Gdy byłem młodszy i świat wydawał się prostszy, wiedziałem, że istnieje tylko jeden najlepszy serial na świecie – “The Sopranos”. Po nim długo, długo nic, po czym gdzieś daleko w tyle zajmowała pozycje wszelka konkurencja. Tym klarownym światopoglądem zachwiał wreszcie obejrzany z kilkuletnią zwłoką “The Wire”. Po kilku dniach deliberacji skorygowałem wcześniejszą opinię – “The Wire” i “The Sopranos” to dwa najlepsze seriale na świecie. Z tym że podczas gdy jeden z nich zajmuje się głównie kwestiami społecznymi i socjologicznymi, drugi skupia się na psychologii, życiu, śmierci i absolucie.
Mając na uwadze to rozróżnienie, uderzyło mnie ostatnio podczas lektury “All The Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire”, jak współgrają ze sobą światopoglądy twórców obydwu dzieł. Otóż David Simon, twórca “The Wire”, twierdzi w tej książce, co następuje:
It was much harder to reform a system. The things that reform systems are trauma. Great trauma. Nobody gives up status quo without being pushed to the wall. I believe that politically. The great reformations of society are the result of undue excess and undue cruelty. The reason you have collective bargaining in America and it became powerful is that workers were pushed to the starvation point. The reason that you have the civil rights we do is that people were hanging from trees. That notion of the system being self-reforming without incredible outside pressure and without first bringing about incredible trauma through inhumanity or indifference—I find that to be really dubious. I’m arguing for reform. It’s not like I can say this and say we should throw up our hands and can’t try. Every day, you gotta get up. I’m saying this with the clarity of: there’s no choice but to try.
Podczas gdy David Chase od “The Sopranos”, udzielając w 2007 r. wywiadu, wypowiadał się następująco:
Brett Martin: It seems part of what upsets people is your ruthlessness. The idea that nothing ever changes or gets better.
David Chase: I disagree. People have said that the Soprano family’s whole life goes in the toilet in the last episode. That the parents’ whole twisted lifestyle is visited on the children. And that’s true — to a certain extent. But look at it: A.J.’s not going to become a citizen-soldier or join the Peace Corps to try to help the world; he’ll probably be a low-level movie producer. But he’s not going to be a killer like his father, is he? Meadow may not become a pediatrician or even a lawyer, but she’s not going to be a housewife-whore like her mother. She’ll learn to operate in the world in a way that Carmela never did. It’s not ideal. It’s not what the parents dreamed of. But it’s better than it was. Tiny, little bits of progress — that’s how it works.
Brett Martin: Do you believe life has an arc? Or is it just a bunch of stuff that happens?
David Chase: Is there a purpose, you mean? Everything I have to say about that is in the show. Go look at Albert Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus. It’s all there: Life seems to have no purpose but we have to go on behaving as thought it does. We have to go on behaving toward each other like people who would love.
Brett Martin: So, it’s still worth trying?
David Chase: Of course. What else are you going to do? Watch TV?