New film a departure for “Sopranos” creator David Chase
Here’s the final word for anyone still hoping for a movie version of “The Sopranos” or a continuation of the legendary cable series:
Fuhgeddaboutdit.
Series creator David Chase has moved on, but he’s still willing to offer some thoughts on the show, for which he produced 86 episodes over eight years, and why it caught on and captivated viewers.
“For ‘The Sopranos’ to have been so popular, there must have been things resonating in the world,” he said during a telephone interview to promote his new film, “Not Fade Away,” opening Dec. 28. “James Gandolfini (who played mob boss Tony Soprano) was responsible for the popularity of ‘The Sopranos.’
“Those eyes and his expressiveness drew people to the show.”
Chase puts the mob series far behind him with “Not Fade Away.” The R-rated tale unfolds between 1962 and 1968 and comments on the influence of rock ‘n’ roll on youths in the mid-1960s.
According to Chase, early rock music changed the culture forever.
“I don’t know the answer to why music from the 1960s was so powerful,” said the 67-year-old filmmaker, who’s making his big-screen directing debut. “I tried to create an impression of that (the power of music) in the movie.
“It was a result of the British Invasion (represented by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Kinks and the Animals) and Bob Dylan. Who knows what kind of (traumatic) things went on in England with World War II and the bombings?
“Who knows how much of that went into their music? The British Empire was fading, and some talented people found themselves making music at the time.”
Impressed by the sound of rock, Chase felt a need to be part of this new sound explosion.
“I played drums in high school and then stopped,” he recalled. “My friends played guitars, and they were good. I got asked to play in a band, but my parents had sold my drums. I played on boxes.
“We didn’t know what we were doing (and never agreed on a band name during their four years together). Many of our greatest times were spent in a basement drinking (instead of playing).”
For Chase, who hired Steven Van Zandt to serve as the film’s executive producer and music supervisor, the arts make life worth living.
“Popular art like music and movies is a little bit of a glimpse into the times,” said Chase, who took the title “Not Fade Away” from a classic Buddy Holly song that later became an early hit for the Rolling Stones. “The closest we get to a religious experience is looking at art.”
In the creatively rendered coming-of-age drama, which features Gandolfini as the father of the main character (John Magaro), three suburban Garden State buddies see the Rolling Stones on television in 1964. That exposure changes their lives.
For Chase, who has no projects planned for the near future, his life changed when he saw a low-budget film directed by Roman Polanski, and he suggests young people seeking filmmaking careers should experience it.
“The movie that made a statement to me (about making films) was Polanski’s ‘Cul-de-Sac’ (1966). It had gangsters in it, which I liked, and it was filmed on a location with just five characters,” he said. “Watching that film, I saw how you could make something like that (a low-budget film).
“You didn’t have to have a helicopter, and you didn’t need an invitation from Hollywood to do it. You could just start filming.”