David Simon's post-Katrina drama opens with some impeccable acting and events unfolding at a stately pace
SPOILER ALERT: This weekly blog is for those watching Treme on British TV. Please don't spoil it for others if you've watched ahead, and don't spoil it for yourself if you haven't yet watched this week's episode
The Wire was a hard act to follow for David Simon and Ed Burns. They moved on quickly with the pitiless and moving Iraq-war miniseries Generation Kill, which debuted only four months after their acclaimed Baltimore drama ended ? but Treme seems to be Simon's next real labour of love. It depicts the lives of a group of New Orleans residents in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and may conceivably run for as long as the show that made his name; a second series is already imminent. Parting ways with Burns for the first time since 2000's The Corner, Simon has instead hooked up with Eric Overmyer, a writer and producer who lives part-time in New Orleans and whom he had worked with on Homicide: Life on the Street, as well as The Wire.
American response to Treme has been mixed response? quite positive initial reviews, followed by some frustration at its apparently slow pacing and a supposed lack of subtlety. Now, almost a year on, we in the UK can make up our own minds.
In an interview published after the end of the series (spoilers throughout, I'm afraid), Simon said he felt no one could judge the show until they had seen all 10 episodes in full: "It's always amusing to me to watch people commenting on the chapters without knowing the story ? I think you look at a lot of it differently when you get to the end of the story ? If people are saying they love where the story is going in episode two or three, I don't buy that, either."
You may think this is a defensible position, or you may agree with me that it ignores the structure of the medium Simon works in, and the episodic way most people still watch television programmes. Either way, I'm afraid we'll be ignoring Simon's view here ? feel free to judge away throughout the series in the comments below. By the way, Simon doesn't seem keen on viewers criticising the acting in Treme either ("it's one thing to talk about the character; it's another thing to talk about acting as if people know what the fuck they're talking about"), but I think we can safely ignore that too.
Episode one
Treme ? which, as John Boutt�'s jaunty theme music usefully informs us, rhymes with "babay" ? opens like an orchestra tuning up, with music and musicians hovering in and out of focus, getting ready for their first "second-line parade" (revellers, musicians and dancers following the main parade) since the devastating storm three months earlier. Antoine (Wendell Pierce) has obviously gone down in the world since Katrina, playing such a parade for the first time his colleagues can remember and clearly doing so only to get hold of "that motherfucking money".
Across town, restaurant owner Janette (Kim Dickens) wakes up in bed with the shambolic Davis (Steve Zahn), but we soon get the impression that she is far from content with him (she gets in a quick dig about him being not a musician but merely a DJ) and it's easy to see why. Throughout the episode, Davis is irritating and sanctimonious, refusing to play the "fucking New Orleans fucking canon" at the radio station where he works, drinking Janette's $350 wine, and leaving loud music blasting out at his gay neighbours before going out for the afternoon. I really hope we are not being invited to sympathise with such rudeness.
Almost as dislikeable is the preachy, self-righteous Creighton (John Goodman), who seems to enjoy taking his anger at the state of the city out on any journalists foolish enough to listen to him. A realistic portrayal of justifiable New Orleans fury this may be ? Creighton is based on real-life blogger Ashley Morris ? but it is not much fun to watch.
It's worrying in this regard that Simon has one character say "I hate that fucking song" when she hears Fats Domino's warm, inclusive classic Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans (obviously part of the "fucking canon"). The message is clear ? this show is for locals, not tourists ? and in the interview I mention above Simon makes that explicit, quoting one of his directors as telling him: "Well, you made Generation Kill for 26 recon Marines, and now you've made Treme for at least 400 New Orleans musicians. So by your standards, you've become almost sickeningly populist." Simon is obviously poking fun at himself here, but the programme does betray a slight hostility towards viewers who know little about New Orleans. Which is to say, most viewers.
Other characters seem more promising, however. Albert (Clarke Peters) returns to his ruined, waterlogged home and the wreck of his favourite bar with the neck of his double bass sticking out of the back window of his car (a nice image) and the drumming of army helicopter blades overhead. His son and daughter think he's crazy to come back, but he gets stuck in straight away trying to get a group of Mardi Gras Indians ? black New Orleans carnival performers who dress up like Native Americans ? back up and running. Probably the most unusual ? and least Wire-like ? scene here has Albert take to the streets at night in his enormous, vibrant costume, the red, gold and orange blatantly and jarringly lit by artificial light against the shadows of the surrounding buildings.
I also liked struggling restaurant boss Janette and her trusty chef Jacques (Ntare Mwine), and the scenes between Antoine and his ex-wife Ladonna (Khandi Alexander, excellent). There is obviously still some affection between the two of them, something Antoine tries his best to rekindle.
Antoine: He [Ladonna's new husband] up there, you down here ... Who would know?
Ladonna: I would, baby ... I would know.
Ladonna's brother Daymo has been missing since the storm, last seen in prison, and she and Creighton's wife, lawyer Toni (Melissa Leo), are trying to track him down, in what is potentially the most dramatic storyline begun in this first episode.
Treme starts at a stately pace, but The Wire and Generation Kill began like this too, with the introduction of many unfamiliar characters, settings and concepts, some of them downright unattractive, and no clear sense of exactly how the story would unfold. Suddenly, a couple of episodes into each, everything snapped into focus; perhaps the same will happen here. It must be said, though, that the innate drama of the post-Katrina setting is not really being used to its full potential ? although you get flashes of how it could be in the pictures Toni finds from the days of the storm, crowds of people crushed together hopelessly on flyovers by the river.
That said, the programme looks beautiful, as The Wire looked beautiful: the ruined buildings in the purple sunset, the pitch-black interiors of rooms lit only by the passing army helicopters, boats edging their way gently along the river, Albert with his filthy vest, bits of debris caught in his hair. (This opening episode was directed by Agnieszka Holland, the acclaimed Polish film director; she will return to direct the finale.) And the acting is almost uniformly impeccable ? not that I know what I'm talking about.
Treme on ...
Here are a few things to keep an eye out for over the next 10 weeks. Please feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.
Best musical moment: The massed voices and instruments of the second-line parade were pretty undeniable, and the montage over Buona Sera by Louis Prima was also lovely. The HBO website has a guide to all the music used in the series here.
Wire watch ? David Simon favourites with a new home in New Orleans: Wendell Pierce (Bunk from The Wire) and Clarke Peters (Freamon) play two of the lead characters here, Antoine and Albert. In addition, Khandi Alexander (Ladonna) was in The Corner, the series Simon made before The Wire, and Melissa Leo (Toni) was one of the stars of Homicide, which was based on Simon's first book.
Antoine's money woes: Three times he can't pay a taxi driver in full. He's just lucky that real-life musician Kermit Ruffins gives him a job.
The Voice of David Simon: which character seems to be providing a mouthpiece for the trenchant views of the programme's creator? I seem to recognise a distinctively inexplicable disdain for the British in the scene where Creighton petulantly destroys the microphone of a plummy-voiced English journalist who improbably and gratuitously insults New Orleans's music and its cuisine. An embarrassing scene for all concerned, and not in a good way.
Let me know what you thought of the episode ? or whatever springs to mind ? in the comments section below.
? Paul Owen is the co-editor of The Wire Re-up: The Guardian Guide to the Greatest TV Show Ever Made
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/feb/18/treme-season-one-episode-one
Stan Collymore Nuclear waste Ryan Babel Twilight Reality TV Kanye West
No comments:
Post a Comment