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.
