I don't watch too much television, but I definitely read too much on the Internet. I know this because just last week I read something about television and now I can't remember where I read it.* The writer was mock-complaining that TV isn't as mindless and undemanding a leisure activity as it used to be, ever since "The Sopranos." What with "The Wire" and "Mad Men" and "Deadwood" and "Breaking Bad" and "Dexter" and other non-old-network series, you actually have to pay attention to watch TV these days. (If you remember reading something along those lines, please send me the link.) No more just leaving the set on whenever you're home in order to drown out the voices. These shows require as much concentration (and more memory and commitment) than most feature films -- or perhaps (a closer comparison) modern novels.
A New York Times essay by A.O. Scott last weekend asked: "Are Films Bad, or Is TV Just Better?" Yes, it's a false dilemma (what does the quality of one have to do with the quality of the other?), but it's the kind of headline that catches the notice of the knee-jerk TV haters who are still stuck in the three-network "vast wasteland" of 1961. Scott wrote:
Will any of the movies surfacing this fall provoke the kind of conversation that television series routinely do, breaking beyond niches into something larger? This bad summer movie season, in what seems to be one of the best television years ever, reinforces a suspicion that has been brewing for some time. [...]
Look back over the past decade. How many films have approached the moral complexity and sociological density of "The Sopranos" or "The Wire"? Engaged recent American history with the verve and insight of "Mad Men"? Turned indeterminacy and ambiguity into high entertainment with the conviction of "Lost"? Addressed modern families with the sharp humor and sly warmth of "Modern Family"? Look at "Glee," and then try to think of any big-screen teen comedy or musical -- or, for that matter, movie set in Ohio -- that manages to be so madly satirical with so little mean-spiritedness.
I swear, I'm not trying to horn in on my colleagues' territory. But the traditional relationship between film and television has reversed, as American movies have become conservative and cautious, while scripted series, on both broadcast networks and cable, are often more daring, topical and willing to risk giving offense.
"Mad Men" -- just in the last few weeks of fourth-season episodes alone -- has been more cinematically stimulating than most of what I've seen this year at the movies (and by that I include 2009 and 2010 releases on cable, pay-per-view and DVD). There are few narrative pleasures as satisfying as getting to know characters over time, so that a moment -- the exchange of looks through the glass doors between Peggy and Pete in "The Rejected"; the long night of hashing things out between Peggy and Don, culminating in a touch of hands that resonates across years in "The Suitcase"...
David Bordwell looks at some of the pleasures and perils of series television in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek post at Observations on film art:
I see the difference between films and TV shows this way. A movie demands little of you, a TV series demands a lot. Film asks only for casual interest, TV demands commitment. To follow a show week after week, even on a DVR, is to invest a large part of your life. Going to a movie demands three or four hours (travel time included).
Whether a movie is good or bad, at least it's over pretty soon. If a TV show hooks you, prepare for many long-term ups and downs--weak episodes, strong ones, mediocre ones. Favorite actors leave or die, and replacements are seldom as good as the originals. A new character may be charming or annoying. An intriguing hero may accumulate distracting sidekicks. Plots take weird turns, sometimes dillydallying for months. All this can drag on for years.
Of course TV-philes enjoy this slow samba. They point out, rightly, that living through the years along with the characters, watching them change in something like real time, brings them closer to us. Who doesn't appreciate the way Mary Tyler Moore evolved into something like a feminist before America's eyes? As early as 1952, the sagacious media critic Gilbert Seldes pointed out that intellectuals who thought that TV was plot-dependent were wrong.
It is natural that the actual plot of a single self-contained episode should be comparatively unimportant. . . . The very limitations of the style leads its creators to develop characters of considerable depth, to create dramatic conflict out of the interaction of people rather than out of an artificial juxtaposition of events. As television is a prime medium for transmitting character, this is all to the good. (Writing for Television, pp. 115-116)We get to know TV characters with an informal intimacy that is quite different from the way we relate to the somewhat outsize personalities that fill the movie screen. We learn TV characters' pasts, their hobbies, their relations with kin, and all the other things that movies strip away unless they're related to the plot's through-line.
