In which I go on for a while about The Wire and how fucking great it is.
30 Comments | Posted: February 2nd, 2009 | Filed under: Think About It Won't You | Tags: the wire
Dr K wasn’t kidding when he told me The Wire was the best TV show America had produced so far. Since getting the DVD set from Amazon, I’ve watched at least seven episodes a week, and even thought I’m not finished with it yet (and I will personally hunt down and murder the families of anyone who even fucking thinks about putting a spoiler in my comments,) I wanted to put down some thoughts on why the show works so well for me.
1.
The Wire creates a living, breathing chunk of Baltimore for the viewer by removing cinematic artifice almost entirely. The camera is deliberately neutral, only sparingly used in a way that frames a shot in a dramatic manner, allowing viewers to focus on the content of the scene. It’s an interesting hybrid of documentary filmmaking and the way most procedural programs are shot. In an era where more and more televisions shows (24, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica, to name three of the most popular) are using techniques borrowed from the movies, it’s a fascinating choice on the part of original series cinematographer Uta Briesewitz and his successors.
2.
The visual aesthetic is just part of the way the series builds its world, and the most obvious. Sound plays a huge part in creating a living, breathing world for the viewer, and Jennifer Ralston, Andrew Kris and their team manage to subtly place the audience in the middle of the action without resorting to 5.1 effects and dramatic musical cues. In fact, outside of the very rare montages (I believe the second season had one, the first had two) any music used in the show is playing on a radio, bumping through a club’s soundsystem, or coming out of an identifiable source. The show’s spiritual and creative predecessor, Homicide, had only a few weaknesses in its first few seasons and its too-frequent montages and the use of sound effects to catch the viewer’s attentions were chief among them. Sonically, The Wire is a show that revels in the real world’s sounds and silences, the awkward conversational pauses and blaring of sirens on their way to a crime scene.
3.
Both of the above aspects, when combined with the low key on-screen performances from the cast and scripts that allow everyone on the show to behave like real people, pull the viewer into what’s happening and engages them in a way that no other television show manages. While I greatly enjoy Deadwood and Battlestar Galactica, there are distinct moments when it’s obvious that they want you to know that acting and drama are happening. With The Wire, the moments hang on Stringer Bell’s offhand comment to a street hustler or a terse order from Lt Daniels. It’s only in Omar that the theatrical comes out and that’s an organic part of his character and how he inhabits the world.
4.
Speaking of characters – in the first season, there’s around twenty speaking parts of real importance and when the second season begins, they add an additional fifteen or so, without losing track of the original cast. Yes, some are given more focus than others, but that’s still really ambitious for a show that covers as much storytelling ground as The Wire, with a surfeit of personal issues that never feel cheap or exploitative, just part of real life. Again, it’s those matter-of-fact performances that sell the details much more than tight zooms and barked dialogue. I also have to note that I absolutely love the easy, matter-of-fact chemistry between Sonja Sohn’s Kima Greggs and Jimmy McNulty, played by Dominic West. The way they both use the job to bury their respective personal problems is one of those delicious, writerly touches that I can bring up with someone and they just smile and nod.
5.
There are moments where I wished every show’s producers and creators treated their audience with as much respect as Simon and Burns do, and I actually get sort of angry at how TV in this country is handled. Writers for the networks have to compete with A) forced act breaks where the audience (even if they’re using a DVR) get yanked out of the story for moments at a time because of advertisements and B) a near-constant bombardment of on-screen advertisements during their show while at the same time their media model that is losing its relevancy because of A and B. Each season of The Wire (at least I assume so, unless they go horribly wrong somewhere, which everyone assures me they do not) is a true novel for television with individual episodes serving as chapters, not as discrete pieces of story on their own. I know that Lost (which I have not watched because of my high-school level reaction to so many people describing the show as incredible, mindblowing, and incredibly mindblowing, but will likely get around to it one day) and Battlestar Galactica both follow similar models, but even when watching Galactica on DVD, the commercial-induced breaks (even when they last just a couple of seconds) are jarring and remind me that I’m watching a TV show, not enjoying a story.
6.
No matter how I’m engaged with a work, story (not plot – story) always comes first, and The Wire has been one of the greatest story experiences I’ve had in any medium. How events impact characters and vice versa and how those moments elevate the way the series serves as an elegy for a city that’s deeply broken is nothing short of masterful.
