Description
Book SynopsisIn this concise analysis of the television show The Sopranos, a leading film and TV scholar explains the importance of the series in both its cultural and media-industry contexts.
Trade Review“Polan delimits an excellent set of features and motifs to analyze and, by and large, acquits himself well in his readings, as well as in their situation within the popular media.” - Charles J. Stivale,
Criticism“As a case study of the modern media environment, with its focus on synergy and the extension of media product across the expanse of the controlling conglomerate's subsidiaries, as well as into the popular culture of its audience(s),
The Sopranos is a thoughtful and intensive tour de force.” - Michael R. Frontani,
Italian American Review“Rather than going along with the familiar judgment that
The Sopranos stood above and apart from the usual run of mass-cultural fare, Polan reads it as continuous with both the traditions of genre television and the hierarchy-scrambling protocols of the postmodern condition. . . . Polan’s book is often insightful about the visual dimension of the
Sopranos. . .” -
Scott McLemee,
Inside Higher Ed“An engaging and lucid account of the influential cultural status that HBO’s
The Sopranos achieved by allowing diverse artistic and commercial interests to profitably converge in the postnetwork era. The book is distinctive in detailing not just how fans and critics animated the series, but also how HBO and the producers carefully crafted an epic narrative that would lead to a profitable ancillary afterlife. Dana Polan proves that close, careful narrative analysis can provide prescient insights about television’s increasingly sophisticated practices to which broader cultural and industrial accounts are blind.”—
John Thornton Caldwell, author of
Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television“As a case study of the modern media environment, with its focus on synergy and the extension of media product across the expanse of the controlling conglomerate's subsidiaries, as well as into the popular culture of its audience(s),
The Sopranos is a thoughtful and intensive tour de force.” -- Michael R. Frontani * Italian American Review *
“Polan delimits an excellent set of features and motifs to analyze and, by and large, acquits himself well in his readings, as well as in their situation within the popular media.” -- Charles J. Stivale * Criticism *
“Rather than going along with the familiar judgment that
The Sopranos stood above and apart from the usual run of mass-cultural fare, Polan reads it as continuous with both the traditions of genre television and the hierarchy-scrambling protocols of the postmodern condition. . . . Polan’s book is often insightful about the visual dimension of the
Sopranos. . .” -- Scott McLemee * Inside Higher Ed *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Prologue 1
1.
The Sopranos on Screen 17
1. Watching
The Sopranos 19
2. Eight Million Stories in the Naked City 32
3. Food for Thought 45
4. Living in the Moment 56
5. The Late Style of
The Sopranos 63
6. Gaming
The Sopranos 72
7. Getting High with
The Sopranos 86
8. Qualifying "Quality TV" 98
9. "Honey, I'm Home" 105
10. Against Interpretation 113
11. New Jersey Dreaming 133
2.
The Sopranos in the Marketplace 143
12. Tie-ins and Hangers-on 146
13. Touring Postindustrialism 155
14. Cashing In on the Game 162
15. Cable and the Economics of Experimentation 174
16. This Thing of Ours 194
Notes 197
Selected Bibliography 211
Index 213