Ich bin ein TV-phile. That "informal intimacy" DB writes about is unique to television because of the way it unfolds over time. When something happens in Season 1, Episode 2, it may not pay off, or work itself out, until Season 3, Episode 5. An event that unfolded in our shared present in Season 1 actually is shared history by Season 3 -- even if we're watching whole seasons at a time on DVD. So many of the acclaimed cinematic achievements of recent decades were made for television, even if they were released in theaters in some markets: RW Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz," Dennis Potter's "Pennies From Heaven" and "The Singing Detective," Krzysztof Kieslowski's "The Decalogue," David Lynch's "Twin Peaks," Edgar Reitz's "Heimat," Marco Tullio Giordana's "The Best of Youth," David Simon's "Generation Kill," and so on...
I am passionately interested in what people call "form" (and by that I mean not just "long-form storytelling," but how something is photographed and edited) and character, above all. Sure, there's usually a plot -- but what I consider "storytelling" has more to do with photography and editing and character than plot. The "what" is always determined by the "how." Which is why I could not understand those who said the last couple seasons of "The Sopranos," or the third season of "Mad Men," were "slow." All kinds of things were happening with the characters, but most of it was conveyed in images and expressions rather than in direct action or explicit dialog.
* This is the story I was thinking of -- David Carr in the New York Times, "The Glut of Shows Unwatched":
Television, which was once the brain-dead part of the day, had become one more thing that required time, attention and taste. I have fond memories of the days when there were only three networks and I could let my mind go slack as I half-watched Diane and Sam circle each other on "Cheers," because that was pretty much the only thing on.
This one's worth reading too, from n+1: "Treasure Island: How TV serials achieved the status of art, which surveys long-form fiction from Jane Austen and Charles Dickens to "Hill Street Blues" and "The Wire."
43 Comments
Have you checked out the Martin Scorsese-directed Boardwalk Empire pilot, yet? I hate to say it, but I found it on one viewing (can't wait for more, though) overdirected, like Scorsese let JJ Abrams do most of it while he focused on a few choice shots. Seriously, the swooping was out of control and, worse, pointless, but every time we enter a new grand hall, there goes the camera.
It feels like a nitpick with so much else to recommend it, especially those performances by Steve Buscemi and Michael Shannon and all the little seeds subverting American mythology. But after all that hype, I was expecting, I don't know, something formally coherent.
Even the Power Rangers television series is better than the movie it is based on. You get to see the charm of the actors over time and you associate with them. It is easier to achieve moral complexity in tv without appearing hokey. Ecliptor in Power Rangers in Space was the attempt to create a character not black and white. I hope you think about this before disregarding it as childish hokum, which I admit is true. This is said similarly by other people about the series. About the article in which you said you would only watch certain things if recommended by numerous friends, take the advice of an occasional commenter, check out Power Rangers in Space and compare it with Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers the Movie and see if I'm right. That would be an interesting, if odd, blog entry.
And for "grown up" television, Sam Waterston is brilliant as Jack McCoy in Law and Order.
The television series MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS came before the MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS MOVIE. TV series in '93 and the film in '95. That probably counts as 'trolling', but I'm a stickler for accuracy when discussing the Power Rangers *sarcasm*.
Seriously, though, DEADWOOD could have possibly been the greatest television show of all time, but whatever model HBO does decide to follow, it sure failed David Milch. And what a shame.
Also, this shows tv's advantage, because one can't get any more puerile then Power Rangers, but the show has lasted for so long, intelligence once in a while entered the script. The movie had no chance.
I really like the show "Men of a Certain Age". I hope it doesn't get canceled, which seems likely to me. It's kind of plot-less but there's this constant feeling of impending doom for the characters. It just feels so much like life.