The show’s spiritual and creative predecessor, Homicide, had only a few weaknesses in its first few seasons and its too-frequent montages and the use of sound effects to catch the viewer’s attentions were chief among them.
Out of curiousity, do you think those flaws multiplied or disappeared later in the run? I ask mostly because of my fondness for the whole Luther Mahoney-period in Seasons, say, 4-6.
Homicide was fairly strong throughout most of its run (and the Luther Mahoney story held up a lot of saggy episodes,) but those montages just kill my interest in any given episode. (It should be noted that while I own the series, I’ve only rewatched through the third season. I caught most of it on its first airing. I’ll probably go back and pick it up again soon as a comparative exercise and to watch Andre Braugher shout at people.)
Which season are you on, so we can avoid spoilers?
Also- it’s very jarring to hear the actors when they’re not playing the characters. Springer Bell and McNulty’s natural voices are just…different. I have tremendous respect for that alone.
Let’s just avoid spoilers altogether, for everyone who might be interested later on.
Kevin,
I’m in total agreement with you about the Wire. A brilliant, brilliant show. I devoured Season 1 and I’m starting Season 2. I didn’t even have to think about it when you posted the Amazon link to the series- I bought it straight off.
A wonderful series, and I look forward to reading your thought about it as you watch more.
If you think the first couple seasons are great, just wait until season four. It’s simply a masterpiece.
Four is definitely the best season. Two is probably the weakest, but I enjoyed it more than season three. Three sets up a lot of the rest of the series rather well, but it’s largely a transitional piece and not as self-contained as season two. Or at least not as satisfying from a storytelling standpoint.
I’m not quite ready to hand the crown to The Wire outright, but it’s definitely in my top 2 or 3. And you’re right, it raises the bar so high that “ordinary” tv is pretty much crippled in comparison. Especially cop shows. I made the mistake of checking out The Shield after I was most of the way through The Wire, and The Shield just came off as simplified and pointless.
One disagreement with you, or at least sort-of-elaboration-on-one-of-your-points: you’re right that the neutral camera really helps the aesthetic, but they do occasionally jump into really contrived camera work that derails things. Specifically, whenever they cut to surveillance camera footage (of, say, detectives in an elevator, or kids hustling on the street). It seems to happen almost at random, and it adds nothing while distracting a lot.
But that’s the downside of getting everything nearly perfect; when you flub some small detail, it shows through a lot more than it should.
That jumped out at me early on, as it seemed like they were hard-selling the whole “legal voyeurism” angle, but it disappeared pretty quickly in the show, or at least they got a lot more subtle with it.
(Now, of course, I’m going to see it constantly. Thanks, Keith.)
I will personally hunt down and murder the families of anyone who even fucking thinks about putting a spoiler in my comments
This is great, considering how snippy you got when I complained about a spoiler in one of your posts once.
Obviously not snippy enough that I stopped reading, of course.
The difference is that it’s my money this time. Also, you know, my website, my place to be a capricious dickhead.
Take a look afterwards at the other show the creators done before, The Corner. Really good, too. Not even close to The Wire, of course, but still really good.
I finished reading Homicide, David Simon’s 1991 book, a couple of nights ago. Jay Landsman (who has a character named after him in The Wire and sometimes appears as Lt. Mello) is amazing, and really draws you into its opening pages, but over the course of the book he appears less and less and the subtle humanity of the other detectives reveals itself (or rather Simon reveals it; it would be a discredit to him to suggest otherwise)
Not only does The Wire not pass moral judgement over the actions of its characters, it also makes you as the viewer go back on some moral judgements you’ve made after seeing them from a different perspective, which is more important – I hated Omar when he first showed up, messing with the characters I was familiar with, but as his story progressed and he became more than just a random threat. But it wasn’t a complete flip either, which a lesser show would have done, and his negative impact was still brought up
And there’s a character who does something near the end of season 1 that I thought was unforgivable, but my face lit up when I saw him in bump into McNulty in a later season.
I personally was on the edge of my seat during season four when McNulty had to torture that Muslim street vendor to find out where the nuclear bomb was hidden!
Speaking of torturing Muslims, what’s this about 24 having only like 35-40 minutes of content per episode or something like that this season?
The series “Generation Kill,” by the same creative team as “The Wire,” is also super-awesome. James “Ziggy Sobotka” Ransome is in it, and he’s so good that you forget how much you hated Ziggy.
