Documentarian Alex Gibney opens up about his exploration of the grit and guts it took to bring one of television’s most influential series to life.
When HBO first approached Alex Gibney about making a docuseries about The Sopranos, he was inclined to say no. As much as the Academy Award-winning director loved the show, he wasn’t interested in creating a sizzle reel about it, which makes sense when you consider Gibney’s filmography. This is the man who’s peeled back layers of power and corruption in films like Taxi to the Dark Side and Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief—and recently spoke up about streaming platforms’ outsized influence in the production of documentaries. Simply repackaging a TV show wasn’t in his DNA. On top of that, Gibney wondered what could possibly be left to say about one of the most talked about shows of the 21st century. He didn’t want to just show a bunch of clips of people yapping about how great The Sopranos was.
But then came lunch with David Chase, the mastermind behind Tony Soprano’s twisted world. “I was enchanted with him,” Gibney tells me during our late-August chat. Over the course of their shared meal, Gibney realized how personal the show was for Chase and, with that, found a new, worthwhile way to explore the series. “After my lunch with David, I was like, ‘I’m all in if you’re in, David,’ Gibney recalls. And so what began as a side-eye turned into an exploration of the grit and guts it took to bring one of television’s most influential series to life.
The result is Wise Guy, an artful and intimate look at the life and mind of David Chase. In it, Gibney has fun with the personal connection that inspired him, cheekily embracing the role of a therapist to Chase by having him bare his soul on a set resembling Dr. Melfi’s famous office. (Conspiracy theory alert: Does that mean David Chase is Tony Soprano?) He also interviews various execs, writers, and cast members, who generously reflect on their time making The Sopranos and the mommy issues that united them all.
Following Wise Guy’s premiere on Max this past Saturday, Esquire caught up with Gibney to talk about his deep dive into The Sopranos and the current state of the documentary. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
ESQUIRE: Wise Guy is a docuseries about a hugely influential writer and director that is airing on the hugely influential network where it originally premiered—and HBO asked you to helm it. What kind of restrictions were put on you, if any, and how did you maintain your vision?
ALEX GIBNEY: There really weren’t any restrictions put on me. And David [Chase] participated with the understanding that it was my film. In fact, I think he was relieved because he didn’t want to have to be the executive producer or the curator of The Sopranos. He was happy to have somebody come in from the outside and do an angle he hadn’t thought of. Over time you develop trust with somebody, and he shared a lot with me—not only in our conversation, but also a treasure trove of home movies and photographs.
There’s so much insight about The Sopranos in Wise Guy. What do you think is the most revelatory information you included?
Almost every writer in the writer’s room had big mommy issues. Tony’s mom was patterned after David’s mom. But he thought it was unique. And then to discover all these other people who had mommy issues? Everybody had mommy issues on this set—and I would not exempt myself from that. That was interesting for everyone, and it’s not something I expected going in.
There was a part of me that watched this series and was struck by how rough show business is. These people were really afraid of losing their jobs!
Show business is rough. They talk about how in the editing room, you have to kill your darlings. They also talk about that for writers in terms of certain paragraphs and characters. The willingness to be ruthless. There was something of the mob boss in David, too. The approach he took was: This is a mob show. Some people have got to go. Nancy Marchand was that one exception. As you know, the original first season was supposed to end with Tony killing his own mother. But Nancy Marchand reached out to him and said, “Keep me working.” There’s something so poignant about that. Where art meets life and you’re reckoning with a work of art, but you’re also reckoning with working actors with whom you have personal relationships. It turns out to be a very human endeavor.
David Chase had enormous responsibility, and he had enormous authority.
How do you think David Chase comes across in this series? Did he seem worried about that while you were filming?
There was some anxiety from David, but at the end of the day, David is presented as an incredibly talented, hardworking, difficult, but deeply empathetic man who cares more than anything about doing good work.
Was your original vision to make a series about The Sopranos or make a series about David Chase?
It’s funny you asked that, because David kept asking me that throughout. I would tell him it’s about both, but I can’t tell you until I get to the end which one it’s about more. Documentary filmmaking is not unlike fiction filmmaking, except that you write the script at the end instead of the beginning. And one of the things you’re discovering is what is the material that seems relevant to your inquiry versus stuff that’s interesting to you that seems to branch off in unexpected ways. Honestly, I couldn’t divorce myself for the love I had for the show. So to be able to have fun with some of the clips and to invest in some of the filmmaking was delicious fun.
Speaking of loving the show, how did you navigate your fandom while pursuing this story?
I just finished a film about Paul Simon and his creative process. Some of what I learned on that film helped me figure out how to work on this film. When you’re talking to somebody, you’re entering into a relationship with them. It’s a real relationship, but at the same time, you’re also doing a job. And your job at the end of the day is not to serve the subject, but to serve the viewer and to bring to the viewer some sense of deeper understanding about the subject. If you’re not doing that, then you’re just making commercials.
David and I are friends, but at the same time, there was stuff and people… not everybody I spoke to was… some of the people I spoke to had complicated relationships with David. Let’s put it that way.
It seemed that way. You talked to the writer, Robin Greene, whom Chase fired. You also asked Chase about other people’s ideas and if there was ever tension among the writers. How did he react to these topics?
It’s always a little bit awkward. You don’t want to ask questions that might upset anybody, but you need to ask the questions. David responded reasonably honestly. There’s a moment where he’s talking about his role as the head honcho, and how he would get frustrated when he felt that the writers weren’t bringing him good enough material. But then he reflected and said maybe they weren’t because I said no so many times. He was reckoning with his own role. He had enormous responsibility, and he had enormous authority. And at times that tuned him out to what might otherwise have been the source of some good material.
Did you feel the need to protect him from other people’s opinions?
No, not really. I included Frank Renzulli and Robin in the show, or even Chris Albrecht. People have views about David. I didn’t share with him the transcripts of the interviews that I did with other people. But he saw who was in the film.
I want to ask you about some of the material you used from the original series. You included what many consider to be two of the most difficult scenes to watch in The Sopranos—Ralphie brutally murdering the Ba-Da-Bing stripper and a rather extended excerpt of the scene in which Dr. Melfi is raped. Walk me through your reasoning.
I felt I had to include it, because it was one of those moments that set The Sopranos apart. There are some shows that make you extremely uncomfortable and show you a level of violence that you may find deeply repugnant and wildly upsetting. I thought that if we avoided it in the documentary, then we were copping out. How do you re-create that discomfort but at the same time not be exploitative about it? We tried to walk that line.
Both in the show—and also in the doc—you have to feel how upsetting that rape is to understand the importance it was to the character. That’s what we were getting at. It wasn’t exploitative for the sake of being exploitative. It was there to serve a larger purpose in the story—which was, Melfi is going to be presented with a moment where she sees a new deal with the devil. Does she sic Tony on her rapist because she’s not getting justice? You have to feel enough for her having experienced that rape to know that motherfucker deserves everything he gets. Maybe she should have Tony kill him. I felt the emotional valence of the brutality of that rape needed to be included for you to properly understand the nobility of her choice not to engage Tony in revenge.
The nobility comes through, and it’s not something I had thought about before when I watched the series. But people have already seen this rape. They can picture it and be terrified. The actors talked about the importance of that scene and Melfi’s nobility, so why still excerpt it?
These aren’t easy decisions, and you have to take them within the context of what it is that you’re doing. You have an awesome responsibility when you are reckoning with images of that kind of brutality and violence, but sometimes it’s warranted to include them because otherwise you are undermining the actual pain and experience of things like that. And then it becomes a trope instead of being confronted with the cruelty and reality of what it is.