Have you watched "Boardwalk Empire" yet? Add that to the list of outstanding television that is more fulfilling than what's being shown in theaters. I've really been enjoying your look into "Mad Men" and television in general these past couple of months, and I linked the hell out of your pieces yesterday when I posted my thoughts on the pilot of "Boardwalk Empire". Great stuff!
I haven't seen the pilot yet, but I hope to catch up with it this week. We showed Steve Buscemi's first movie, "Parting Glances" (also the first movie about AIDS) at the Market Theater. He told me (around the time of "Mystery Train") that he thought it might be the best role he'd ever have in his career. Also, I'll never forget that we hired a guy in his 20s named Joe who had AIDS (this was maybe 1985) and we called the local Health Department to see whether we needed to take any precautions. Yes, they said: Don't let him bleed in the popcorn. Fair enough. Joe died a couple years later. We also hired a sweet but spacey guy named Gordon Raphael, who once broke a lava lamp on the floor of the lobby and was spellbound by the effect. Years later he produced the debut album by the Strokes, "This Is It." Who knew?
I like that TV is free to use the language of film, but also to spoof and riff on it (Community) or drop it in favor of a free-for-all mishmash (Louie, e.g.).
I also have to admit that my life allows me to watch a 20 or 40 minute episode in a day, but not 90 or 120 minutes of a film. The rhythm of short episode arcs, longer season arcs, and epic-length series arcs satisfies some primal fire-side tale longing in me.
Movies allow fantasies. TV shows engage affections. Movie is a fling of passion. TV show is a relationship.
I agree with DB as well on the informal intimacy... TV characters demand a certain level of acceptance - no matter how bad the role is you need to feel some kind of empathy in order to watch the person in action week after week. Movie doesn't require that kind of tolerance or patience. However, TV also provides rewards that movie simply is incapable of giving - the kind of long, deeply ingrained affection and understanding you feel for an actor or a role (the line between the two often blur) built drop by drop from years of watching them, believing them.
The downfall to that is once an actor is so deeply ingrained in a TV role I find it difficult to watch them with fresh eyes in other roles. This is especially a shame for good actors.
Having recently bought a projector and canceled cable, I have to say that I do not miss TV at all. There are just too many good films to see.
Louie CK's show Louie was apretty great show too, i heard it got picked up for a second season.
Jim,
I absolutely agree that TV's long form creates a different intimacy with the characters and gives a greater freedom for sustained complexity (though it doesn't show most of the time).
However, although there are instances of striking Direction and top quality acting, film remains the medium where the greatest work is achieved. This is not a given and it may change. It is also not down to money. The greatest TV Shows as you have said, are often by world-class film directors (Kieslowski, Lynch), and are on a par with the great 'film' works. I wish more film directors would work on TV - Bela Tarr would be perfect.
It hasn't worked the other way, however. I don't see TV Directors making names for themselves in Cinema. This makes me think not that there is something inherently inferior to the televisual medium but that the cream is being siphoned off by the prestige, glamour and money (money to the makers as much as the production) that Cinema still holds.
There is very good TV - The Simpsons, Heroes and, before, Moonlighting - but the best TV nowadays is not the best because it most resembles Cinema. A lot of people still think that being 'cinematic' is a mark of a good TV show.
In fact it's the opposite - because they are different media, the ones that play to those idiosyncracies are most memorable and most involving.
The only episodic television I regularly watch is on Adult Swim, shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Venture Brothers, and Tim & Eric, Awesome Show Great Job! These comedies are far funnier than almost anything in the cinema these days.
You might be thinking of this article, in "N Plus One": http://nplusonemag.com/treasure-island
It contains these lines: "The cultural prestige of serial dramas has since appreciated to such an extent that [Joyce Carol] Oates’s TV Guide story is now out of date. It is no longer a smart social move to brag about not owning a television. These days we apologize for not keeping up."
Thank you -- I believe that's the one!
