Re: Sopranos Simply Pretentious?
11The Sopranos is not some puzzle to be decoded, where everything, every symbol or line or scene, has some fixed meaning that must be applied to the whole (which isn't to say that the series isn't rich in meaning, just that it's more about a casual, connective web of associations). The show is like life in that some things are meaningful, others not, and still others appear to be greatly meaningful but they have a significance that is hard to pin down or verbalize. Nothing is straight forward, or as it seems. The banal and the mysterious reside side by side. It would be trite and intellectually dishonest for the show to offer some grand answer or meaning to the intriguing and difficult questions it asks; great art is almost always about asking questions, not giving answers. Many things are better left unexplained; for example, would the last dream in "Calling All Cars" with the shadowy woman on the staircase be just as haunting and unforgettable as it is now if Chase had inserted some scene of Tony or Melfi going "A-ha! that's what that dream was about, it was about ___" or if there even was a parallel scene in real life where Tony sees the same house as in the dream and some forced dialogue or staging is put in to make the meaning of it all clearer. No, this would be silly and artless. I like that the show leaves the answers to us, as in life.