The Soprano

See also: Soprano (homonymy)

the Soprano ( The Sopranos ) is a American Televised series in 86 episodes from 45 to 60 minutes, created by David Chase and diffused between on January 10th, 1999 on television and on June 10th, 2007 on television on HBO. In France, the series is diffused since September 5th, 1999 on television on Jimmy, on October 8th, 2000 on television on France 2 and on March 11th, 2006 on television on France 4. In Suisse the series is diffused on TSR1.

Synopsis

This series puts in scene the difficulties that meets Tony Soprano, godfather of the Mafia of the New Jersey, to reconcile the interests of her true family and her professional “family”. Besides this duality gets states of heart to him which he entrusts to a psychoanalyst.

Distribution

Rewards

See also: Rewards and nominations allotted to the series the Soprano

Characters

See also: Characters of the Soprano

Episodes

See also: the Soprano: list episodes

Comments

The considerable success of the series is without any doubt due to the originality of the subject, but also to the quality of the interpretation of the actors who camp for the majority of the hateful characters but finally very attaching. This series illustrates very well the concept of Overpowering by showing how any social report/ratio is built on an imbalance.

Topics approached

Family ties

Throughout the series, we follow the animated evolution of the relations between Tony Soprano with his Carmela wife, and their adolescent children, AJ and Meadow.

The psychoanalysis

Doctor Melfi explores with Tony Soprano various psychoanalytical interpretations.

Italian-American community

The gangsters and their wives are proud of their ethnic membership and assert their cultural heritage. They are said Italian (" napolitain" , " sicilien") and prefer to remain " between eux". The fact that the characters belong to Cosa Nostra (our thing) makes only reinforce this feeling which always passes by the blood tie " italien". In an episode or Tony explains to his psychiatrist that one of qualities of sound amante is to be " italienne" , that Ci answers him: “You made me what there? West Side Story ? ” The series shows very well that there exists always an Italian community among as well of others in the United States and proves as the cultural heritage is always also important among Italians, as for the other communities, because like says it a sicilian saying, “people without memory are people which do not have identity”. Unfortunately, in the French version, several words in dialect of the south or Italian passed to the trap door to be literally translated. This withdraws its charm with this series " communautariste" or the italianity in spite of the kilometers, is always proposed by the protagonists. It should be noted that the actors themselves are Italian American. The true name of David Chase, the creator of the series is David DeCesare.

The series plays much on the stereotypes which one can have on the Italians. The characters are is large, small, very brown and very hairy or belong to the Maffia. They eat pastes, pizza pies and maltreat the women. So the series was always victims of the eagerness of Italian-American associations which judged that the series gave well an bad image of their community. Thus on several occasions in the series, one can intend certain characters to discuss on the fact that the Italians all are not of the hooligans " mafiosi" who represent finally only one minority. In an episode, Tony evokes a certain racism towards the Italians by quoting the history of Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants condemned wrongfully to died on the American ground. In another episode, Paulie, Silvio and their friends go down even in the street to fight against demonstrators who would like to remove the bank holiday of the Italians in America: the day of Cristoforo Colombo (Christophe Colomb) because the Indians estimate that it is because of him if they were made massacre. They thus fight for their Italian identity which they defend until the end. One cannot thus say that the characters are anchored in the American mould, since the Maffia Italian presents everywhere in the world corresponds each time to the same criteria.

Machism and adultery

In good gangsters, the Soprano family members collect the mistresses and post a very traditional mentality on the sex and the family.

Activities of the Maffia

A whole series of activities of the Maffia are given to us to see: racket (by intimidation, aggression or routine), flight (of the planned abduction of wholesale goods to the opportunist larceny), fraud (real businesses, diversion of governmental subsidies, etc), bets clandestine, prostitution (with the Bada Bing , the box of striptease of Silvio).

Universe of criminality

The Italian-American gangsters are not the only ones to occupy the ground of criminality or the illegality. One crosses thus dealers Porto Rican Afro-Américains or , Russian gangsters , Colombian traffickers , swindlers Jewish, French, Indians or close relation-Eastern.

Assassinations and murders

The series is punctuated by many murders and assassinations. Important characters disappear regularly, in particular at the time of the last episodes of each season, sometimes in spite of the friendly bonds between the killer and his victim.

Investigations of FBI and indics

The FBI manages “to turn over” several gangsters or close relations. For the Soprano family, it is a permanent obsession. For the indics, it is a very heavy anguish, and generally a death warrant in the long term.

Drug

Christopher Moltisanti, the nephew of Tony Soprano, has problems of addiction to the Héroïne and must only with its family ties with Tony not be eliminated.

See too

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