I loved every season of the Wire. But as a teacher, season 4 spoke to me on a level that no novel, movie, comic, song, piece of art, play, etc ever has.
Turns out Omar is the Fifth Cylon.
Sorry if this is old news, but the people who did “The Wire” also did an HBO series called “Generation Kill”, based on the book by Evan Wright. Its style very closely follows the Wire’s, and tells the same type of engrossing story in a shorter time frame (seven one hour long episodes versus the Wire’s five volumes). What “The Wire” is to “cop” shows (as opposed to something like “Dirty Harry”), “Generation Kill” is to the war genre.
Never mind. I should read before I post.
Kevin, I implore you, do not watch LOST. I watch LOST. I am, in fact, re-watching LOST now. There are delicious little nuggets of DOCTOR WHO-grade TV now & again, if that’s your thing; moments of brash, romantic geekery to thrill even the most comic-calloused heart, BUT– by & large it’s a paint-by-numbers soap opera smothered in endless tremolos & crescendos. With a cheap CG smog monster. And crying. In the rain. In bear cages.
I’m asking you not to watch LOST because I fear that you might put your head through the TV & wear it as a Pain Hat, much as Christ wore the crown of thorns to symbolize the agony of self-awareness. It’s really, truly not a good show. Of course, once you accept that, you can find things to enjoy… But c’mon, man, you’ve read Brian K. Vaughn & Jeph Loeb both. You don’t need to put yourself through a sanitized, Disneyfried version of that. With crying. In the rain. In bear cages.
Without getting into arguing about “Lost” – I kind of see where RRD is coming from, but I think that it might pan out as a decent finished work, though of course, there’s no way of knowing till it’s done! – I have to say thanks for writing about “The Wire”.
When I hear people talking about their love of “The Wire”, my reaction is always equal parts delight – because it still doesn’t get the eyes it deserves – and envy – because dammit, I will never get to watch the show for the first time ever again.
You’ve done a solid job of breaking down the ways that it is technically so good, too. Nice one!
The Wire stands out in all of David Simon’s work. They wrote a book analyzing the first two season before season 3 and its pretty interesting. Simon loves to use real Baltimore people in the show as characters. From season 1 onward knowing a bit of local history can really add another layer.
I like season 3 the best. The Homicide book is also really good.
Josh, what is that book called?
The Wire: Truth Be Told by Rafeal Alvarez. Intro by Simon. Its a lot of recap of the first two seasons, but has some fun background stuff.
I’m with Josh. Even knowing a little bit about Baltimore makes it into a completely different show for those who live here, or even know someone who live here. But I do have one pedantic overly specific complaint about your review. You said, “The Wire creates a living breathing Baltimore for the viewer…” and I would only add, “The Wire creates a living breathing portion Baltimore for the viewer…”
I swear, if I meet one more person who is like, “Wow, you’re from Baltimore? Is it exactly like the Wire?” I will strangle them. It’s like asking New Yorkers if Sex and the City is exactly like New York.
You’re right, you’re right. I should fix that. Maybe I will. I dunno. I’m a wild card!
Another recommendation. The only recent TV show to hold up to The Wire is a BBC4 production called “The Thick Of It”. It’s nothing like The Wire, a glib description would be The Office meets The West Wing, it can be incredibly theatrical, silly and odd, but it is VERY well written, acted, directed and produced. It’s good. That is all.
Agreed, and all that (viz, though be careful not to click any entries that mention Seasons you haven’t seen yet).
I grew up in Baltimore, albeit a vastly nicer section of Baltimore County than we see in the film. Still, I picked up on the inclusion of little references that proved the show was written by locals – local businesses, place names, etc. The show made no effort to telegraph these for non-Baltimoreans – and why should it? That’s not what real people would do, and that’s what makes it beautiful.
The one thing that continually blows me away about this show is the dialogue. The fact that people wrote this – that it’s not just a real-time documentary – doesn’t make sense to me. I can’t picture six white guys in T-shirts sitting around a conference table, tossing squeeze balls in the air and whiteboarding an episode of this show. “Would he say ‘get got’ or would he say ‘gonna get got’?”
It is the single greatest thing the medium of television has yet to produce.
I have to recommend the alan sepinwall blog about the show.
It make me love the show even more, great comments too.
Go Bubs.