Treme (from the creator of the wire)

[pete]

either you wrote something that's unreadable or I'm too dense. I'm kinda sorta seeing what you're saying.

I'd consulted a bunch of new orleans people - especially this one michelin star chef owner who grew up there. he thought the whole food thing was bullshit, and it was written by a new yorker wanting to show off street cred, and kept bringing in new york chefs to cameo. he thought the rest of the show was bullshit too. the writers just don't know new orleans like they know baltimore, so some of that desire to show how insider they are can come off as desperation. I really liked a few of the big dramatic scenes at the end of season two though.

[Pubrick]

yeah I don't think I'll ever watch this show.

[pete]

you really are the bizarro silias. that dude loves everything he's seen; while you hate on everything you'll never see.

[Neil]

What specifically was unreadable?

You actually sound like someone in the show, "Those cats come down from new york and..."

 



But, I guess for every chef or whoever that thinks it's bullshit, there's

so I work with a family that's been relocated from new orleans after katrina.  the grandma's sister is Khandi Alexander's mama on the show.  a quick chat with her today turned into a scene-by-scene commentary on everything New Orleans.  She got so emotional.  Fuck the reviewers that call it snobby.  You come see this grandma's face and how everything affects her and tell me that again, you pen-pushing boycunt.

which is fine by me. i guess the show didn't necessarily do that to her, but i know people who do find the shows portrayal important and somewhat accurate.

Hope i didn't ruin it for you P, there's a lot to love about the show despite the smugness people complain about and despite my unintelligible rants.

[Neil]

(the funny thing is, i've been sitting in front of this screen scared to post this for about 30 minutes, because personal blows from people I don't know impact me more than they probably should. I must be some form of pathetic)

I was attempting to mock the whole, "this show is smug" attitude that people seem to have, which I would compare to the useless debate that has kept the show, "Girls" relevant (on this board and countless others).  Sure it's fun to talk about, but there's really no substance or worth to the argument, especially here regarding treme.  As far as 'Girls' goes, I guess that show ISN'T about the girls who are being underrepresented or whatever, which could be said about Treme in some aspects.

My point of the original post was to showcase that the duality of the characters is way too prevalent for them to be that fucking cool, or at least so cool that it's annoying or smug etc.  Many of them wear their flaws on their sleeves and much like the wire they do this in the way a greek tragedian might, where that character flaws push the narrative a lot further than how cool they are.

My main objective was to point out that if you feel as though this show tells you, "you'll never understand New Orleans culture," then I'm not sure what you were watching and why you have that defensive reaction to it.  Maybe because it's the truth.  We won't understand, fully.  some people have a problem with that, but that really has no bearing on the show.  Furthermore, if watching the show to learn all you can about the culture, you've taken the wrong approach from the go.  It's safe to say, I don't understand what those people went through and what effect that atrocious storm had their culture.

This is a 100% unique moment in an American history, and i will forever tip my hat to the people who tried their best to paint us a massive portrait of some of the struggles Katrina victims have gone through and how they use their love of the arts to try their hardest to get by.

The reality is people need to know about the disasters of Katrina and on this personal level, and this is one way to go about it.  Getting down in New Orleans and showing the aftermath, shooting on location after of one of the most devastating events in our history is unique.


At a bare minimum this show made me realize that my fellow man needed my help when the storm happened, and I am thankful for that, because you can guarantee next time and act of humanity is needed I'll be there.  And this all stemmed from a fucking television show.



Next, Where do they seem desperate to look like an insider?   Such a powerful statement with such ambiguity.  It doesn't say one specific real thing about the show itself, but it merely backs up the idea you tried to present earlier in that post which was that, someone wants to show off.  I hardly believe that to be the case. 

Also, i mean the show takes place in New York, So it may seem right that Anthony Bourdain or a New Yorker writes stuff for an ep regarding kitchen scenarios.  And if you watch that video in my last post, you'll see a other chefs from New Orleans disagree.  Maybe i haven't "consulted enough people."

This whole board is pretty much cred oriented.  I have zero, so every time i try to say something (that I typed on the fly) I just catch hell for it.  And it's more personal attacks and less, "your argument sucks because of, "X, Y, and Z." 

it's not anyone's duty here to teach me how to write properly for xixax, but I guess it is the duty of some to make it clear how big of an idiot I am or how useless my posts are.  I just don't get it. That's the type of shit I consider Trolling. but for some reason a post criticizing my posts (which are attempts to get at something artistically) are perfectly fine and relevant.  I don't know why i take it so personal, and I don't know why it matters but here i am. 

[Neil]

The good news is, they're workin' hard  From:  http://davidsimon.com/

End of Treme 3 filming
23 May
May 23, 2012

Back home in Baltimore after a long, involved shoot.

How long, you ask?  How involved?

Well, if you must know, the following figures were compiled by fellow producer Joe Incaprera.  They were delivered to the crew after the last shot of season three, outside a warehouse in Algiers amid champagne and cake.

Number of episodes filmed:  10

Number of shooting days:  113 for first unit, plus 10 days of second unit or splinter unit shooting.

