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The Sopranos: Complete HBO Season 1 [1999]
from Warner Home Video
starring James Gandolfini, Lorraine Bracco

Features:

• Box set
• PAL
• Subtitled

Editorial Review:

Writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television seriesThe Sopranos is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home. This ambitious TV series chronicles a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there's the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegiate mob clan and his own nouveau-riche brood.

The brilliant first series is built around what Tony learns when, whipsawed between those two worlds, he finds himself plunged into depression and seeks psychotherapy--a gesture at odds with his midlevel capo's machismo, yet instantly recognisable as a modern emotional test. With analysis built into the very spine of the show's elaborate episodic structure, creator Chase and his formidable corps of directors, writers and actors weave an unpredictable series of parallel and intersecting plot arcs that twist from tragedy to farce to social realism. While creating for a smaller screen, they enjoy a far larger canvas than a single movie would afford and the results, like the very best episodic television, attain a richness and scope far closer to a novel than movies normally get.

Unlike Francis Coppola's operatic dramatisation of Mario Puzo's Godfather epic, The Sopranos sustains a poignant, even mundane intimacy in its focus on Tony, brought to vivid life by James Gandolfini's mercurial performance. Alternately seductive, exasperated, fearful and murderous, Gandolfini is utterly convincing even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence. Both he and the superb team of Italian-American actors recruited as his loyal (and, sometimes, not-so-loyal) henchman and their various "associates" make this mob as credible as the evocative Bronx and New Jersey locations where the episodes were filmed.

The first year's other life force is Livia Soprano, Tony's monstrous, meddlesome mother. As Livia, the late Nancy Marchand eclipses her long career of patrician performances to create an indelibly earthy, calculating matriarch who shakes up both families; Livia also serves as foil and rival to Tony's loyal, usually level-headed wife, Carmela (Edie Falco). Lorraine Bracco makes Tony's therapist, Dr Melfi, a convincing confidante, by turns "professional", perceptive and sexy; the duo's therapeutic relationship is also depicted with uncommon accuracy. Such grace notes only enrich what's not merely an aesthetic high point for commercial television, but an absorbing film masterwork that deepens with subsequent screenings. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

• American Beauty
  In the first season we are introduced to the Soprano family. The most impressive thing here is that we're not just introduced to `the family' but we're introduced, quite intimately, to Tony Soprano's immediate family, wife, daughter and son. Like the shows creator David Chase said on the dvd extras, this is a story about a gangster who is living the same life we all are, taking his children to school and putting food on his families table. That's what makes this show so culturally valuable. It doesn't just... more info

• Top quality show
  The first season of The Sopranos starts off well and gets better and better with each episode. Rather than focussing solely on the mafia lifestyle, there's also a great deal of domestic drama, and it's interesting to see Tony Soprano (much like any other head of a family) trying to find a decent work/life balance. He has the demanding family at home, but also the demanding "family" in his day to day business dealings.
  Overall the first season is a great introduction to a show that continued to get... more info

• A God's gift
  When you hear someone saying television never created anything remarkable or historic, remind them of 'The Sopranos'!
  I first saw this show when I was probably 12 years old. It was on a local Lithuanian TV channel 'LNK'. And even though I was a kid and couldn't understand most of things that were happening there I was simply hooked with these amazing characters. I laughed with tears watching Junior or Paulie which seemed like clowns to me :D. And buried my face in my hands when there was violence :D.... more info

• Meet Tony Soprano - If one family doessn't kill him ... the family will.
  The sopranos is mind blowing. it has fantastic acting which makes you forget it even is acting, unbeleivable story line which will grip you from the first to the last minute, 3 dimensional characters who you understand and will grow to adore.Its about a man going threw a mid life crisesand has problems with his family - throw in he runs most of northern jersey you have the best show on TV. Style, Action, sex,Drama and humour it has it all and mixes it into a wonderful...
  Just buy it okay?
  if you... more info

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