This Is Not A Review Of The Sopranos Finale

Art is transformation.
Art is transformative.

These two thoughts ran through my head as I drove into work this morning, thinking about The Sopranos finale and what I might write about it. Given the nature of the show, its fan base, and its shocking finale, I will no doubt be amongst the thousands (millions) to blog about the show.

But I can't resist-- partly because this episode (this show) epitomizes everything I love about art.

ART IS TRANSFORMATION

The tourist looks. Cocks his head a bit to the left. Wonders, "What the hell is it?"

One of the worst classes I ever took as an undergraduate was a course entitled "The Philosophy of Art and Beauty." The instructor was an old hippie who had a habit of laughing at his own inside jokes, much to the class's consternation. We started the semester with the question, "What is art?" and ended the semester with no real answer.

One of the common answers to that question: Art is expression. This is the one that satisfies the tourists. Probably because it's the easiest answer. It's the one that allows us to say we like something without having to penetrate its surface. And when pressed further, we simply say, "Well, it's what the artist wanted to express!"

But expression isn't enough. It makes art of everything.

No, thank you. I need more than that.

Here's the thing: Once art leaves the inner sanctum of the personal, it ceases to be solely the artist's creation. That is, once you show something to someone else, you relinquish control of it. This is the cornerstone of reader-response criticism.

Now, what does this have to do with art, transformation, and The Sopranos?

See, art has to be more than expression-- otherwise, the term expression would be synonymous with art. It isn't. So, art has to be more than expression. This is the point where all avenues of thought begin to subtly (or not so subtly) diverge.

For me, I turn to that word I started with: transformation.

Art is transformation. It seeks to take one thing and make it something else. This works for all art: From Bob Timberlake to Marcel Duchamp (and all points between). Something gets changed. One thing becomes something else, whether by the act of creation or a simple shift in context.

The variety and degree to which something has changed is what gives us viewers (critics) cause for deep reflection and/or dissension.

Transformation impels expression (and now we begin to have a definition of art!). The artist no longer simply expresses but transforms.

Transforms what?

Well… that's part of the fun of interpretation (and what gets us all worked up). How much? How so? Why? These are not the province of the artist but the critic. And we are charged with the task of taking a transformed thing and giving it meaning. The artist can intend meaning, but we are wise not to be too presumptuous of the artist's intentions…

Art is transformative

The tourist looks. Cocks his head a bit to the right. Squints to see the name of the artist and the title of the piece. Looks once more. Moves on.

Let's talk about art's transformative power: I was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City several years ago and I became entranced by several pieces. One in particular was by Rene Magritte titled "The Menaced Assassin." I sat on a bench in front of this painting for quite some time. As I sat there, I watched several people filter by. This one individual, with a camera around his neck, made his way through the gallery with a speed and purpose that intrigued me. I watched as he moved up to each piece, inspect the placards, then moved on again. He barely glanced at the works themselves. Finally, he came to a "famous" piece, stood back, looked and, horror of horrors, took a picture.

There I was, contemplating the tableaux of Magritte's painting, trying to imagine the events that led up to this very odd moment caught on canvas. To this day, that painting haunts me. It's not a favorite; it's not one I'd hang in the house. It's not even one that I would drag my wife halfway around the country to see in person. (Believe me, there are some that I would and will!) But there it is, lodged forever in my brain, a signal light to introspection.

And this tourist only had eyes for capturing a famous painting with his camera!

This represents a most fundamental human failing: The inability to recognize things, great and small, that have the power to transform us. Movies, books, television, the internet, magazines-- the whole lot of human communication, for that matter. These are the makings (trappings) of our lives. All have (greater or lesser) influence.

Our problem is that we only have eyes for fireworks and not the spark of the match that sets them off-- or, for that matter, doesn't.

One need only look at the current slew of summer blockbusters to see what we expect from our art: Uncomplicated characters (or at least easily defined complications). Clear, unambiguous endings. Fireworks.

But for all their bombast, fireworks rarely transform us.

Wait a minute. Summer blockbusters are art?! And what does this have to do with The Sopranos?

See, this is where we can move away from simply defining art and begin to make some sense of it. Great art is rarely entertaining and rarely meets our expectations. Great art not only transforms its subject or medium, it transforms its viewer.

But not all art is great.

If art seeks to only to entertain and meet our expectations, then it can't truly transform because no real change occurs in us. Great art should terrify, engage, illuminate, confound, and reduce us to a shambling mass of emotions, thoughts, and misfiring electrical impulses.

But let's face it. For all my bravado, we usually do get exactly what we expect from our art.

Call the babysitter! Get the popcorn!

We've spent the last century blurring the lines between "popular" art and "high" art (yay!), but we've also been hoodwinked into blurring the line between "good" and "bad" art (boo!). This goes back to that lazy definition of art.

If art is simply expression, then we are left with lots of art and no boundaries by which to demarcate value, quality etc.

Everyone is an artist and it doesn't matter if any of it is good. And, frankly, there's always going to be more bad than good.

And so, without the hierarchy of judgment implicit in definitions of high and low art, without a concrete definition of art, and without any real desire for real transformation, we turn to the telly…

ALWAYS LEAST EXPECTING IT

Enter Tony Soprano.