"Boardwalk Empire" actually lived up to my high expectations. There were techniques reminiscent of Scorsese's work in "Goodfellas" and "Gangs of New York," and yet the subtle touches, a weathered Buscemi staring at premature babies in an incubator, the playing of the funeral march at the stroke of prohibition midnight, were haunting. Scorsese's trademark use of authentic period music must have been a great challenge for 1920, yet he does wonders (a similar feat acheived with "Aviator"). Buscemi is an inspired casting choice, an actor baring little resemblance to the historical character. Michael Pitt? I don't know. He's an acquired taste. Perhaps, maybe, we'll see. I love Stephen Graham's presence - a younger version Harvey Keitel or even Lee Marvin - in the role of Al Capone. He cracks the camera lense. I've liked him in everything he's ever done, a true live wire deserving of more substantial roles.
Anyway, I don't watch too much TV because I just don't have the time. Watched "Boardwalk Empire" because Sunday evenings are free and Scorsese's name. It's a graceful, massively detailed work, superior to anything I've seen at the theater this summer. There was a moment, probably when Buscemi was dancing with his dame long after midnight, when I dreamed about 1920, asking myself, "What would it have been like to live in that era?" With thudding certainty, I realized everyone who lived then was long ago dead in their graves. We're stepping back in time, as terrifyingly distant as the silent clip of Fatty Arbuckle shown during a specific scene.
...and the TV Series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is about 9000% better than the movie. And at only 3 seasons of consisting of 22 episodes of ½ hour length (in actuality, 22 minutes), it's doesn't require a huge amount of time to go through.
Please. While a few TV shows surpass the majority of cinema (though not the pantheon of cinema), to think TV as a whole is better than films as a whole is a joke. A few good TV shows doesn't make the medium as a whole better.
Also, the fact that we don't get fully into the back story of all the characters in a film or even fully conclude their stories is not a negative trait. Part of cinema's appeal is the mystery. Not knowing everything before and not knowing everything that happens after makes films even more interesting.
Now, certain TV shows such as LOST have tried to create this idea of mystery. But a TV show cannot maintain this mystery. You can't just have hours and hours of a story and still be in a mystery (you can try like they did with LOST, and as the results show, fail miserably).
TV as a whole lacks the mystery of the cinema, the draw of the big-screen, and more importantly, much lower production-value. Mad Men is a great looking TV show but compared to various films, it's not even close to being great.
You mention Decalogue & Twin Peaks, though keep in mind that the former was a mini-series (which I find to be a great hybrid of the two mediums and wish there were more of) and not a full TV show. Twin Peaks fell apart after a season and a half, showing that you could only stretch so long.
I will end by saying that I am a fan of TV, and have spent more hours of my life watching TV shows than I have on films. But the TV medium's impact is not close to the impact of the cinema.
There's no mystery here. A long-running TV show has so many more hours of screen time than a movie that it has a built-in advantage in terms of depth. The fact that so many TV shows traditionally squandered this advantage does not negate its presence.
Today, we're merely seeing a lot of TV shows which do not squander that intrinsic advantage.
There's also the tendency to look at TV as an inferior medium, especially when we look at how a property gets translated from one to the other. Whenever a movie gets spun-off into a TV show, the translation is almost always reductive. M*A*S*H is the only exception that comes to mind immediately. Going the other way, it seems like people tend to hope for a TV show to end up as a movie not only as a means to extend the series, but because they see it as a chance to become a higher form of art. I've had trouble with a few television shows that "make the leap" to the big screen and it is often precisely because that leap takes away from that how the long-form nature of television shaped the show into what it is. There's been the on and off talk of an Arrested Development movie and, as much as I'd love to have more of the show, I fear that translating such a rapid-fire show to a 90 minute format will force the show to change its pace. The only thing I found worth while about putting The Simpsons on the big screen was how the large screen format allowed them to do create a helicopter shot that zoomed down to Earth while dozens of characters moved around the enormous frame. On the flip side, the Muppets, Monty Python, and The Kids in the Hall all made for fantastic translations to movies because the filmmakers understood that the best thing to do was to transplant the characters (or troupe) into a movie that was completely independent from the TV show that made them famous. They just made self-contained films.
