"Sell Out with Me Tonight"

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

To me the loss of intensity that came with seasons 4 and 5 was a real 
disappointment. While the idea to extend the story to the societal 
spheres of education and the media is understandable, the basic 
narrative structure is not able to carry it in a convincing way. The 
plausibility of the action decreases, and moralism becomes more 
important. Not a good thing in terms of art. Season 2, on the other 
hand, I perceived as excellent. Without it the whole thing wouldn't make 
sense. To understand the new drug economy unfolding from season 1 on, 
you have to know about the traditional economy. The rationalization of 
Baltimore's harbor and what the unions try to do about it. Only with the 
economic picture completed like this, season 3 can deal with the local 
politics in a complex way. And Chris Bauer's screen acting as Frank 
Sobotka is among the very best of the whole serial. In my opinion, that is.


On 25.08.2014 03:18, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> It's a hard call, but I'd rate the seasons of The Wire, from best to least best: 3, 1, 4, 2, 5.
>
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mark Thibodeau<jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
>> Sent: Aug 24, 2014 7:30 PM
>> To: Thomas Eckhardt<thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
>> Cc: Kai Frederik Lorentzen<lorentzen at hotmail.de>, Dave Monroe<against.the.dave at gmail.com>, pynchon -l<pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Subject: Re: "Sell Out with Me Tonight"
>>
>> Re: The Wire
>>
>> Who could possibly prefer season 2 to season 4?!
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> Jerky
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 5:27 PM, Thomas Eckhardt
>> <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>  wrote:
>>> Am 23.08.2014 12:31, schrieb Kai Frederik Lorentzen:
>>>
>>>>   As much
>>>> as I recommend Adorno's thoughts on classical music, one shouldn't
>>>> overestimate what he has to say on popular music. And TV-serials like
>>>> "Mad Men", "Breaking Bad" or "The Wire" (at least the first three
>>>> seasons are solid gold) can in their artistic complexity not be
>>>> explained with the relative simple model of the Kulturindustrie, which
>>>> was born in World War two and thus always emphasizes the relation of
>>>> media output and political propaganda.
>>> My take, not being an expert on Adorno, much less classical music: The guy
>>> did not understand the first thing about popular music. Given the choice, he
>>> probably he would have preferred Yes to early Beatles...
>>>
>>> I am sticking with Robert Christgau: "(...) unless we can somehow recycle
>>> the concept of the great artist so that it supports Chuck Berry as well as
>>> it does Marcel Proust, we might as well trash it altogether."
>>>
>>> http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/music/berry-76.php
>>>
>>> "The Wire" is simply astounding.
>>>
>>> Thomas
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> -
>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
>

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l