基本説明
A renowned film and TV scholar, Polan combines a close and extended reading of the show itself and shows how it exploits the interplay between art culture and popular culture by combining elements of art cinema - meandering plots, narrative breaks, and an uncertain progression - with the allure of a soap opera as it delves into its charactes' sex lives, mob rivalries, and parent-child conflicts.
Full Description
"In its original run on HBO, The Sopranos mattered, and it matters still," Dana Polan asserts early in this analysis of the hit show, in which he sets out to clarify the impact and importance of the series in both its cultural and media-industry contexts. A renowned film and TV scholar, Polan combines a close and extended reading of the show itself-and of select episodes and scenes-with broader attention to the social landscape with which it is in dialogue. For Polan, The Sopranos is a work of playful irony that complicates simplistic attempts to grasp its meanings and values. The show seductively beckons the viewer into an amoral universe, hinting at ways to make sense of its ethically complicated situations, only to challenge the viewer's complacent grasp of things. It deftly exploits the interplay between art culture and popular culture by mixing elements of art cinema-meandering plots, narrative breaks, and an uncertain progression-with the allure of a soap opera, delving into its characters' sex lives, mob rivalries, and parent-child conflicts.A show about corrupt figures who parasitically try to squeeze illicit profit from the system, The Sopranos itself seems a target of attempts to glom on to its fame as a successful TV series: attempts by media executives, marketers, critics and writers, and even presidential candidates. "Everyone wants a piece of Sopranos action," says Polan, and he traces the marketing of the series across both official and unauthorized media platforms, including cookbooks, games, DVDs, and the kitschy Sopranos bus tour. Critiquing previous books on The Sopranos, Polan suggests that in their quest to find deep meaning, many of the authors missed the show's ironic and comedic side.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue 1
1. The Sopranos on Screen 17
1. Watching The Sopranos 19
2. Eight Million Stories in the Naked City 32
3. Food for Thought 45
4. Living in the Moment 56
5. The Late Style of The Sopranos 63
6. Gaming The Sopranos 72
7. Getting High with The Sopranos 86
8. Qualifying "Quality TV" 98
9. "Honey, I'm Home" 105
10. Against Interpretation 113
11. New Jersey Dreaming 133
2. The Sopranos in the Marketplace 143
12. Tie-ins and Hangers-on 146
13. Touring Postindustrialism 155
14. Cashing In on the Game 162
15. Cable and the Economics of Experimentation 174
16. This Thing of Ours 194
Notes 197
Selected Bibliography 211
Index 213
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