Jim, I am not sure if this is the article you had in mind, but it does discuss many of the issues you mention about the complexity of the TV form. It is an article titled "Watching TV Makes You Smarter" by Steven Johnson. It first appeared in the NYTimes. You can find it here:
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/public/tv-smarter-johnson.html
re The Strokes debut album,
not sure but I thought it was Steve Albini who produced it.
Don't forget Tanner '88. An early effort from HBO at taking the best qualities (and talents) from cinema and using them in a tv series. This is surely one of Altman's (with help from Trudeau) finest achievements. Did anything as good as Tanner '88 hit theaters in 1988?
I like your comment about the TV-haters being stuck in the 3-network era. Sure there's lots of crap, but even so, there's an amazing variety and quality of content available now. (Hell, even the good ol' days had plenty of great stuff, as I continue to discover with Netflix).
You are correct, sir. Nothing better than Tanner '88 hit theater screens that year. (My pick for best feature film of 1988 would be Angelopoulos's Landscape in the Mist, which didn't actually appear on a U.S. screen till 1989.) And remember that "For Real," the hourlong first episode of Tanner, premiered on the eve, the literal eve, of the for-real New Hampshire primary. Amazing. After that, political reality almost immediately undercut Altman, Trudeau, and company: Michael Dukakis sewed up the nomination early on, so we were robbed of the dual suspense--who'd win and how Tanner and his creators would jockey for position in the meantime. Then again, this licensed Altman all the more to dwell on the frowsy nitty-gritty of day-to-day process and gamesmanship, a California Split-like existential activity for its own sake.
I have been thinking a lot recently about the late Claude Chabrol, and when I saw that last Madmen shot - the one you reproduce at the top of the top of this post - I was instantly reminded of Chabrol's Les Bonnes Femmes, each of the women locked in their separate romantic dreams. It was even underscored with a waltz, just like the conclusion of Chabrol's film.
TV is so amazing these days. I keep telling my snobby TV hating friends who say "I don't watch TV" that they are missing out big time. I used to go to the movies all the time. Honestly watching Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Dexter, Men of a Certain Age etc. is a lot more interesting to me than the majority of films in theaters the last few years. Thanks Jim for being willing to write about TV, very cool.
I admit that I have not watched a single episode of "Mad Men"; I do not have cable TV.
But the photo at the top of this page of the three actresses in that show seems contrived, hokey - it is obvious that this is a 2010 designer's overdone attempt at 1950s style. These appear to be costumes, rather than everyday clothing - too perfect. "Art-directed to death" is a phrase I've seen in this context. Every "Mad Men" photo I've seen has had a self-conscious, fakey aura - too many cigarettes! If the program is this obvious, I'm not missing much.
The 50s vibe was much better-represented in the movie "LA Confidential", which didn't beat you over the head with period detail.
Well, the fact that you're confusing the '50s with the '60s might tell you something. I'm amazed that you can tell so much from not having seen the show, but if those work clothes (including the hats and white gloves) seem like costumes, then I understand how you may have that impression. Go look at LIFE magazine photos of the early to mid-1960s. But if you think the smoking is over-represented on the show, you evidently don't have first-hand memories of the '60s. Or '70s or '80s, for that matter. Give the show a shot on DVD. I think you'll discover that there's a lot more to it than "costumes and art direction."
For me, a tv series can never have the impact of a movie because of its form. A movie is a work of art that requires commitment to a story and once done, exists in its final form. It is not simply a collection of characters (quirky but we grow to love them), a theme or a situation. Television feels like stream of thought that a bunch of 30 year olds are just making up as the show progresses. "What will happen next week?" "Stay tuned until next week while we dream something up."
