David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, will write and produce (as well as direct the first two episodes of) a fictional HBO miniseries that traces the history of the film industry through the eyes of two producing partners and their offspring. While the guy responsible for The Sopranos certainly deserves the benefit of the doubt in all future projects, we do have our doubts about this one.
First off, here's the official press release description:
The miniseries, "A Ribbon of Dreams" -- whose title comes from Orson
Welles' observation that "a film is a ribbon of dreams" -- will begin
in 1913 and follow two men, one a college-educated mechanical engineer,
the other a cowboy with a violent past, who form an unlikely producing
partnership.
The duo will start off as employees of D.W. Griffith and then cross
career paths with such Hollywood greats as John Ford, John Wayne, Raoul
Walsh, Bette Davis and Billy Wilder. Through the eyes of the two main
characters -- as well as their offspring -- "Dreams" will chronicle the
growth of the film industry from the age of rough-hewn silent Westerns,
to the golden era of talkies and the studio system, to the auteur
movement, to television, and finally to the present day.
Hmmm. Sounds like it'd make an okay book. Or PBS documentary narrated by Peter Bogdanovich watched almost exclusively by geriatric contributors to Public Broadcasting. But HBO miniseries? It seems potentially pretty stuffy. And nostalgia-driven. And insider-y - the kind of thing that would play well in the room to Hollywood producers, because, well, it's basically about them and their lives. But will a general audience dig it? We're not sure. Still, David Chase is the guy responsible for the "Whitecaps" episode. Benefit of the doubt.
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