writing”.
It very much fits the theme of the man caught between two worlds. If you haven’t seen it Jon, I think you’d like it.
I have disc one at home right now.
I know what you mean about Deadwood. I knew a lot of people who loved it because of the writing. And I do love westerns. True Grit had the same formal language. I think the stories of Deadwood didn’t engage me. I forget the names of the characters but it was a similar balancing act with the main character having a few redeeming qualities. It used to be in the dark western the hero was given a few unredeeming qualities to shade the white hat. But this balancing is common in literature of course. It’s just TV that has had a hard time with the lovable bastard. Andy Sipowicz (with Archie Bunker in the Ur role) is the root from which this tree grows.
The bastard always seems to become lovable. Maybe it’s a Judeo-Christian thing. The public loves to see a man redeemed.
Regarding Deadwood, in addition to the writing, I liked the fact that you could see the characters had dirt under their nails. It was superbly staged, basically. Still I find Mad Men, Breaking Bad better shows all around. AMC seems to do it right. I never saw Rubicon, but the Walking Dead is really good and The Killing shows some promise. I haven’t decided yet but it’s got me interested to see more. Not on the same level I think (yet?) as the other previously-mentioned AMC series but definitely got the atmosphere thing down pat. (I’m not the biggest zombie-genre fan but Walking Dead is very very well done).
As for Game of Thrones, I saw the 1st episode last night and liked it enough to want to see more.
And therein lies the trouble. There are a slew of damn good series out there, so the bar has been raised and even a good series can seem played out these days. But still, I’m glad they’re around. I watch most of these with a Portuguese friend of mine. We have one series at a time, get together once a week for beers and petards and grok something. Easier than a film yet with the same quality of writing/production and we can share the experience.
BTW, you mentioned True Grit, which I liked, but if you haven’t seen it, I recommend The Fighter. Funny film and Christian Bale is remarkable.
Weird how I watch more TV now than when I was in the US. Keeps me in touch I suppose. As un-patriotic as I am, I’m still proud that American series kick ass in so many ways, or should I say happy to hear the French admit how well we can do it, without caveat!
Random thoughts….
I would rather watch TV these days than go to any movie. Network television is a joke, but cable is amazing. Still, the risk is that all of this will devolve into formalism. I’ll give game of thrones a chance. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing, Lord of the Rings with boobs. And yeah,one of Deadwood’s was dirt under the fingernails. There is never enough grime and filth in art. Or jobs. it’s still rare in american writing of any kind for characters to have real jobs that are degrading and stupid. Roseanne was remarkable in that way. Their house was small and a mess. they yelled at each other constantly. They often lacked money and their jobs sucked. Withh all the cable channels available, and the lack of censorship, I think much more is possible for television. And no one writing today has even started to approach what Dennis Potter accomplished in the 6 hour series format with Pennies from Heaven and the Singing Detective.
I actually don’t watch all that much TV, but I just got turned onto The Borgias and it’s really lush and well-shot. Jeremy Irons is the clincher….