Alright, you should be arriving back at the office soon, imbued with the spirit of disenchanted melancholy and existential malaise one can only experience after watch Synecdoche, NY, so I figured I’d have a challenge waiting for you.
Based on our lists of 21-century screenwriters, I got to thinking about movies and television and about how there’s been this tectonic shift in the landscape over the past 10 in the industry, a shift that’s, for the first time since the days of the Philco Television Playhouse (which featured works directed by the likes of Arthur Penn, written by the likes of Paddy Chayefsky, and performed by the likes of Eva Marie Saint and Walter Matthau), tipped the balance of power and influence away from movies and toward television.
The Wire, Deadwood, The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lost, The Larry Sanders Show, The Office (UK), Homicide: Life on the Street. I would put these shows in the ring with any movie that’s come out in the last decade. The Wire might even come close to topping the list.
And the great thing about these shows is they are writer-heavy. Though they look great as well, they don’t have the budgets or the time or the big-screen availability to concentrate too much on pyrotechnics or grand sweeping visions. They’re smaller, more personal, and most importantly, more immersive experiences than movies are.
Not to keep bringing up The Wire, but I want to bring up The Wire when I say that The Wire offers an inside view of an entire working (or, rather, not-working) American city. Baltimore. From the docks to the streets to the jails to the suburbs to the newspapers. From the cops to the gangsters to the junkies to the whores to the kids to the teachers to the journalists. What movie can claim to do that? Sheeeeeeeeeeeeiiiit, The Wire‘s even got Snoop:
It also has some of the greatest crime novelists of the age working for it. George Pelecanos, Richard Price, Dennis Lehane. Add in series creators David Simon and Ed Burns, and you’ve got a writer’s room to rival Sid Caesar‘s.
So, you cinema snob, what’s your take on television? Is it taking over the movies?
Because I think it might be.
This article appears in October 10 • 2008.