It's just not the case anymore that TV series are "a bunch of 30 year olds... just making up [stuff] as the show progresses." The best shows are plotted ahead of time by their creator in a few smaller 2 to 6 episode narrative arcs that overelap through a whole season, with one or more larger overarching narrative arcs that are resolved at the end of each season (or the beginning of the next, which has sometimes led to awful cliffhangers when shows have been cancelled or handed over to a new showrunner).
That sounds pretty much like the structure of a film or novel, written across 22, 18, or however-many episodes. Less sophisticated versions of this can be seen on shows like _Hill Street Blues_, which treat us to a succession of arcs running several episodes each which focus on themes like the escalation of a groper to a rapist to a murderer, or the tragicomedy of a crime victim striking back as a would-be superhero, or the challenges of being a lesbian cop, or the effect a male cop's capture and (implied) rape by a suspect has on his work. These generally lacked the overarching season-long theme, although some seasons had them whether by design or whether they emerged organically. David Mamet sprinkled in several episodes that were written by him and feel like his plays but with the added dimension the series' weighty character backgrounds brings--an advantage of the TV format is that it allows for these guest writers and directors to come in and give us a new and interesting take on familiar characters. Too seldom are they great writers like Mamet, but it's happened several times before and I think it will become more frequent as TV has come into its own.
Perhaps the first example of "novel-writing for TV" that had season-long arcs designed from the start and which lasted for several seasons was _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. The first season began with a simple "Monster of the Week" approach to the forestory and one season-long 13 episode arc in the background. Not sophisticated, but it set the stage. Starting with season 2, it added several-episode story arcs grouping the episodes into narrative clumps each of which had a lasting effect on the characters. From season 3 these narrative clumps had a clear relationship to each other and wound together like strands of rope, and were obviously meticulously planned out beforehand by series creator Joss Whedon and his team. The result is that each season from at least 3 onwards has a narrative structure that's actually more fine-grained and complex than that of most films and novels: we have self-contained episode-long stories (some of which are very like self-contained films in themselves), almost all of which advance the several-episode story arcs, all of which lead inexorably into the resolution of an overarching plot for the season. But there is always another undercurrent at work in the show--we discover as seasons progress that they're not just standalone seasons but that each season is just another story arc in yet a larger tale, until season 5 brings the overall story to its logical conclusion, season 6 deliberately turns the world of the series upside down to show us the gritty reality underneath the excitement and in the process throws the universe of the show into chaos, and season 7 circles around to the beginning to resolve the chaos by destroying the basic premise of its own series in an empowering frenzy.
As the article hints, terms like character-driven and plot-driven literally lose their significance in the world of TV done right, because both character development and narrative plot are intimately bound and push each other in new and exciting ways. _Veronica Mars_ is probably the best illustration of this: on its face the show is plot-driven with the overarching questions of the first season being, "Who killed Lilly Kane?" and "Who raped Veronica Mars?" The storylines click into place like a Swiss clock movement or the acts in a Bogart whodunit to machanistically pull us forward to our answers, but the final reveals turn out to be entirely dependent on the character dynamics that have formed in front of us throughout the season.
Tay,
Thanks for your thoughtful response. Part of my point, which I think I didn't make clear, is that it is harder, for me at least, to suspend disbelief, i.e, believe in the story on some unconscious level, when I am aware that the story is ongoing and being written. I had very much enjoyed the Sopranos but stopped watching when I became aware of the back and forth as to whether the series would be extended.
Eric
Could the link you've been missing be Matt Soller Seitz's essay about Charlie Kaufman and David Chase?
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2009/12/30/seitz_no1/index.html
It contains the following quote:
"The Sopranos" transformed HBO from a boutique cable operation into an entertainment industry powerhouse. Its popular and critical success -- and its post-TV triumph in the form of pricey DVD box sets that sat on bookshelves like fat novels -- empowered HBO and its rival U.S. cable outlets and broadcast networks to greenlight their own densely plotted, often dark or surreal series, including "The Wire," "Deadwood," "Heroes," "Six Feet Under," "Rome," "The Shield," "Rescue Me," "Saving Grace," "Breaking Bad," "Lost," "Damages," "Battlestar Galactica," "Queer as Folk," "The L Word," "The United States of Tara," "Nurse Jackie" and "Dexter." The combined success of all these shows established TV as the preferred home for character- and atmosphere-driven fiction so detailed that audiences couldn't sort of half-watch them while folding laundry; they had to commit to them, as people once committed to films in theaters.
