David Chase's 'The Sopranos' as a 21st-Century Masterpiece

In a 2012 essay for art press, critic David Chase argues that the true masterpiece of the 2000s is not a film but the television series 'The Sopranos' (1999-2007). He contends that while films like Wang Bing's 'West of the Tracks', Gus Van Sant's 'Elephant', and Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 'Uncle Boonmee' are canonical, the decade's most significant artistic event occurred in the previously disreputable realm of TV series. Chase compares 'The Sopranos' to Cervantes' 'Don Quixote', noting both works revive outdated forms through novel arrangements. Tony Soprano, like Quixote, is a hero haunted by past fictions—Quixote by chivalric romances, Tony by gangster films. The series opens with Tony's panic attacks, leading him to therapy, which introduces a deep nostalgia for cinematic ghosts (e.g., 'Rio Bravo'). Chase distinguishes two types of masterpieces: those that perfect a genre and those that, like 'The Sopranos', reanimate obsolete forms to open unexpected spaces. He claims the series redefines television's relationship with cinema, making all of cinema seem like 'our literature of chivalry'.