Too dark for television – The País.com (Spain)

Men Outside series (Ariel 2014) Super assay Brett Martin on “the third golden age of television,” there is a character fascinate Vila-Matas. The character is David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos. I knew it was ultraneurótico, ultradepresivo and ultratorturado, but did not know this story. Chase hated television, including his salary, says Martin, who made him feel like a sellout, unable to follow the path of the indomitable -Fellini filmmakers, Godard, Kubrick, Scorsese- those who idolized since his teens. Always defined as “a man who wanted to make movies.” I hated even the title of showrunner (driver series) because it sounded “a jet ski.” He studied at the film school at Stanford University, but failed to pass direction. For the next twenty years, he tried to sell screenplays to Hollywood, but he always said they were “too dark”. In 1973, he was offered work as a TV writer on the Universal, first to The Wizard then Kolchak:. The night stalker Between 74 and 80 wrote many episodes of The Rockford Files. in 1980, won his first Emmy for best TV movie script Off the Minnesota Strip.

David Chase, as a good neurotic, never neglects an opportunity to blame

One day he came up with a unique strategy: sell to television a good enough idea to shoot a pilot, “but not enough to give rise to a number”, then the chain offer the possibility of turning into a movie. The protagonists were a marriage in crisis. The story happened in the present, but was full of flashbacks of his happy years in the sixties. The grand plan fell apart because ABC loved the idea and instructed Almost grown Chase told his agent. “Get me out of here! I do not want to do a series! “ Almost grown was released in 1988 but only lasted eight episodes. No perfect happiness: screenwriter Josh Brand, fascinated by Almost grown, called him to write Weather conflict -great disaster-he became a star of the television script . And shot in 1993 offered him the showru nner Northern Exposure he hated deeply. She said yes, of course: a neurotic never neglects a possibility of guilt, especially if you do make money

‘Not fade away’ was a complete failure; the study lost twenty million

The pilot of The Sopranos was filmed in the summer of 1997 At the end, Chase told the cast and crew: “You have great condition, although no one ever see this. ” He returned to the charge: “If HBO Series renounced convert” says Brett Martin, “I could ask additional $ 750,000 to turn it into a feature film.” But the supreme irony of fate, The Sopranos became a bombing that lasted six seasons, and Chase won every conceivable award. I imagine his torture: six years in captivity! And gaining more unworthy money away from Hollywood!

When he finished the series could roll to end its long-awaited film, Not fade away (2012), about her adolescence New Jersey. Do not you have seen? Neither can see, I’m afraid. I love Not fade away but must be of the few. It was a complete failure: the study lost twenty million. “Too dark,” they said. I read that Chase will return to television. Stephen Stills’s voice singing “If you can not be with the one you love, love the one you’re with” would be perfect for the closing credits of this fable.