I'd agree that television in general offers the opportunity for long-form narrative that film just simply cannot, because the distribution and production systems of film simply don't support serial storytelling anymore. But television is severely hampered by the networks need to fill a set number of episodes per season for as many seasons as possible. Can anyone imagine The Wire being forced to fill a 22 episode season or being forced to run for seven seasons to achieve syndication? You can just imagine the sweeps-month two-parter where McNulty goes home to tend to an ailing Father only to romance a high-school sweetheart.
Premium cable channels and a few basic cable channels (AMC) have gotten past this by offering shorter, more concise seasons and allowing shows to end short of the traditional 100 episodes=syndication model, but even HBO has dragged successful series out as long as possible (cough cough Sopranos, cough cough).
Television will be the ultimate long-form narrative format when a series can run exactly as long as it needs to tell its story and the individual episodes can be whatever length they need to be to accomplish that. HBO has come close to this with The Pacific and John Adams, but even those mini-series are still tied to a set 10 episode model.
I know all this is true and yet I keep forgetting to watch these.
I kind of feel like it's too late to just start watching these shows so late in the series.
Well, thank God for the DVDs giving me something to look forward to in the future (as I don't think I should watch them not from the beginning episode).
It kinda breaks my heart a little that "Rubicon" gets so little notice.
It's on right before "Mad Men".
It is sort of what Coppola's "The Conversion" might be if it was a 21st Century TV show.
Also enjoyed "Justified" on FX.
Very interesting look at the South with a lot of help from Elmore Leonard.
Sad to say "Weeds" jumped the shark.
But spending time with Laura Linney (The Big C) and Eddie Falco (Nurse Jackie) makes me forget about $15 3-D movies.
_Twin Peaks_ hooked me when it was first broadcast. I had never seen or heard of anything so engaging on TV. However, after it ended it was back to typical sitcoms and dramas, and I chalked it up to the product of a great filmmaker experimenting with TV, not the result of any advantages of the medium.
I realized that TV had eclipsed film as a medium for character-driven storytelling when I saw the fifth season of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, a series I like most others had dismissed based on its silly name and the botched movie that preceded it. Wow. Here were characters and depths and intertwining arcs that film could never do. Then the sixth season of _Buffy_ hammered away, deconstructing its own main character and turning the entire premise of the show upside-down, and I watched in anxiousness like a junkie. Many people disliked season 6 because it was hard to watch the hero of the show be beaten down by the everyday world of work and responsibility and family week after week, but I loved it then and now on DVD back-to-back viewing marathons make it shine even more.
_Veronica Mars_. Those two words are arguably the greatest words in the last decade of TV. Film noir speaking native TV, from the mouth of a teen detective whose biggest case is the murder of her best friend, and which is unflinching enough to make the sheriff laughing at our heroine's rape trauma central to the first episode? Everyone from Kevin Smith to Joss Whedon was addicted to this show.
TV at its finest can outshine all but the most perfect films.
VERONICA MARS? Here's a one-word film that did high school noir way better and first: BRICK.
Sorry my friend, but _Veronica Mars_ came out in 2004 and was based on creator Rob Thomas' idea for a noir teen detective novel sold to Simon & Schuster in the mid 90s; so, it slightly predates _Brick_ in conception, filming, and release. To be fair it was released only a few months before _Brick_, so they're more or less contemporaneous--although _Brick_'s script was supposedly complete by 1997 whereas at that point _Veronica Mars_ was still a collection of outlines and treatments.
