“The movie never ends, it goes on and on and on,” Chase points out. Even though The Sopranos comes to an end in this moment (and indeed Tony’s life probably comes to an end as well), the planet itself doesn’t stop. There are infinite lives to be lived beyond the blackness before the end credits, viewers just aren’t granted the opportunity to witness them.
Our minds cannot process infinity but they can process story. To that end, Chase highlights the cyclical nature of the finale. The engine in young A.J.’s car explodes, just like the grill Tony left unattended in the pilot. A.J. also attempts to repeat sage advice that Tony gave to him in the pilot (“Focus on the good times”) but of course Tony has forgotten all about it. It all does go on and on and on and on, even if no one notices.
2001: A Space Odyssey Inspired The Finale
One of the worst kept secrets in television history is that the creator of the medium’s best-ever drama doesn’t even really care for the format. David Chase is a film man, through and through, having been inspired by the works of Roman Polanski, Federico Fellini, and Ingmar Berman. He only began a career in writing for TV because that’s just who happened to be hiring at the time. Near the end of Wise Guy, Chase offers up some interesting insight to how another titan of cinema, Stanley Kubrick, directly inspired “Made in America.”
Chase reveals that he and his directing partner Alik Sakharov had numerous discussions about the visual language of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. They latched onto a moment in the film’s final act where the central astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) witnesses himself as an older man. In an effort to have Tony Soprano subtly “witness” himself as well, Chase and Sakharov had James Gandolfini “walk through” his own point-of-view every time he enters a scene. That is to say that the camera establishes the shot as though it’s from the lead character’s perspective, and then that lead character just wanders right through it.
“It made me think of time and, I guess, approaching death or approaching something. There’s something mystical about it,” Chase says, all but giving the game away on Tony’s fate.
A Robert Frost Poem Reveals All
Wise Guy saves the best for last when it comes to analyzing The Sopranos ending. Right before the doc cuts to black in a satisfyingly troll-y fashion, David Chase directs Gibney’s attention to a seemingly unimportant scene from the show’s early days. In season 3 episode 2 “Proshai, Livushka,” A.J. is studying Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and having a hard time cracking its central themes. So Meadow does her best to help him.