For seven years, viewers of The Sopranos followed this man on his (anti)hero's journey. We followed the family-- foils, foibles, follies and all. We were promised by our own expectations that the ending of the series would justify our attention, our fanaticism, our addiction. This was how we chose to be entertained and, over the years, we were often repaid with water-cooler worthy ponderings.

Last night, though, our expectations were not met.

Entertainment. That's the word that gets us all confuddled. I've been talking about art, transformation, and the transformative power of art. I've bemoaned human failings. All systems tend toward chaos because all humans look for the easy way out, the lowest common denominator, the lowest bid. Spiderman 3 broke box office records and is truly a piece of shit.

But we bought it. And so I've come down this road with the intention of illustrating the disconnect:

We need (spiritually) to be transformed by art, but all we want is a quickie.

Our culture has delivered. For the most part.

But here we are, at the end of something great, wondering why our expectations weren't met.

Here's why: The Sopranos was provocative television. It was a show that entertained and mystified. It promised us the things we expect from good fiction (exposition, plot, rising action, climax, character development). It gave us well-rounded characters, interesting storylines, subplots and switchbacks. And while it bogged down now and then (so say the critics), it always managed to deliver. We invested time and energy-- even money-- into the show and into its characters.

And so, we expected a payoff for our investment. Sure, Tony was (is) a bastard, a sociopath (o the labels!), but would we have been so entranced by him (for seven years) if he was only a cold-blooded hood? From the very beginning, we were introduced to the idea of change (transformation?!) through Dr. Melfi's therapy sessions. And for seven years, we've seen... what?

Change? Has Tony been cured?

Well, that's what we expected (even if we knew better).

And if we were not expecting psychological growth, then what were we expecting?

Fireworks?

If we weren't invested in the show (emotionally, intellectually), and we were looking simply for bad things to happen to good-not-so-good-bad people (Ralphie's head in a bowling ball bag; Bobby keeled over on a toy train set), then we got plenty of that, too.

The finale should have been the ultimate payoff for our dutiful morbidity.

Why?

Well, we're back in the province of art. It is everything life cannot be. It's ordered. And with the right tools, it's discernible. It makes sense. It's happily ever after. It's justice. Or it's a lot of shit getting blowed up.

We go to the movies. We watch a romantic comedy. We are anesthetized. We get the love and fate and destiny that we so desperately seek in our own lives. We are pacified. We are entertained.

As such, most art isn't about meaning; it's about entertainment. It's not supposed to make us think. It's supposed to make us cope with our shitty lives. We watch football and drink beer to escape. We watch television to escape.

We watched last night, with glee (call it horror if you prefer) as that big SUV tire rolled slowly but inevitably toward Phil Leotardo's head.

That's what we expected from the show's finale. That's the water-cooler scene.

And that's why we were so disappointed with last night's episode: It couldn't deliver the ultimate water-cooler scene.

Would our expectations have been met if that one gruesome scene had lasted 45 minutes?

It Ain't "We" No More

I've been writing (at least in the last few paragraphs) about a collective "we" that was disappointed last night.

That "we," of course, is a lie.

I was not disappointed. Not in the least. The fact that I've written so much about this episode without actually referring to it that much should illustrate a deep desire to justify my final conclusion about the show:

Last night's episode was deeply transformative.

See, I could have saved you all the bullshit and just gotten to the main point(s):

Great art has nothing to do with expectations.

People are happy when expectations are met. People are glib when they're right. But great art isn't about getting it right. Great art isn't about getting what you want.

What we got last night was exactly what we should have gotten: Lots of questions, lots of thoughts, both good and bad, both big and small. We got suspense, we got humor, we got horror.

We got life.

I guess that's where I'm going with this: Most people expected fireworks. We got a few blown out matches.

I'll go back to Tony and his hero's journey. We were led into the show with the notion that he would be transformed by the end. We were expecting that. Either that, or we expected him to get whacked. Saved or damned. No in between.

And, we were right to expect it because so many other stories have given us winning odds on such a conclusion.

But Tony's transformation was so subtle that we almost didn't get to see it. Hell, we may not have seen it.

Can we read Tony's single tear for Uncle Junior as a sign of compassion for the man who shot him? Can we read his recognition of his role in scarring his family as true transformation? Or are we to side with Dr. Melfi? Is this all just a matter of learning a few new tricks of the mind game?

Great art leaves us with more questions than answers.

The Sopranos did just that.

Additional Thoughts about that last sequence

1. Stereotypes. This is something that my wife mentioned and I still think it's the best "interpretation" I've heard: The show has always been fixated on stereotypes. What we got in the final sequence last night was a final, jam-packed daguerreotype of types. Every possible conclusion we could imagine for the show was summed up for us in one final family portrait. And yet, not a one of those endings really works without us conveniently forgetting that we're buying into a genre trope. It's as if David Chase wanted us to remember that the show is about people and family not expectations.

2. Edward Hopper, Nighthawks. When Tony sat down at the diner table, I couldn't help but think of Hopper's painting. Okay, this is a stretch. Everything in diners gets linked to Hopper, but there's something there. Something about modern America, I'm sure.

3. What's with the onion rings?