While I enjoyed _Brick_, and I enjoy classic noir in general, what makes that film inferior to _Veronica Mars_ is the weakness Roger Ebert pointed out in his review: "The movie has one inevitable point of vulnerability: Because we can't believe in the characters, we can't care about their fates. They have lifestyles, not lives." It's basically a reproduction of 30s and 40s detective noir, and feels of a different time and place. It may as well be in black and white and star a Bogart lookalike; it doesn't synthesize and create a vital living work in the present.
_Veronica Mars_ however feels as much of this world as of the abstract and mannered noir world. The people have real lives like ours, not just lifestyles. We love the characters and care about their fates. When a dame in a classic noir film (or _Brick_) is mistreated or killed, she's an abstract cog in the machine and we don't blink. When Veronica reports her rape to a sheriff who finds it amusing, or when we see Lilly Kane lying dead, we cringe. These are real characters with emotional connections between themselves and with us. The characters in _Brick_ and traditional noir are ciphers in whom we don't invest much personal emotion.
That brings us back to the advantage in telling long-format narratives which TV will always have over film: it can take its time. It can make us love the characters and their backgrounds in deep ways film never has time for, and all of that emotional investment can be leveraged into making the narrative that much more powerful. Just my take...
Tay, that's an outstanding examination of what made Veronica Mars as great as it was. (And I liked Brick quite alot, but agree it was so hyper-stylized that there wasn't the same empathy for the characters.) I thought its first season was near perfect, fell off a bit in season two (mainly due to a villain who turned out to be so ridiculously sinister he almost belonged in a James Bond movie) but (mostly) rebounded well in its final season. And the depth of the characters is what made it sing. As far as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I felt it went off the rails halfway thru season 6; what it tried was ambitious and bold, yes, but I don't think it worked ultimately, and made a fatal mistake in turning Spike into almost a co-lead. A once highly effective recurring character became silly, annoying, and finally just toxic. The show's seventh and final season was so bad it was nearly unwatchable. A similar arc to The X Files, actually, a great show for so many years that just overstayed its welcome by a season or two. Just my opinion.
I also recall fondly Homicide: Life on the Streets, one of the few recent network shows that had the aura and tone of many current pay-cable series. Just brilliant storytelling and acting. (I haven't yet had time to watch The Wire, though I have its first season on dvd and look forward to finally seeing this series for myself.)
Just want to second the love for season 5 and 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Season 6's deconstruction of the entire series and all the underlying myths and assumptions that went into them (and not just the central character, but her friends as well) is one of the bravest things I've ever seen done in film or television. And it retrospectively makes the first few seasons (which are fluffier but still strong) even better.
And yes, I adore VM (especially season 1, though season 2 is somewhat underrated) too.
I scrolled down to comment about Twin Peaks and saw someone else mention it. The series premiere episode was the watershed moment for me, spending an entire hour depicting what a film would have devoted at most 5 minutes to, and showing the potential for television to exceed all but the greatest of films.
Mr. Emerson, I apologize for passing judgment on a show I haven't watched.
I was born in 1952, and few people I knew in the 50s or 60s (or now, for that matter) were as good-looking or as sharply dressed as the performers I've seen in any "Mad Men" publicity photo.
The adults I knew back then were haggard, disheveled, wrinkled, profoundly average-looking.
But realistically, who would finance or watch a TV drama filled with people who look like me and you?
For me, Standish Lawder's short film "Necrology" captures the office vibe of 40-50 years ago far better than any fiction. Here is an excerpt - the whole thing is available on DVD - highly recommended.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-UofxGRdKE
One thing I love about TV is that I can actually engage the current conversation about the best shows, whereas the best movies often get discussed/dissected at length after the big festivals or being rolled out in "select" cities, and while I can read what others are saying and be excited to one day see these things on DVD (while trying to avoid 'spoilers'), it's not the same as being able to see a Mad Men episode and actually know what you or MSZ are talking about the next day. Hooray distribution!
Leave a comment