Number of feet of film shot (excluding the last day of filming, which had not been compiled:  1,165,570

Number of feet of film shot for Mardi Gras episode:  165,810

Number of total company moves during filming:  280

Number of locations:  370

Number of no-parking signs posts due to location shooting:  7,000

Number of New Orleans restaurants featured:  27

Number of restaurants built as sets:  2

Number of New Orleans bars featured: 40

Number of New Orleans bars built: 1

Number of speaking parts, seasons three:  347

Number of recurring characters, season three:  95

Number of extras:  9,421

Number of New Orleans musicians filmed:  371

Number of travel memos issued by production office: 383

Number of script revisions:  66

Number of total script pages:  597

Number of times a character says "brah" in dialogue:  21

Number of songs performed live:  106

Number of petty cash and credit card receipts:  12,149

Number of marriages within cast and crew: 2

Number of babies born to cast and crew during production: 2



I've now gone through this cycle 11 times for HBO.   At the beginning, each season seems implausible.  In the middle, it just is.  At the end, one is simply numb.  Even if everything works well, there is a sense of having negotiated a minefield for a half year's walk.  And it all feels a little absurd for someone who used to tell stories in prose, engaging with himself, an editor and maybe a copyeditor.  In the military, they like to note that 60 percent of strategy is logistics.  Same with filmmaking, I suppose. All credit to Nina Noble and one of the best cast and crews with whom I've worked.

Guys, if you didn't get to the Bridge on Thursday and put a hurt on my credit card, I still owe you a couple.  Track me down in the fall, I hope.

[AntiDumbFrogQuestion]

This whole board is pretty much cred oriented.  I have zero, so every time i try to say something (that I typed on the fly) I just catch hell for it.  And it's more personal attacks and less, "your argument sucks because of, "X, Y, and Z." 

it's not anyone's duty here to teach me how to write properly for xixax, but I guess it is the duty of some to make it clear how big of an idiot I am or how useless my posts are.  I just don't get it. That's the type of shit I consider Trolling. but for some reason a post criticizing my posts (which are attempts to get at something artistically) are perfectly fine and relevant.  I don't know why i take it so personal, and I don't know why it matters but here i am.

that's funny, because it's like you're being the REVERSE of a Troll (what is that? some kinda orc? not really into fantasy...)
What I mean is you're injecting well thought-out ideas supporting something and not just spouting out " this sux" about stuff.

As for your analysis of Albert and Antoine, that really makes a good point about the show. Some characters are working so hard to retain the culture of a place they have physically lost that they're denying their own unique family ties.  They deny what they need for what they want in some cases too, as was definitely a theme of last season (see the archs of Sonny, Antoine, Davis, and more).

I'm not sure if Treme will ever live up to The Wire in many people's minds. While The Wire took the common police procedural and shaded it with extremely specific cultural references and emotional realities, Treme attempts to capture a unique society by creating its own storytelling framework. So they kind of work in opposite directions.  And I think Treme may be too on the nose about certain themes at times (see Nelson Hidalgo, Annie talking to Steve Earle).  I just hope people give it a chance because I imagine the show can be as good as The Wire was if given the proper amount of time to tell its tale.
Sure, that could just be wishful thinking...or maybe the show was never intended to be McNulty & Friends 2.0.

[pete]

neil I like how you look at the show.
though the duality does not necessarily make it smug-proof. I love a lot of the drama in there; though I still think it's a smug show. I don't think showing the characters' weaknesses invalidates their cool. and I don't think all them New York chefs studding a show about New Orleans for no reason other than they're Anthony Bourdain's friends undercuts the importance of telling a post-Katrina story.

also, my grandma story was through the first season, before moments in the second season when steve zahn put hip hop and brass together or david chang cameo'd like six times for no reason.

[AntiDumbFrogQuestion]

and I don't think all them New York chefs studding a show about New Orleans for no reason other than they're Anthony Bourdain's friends undercuts the importance of telling a post-Katrina story.

hahah yeah, Jeanette kinda got the short end of the stick last season

[Neil]

I guess I must've missed the new york chefs you speak about.  What seems to make sense to me, is that in the 2nd season Jeanette is in New York.  That was more so why I felt it was "ok."   Plus, I felt like the show was pretty clear about seperating the culture of New York and N.O.   This is done with not only Jeanette's storyline as a chef, but also Delmond's plot shows this as he's gigging throughout new york.  But, honestly, i thought they really molded the kitchen narratives more so in the 2nd season.


There was also something else you said pete that i'd like to briefly touch on and that is that, "david simon doesn't know N.O like he knows Baltimore.  I won't argue with that sentence, but I will say just because Treme gives us the ins and outs of a town doesn't really make them comparable or the same ins and outs for that matter.

The Wire seems to be focused on (but not limited to) how those who are oppressed are living in a very similar cycle to those who have the power.   Also it focuses heavily on being able to climb the ladder, vs being good at your job. Obviously, I won't hold The Wire to those two sentences.  But i'm not so sure N.O is a character in the same way that Baltimore is a character in The Wire.  You know what I mean?  In both shows we're given an area and then shown the ropes, but we're shown the ropes very closely in the wire so we can see that the system is set up for radical pedagogy, and anything putting the system at risk is seen as a serious threat, hence the phrase, radical pedagogy.'

I haven't quite figured out how to verbally differentiate the two, but I find the above reason to be removed from Treme as a character.  With the Nelson story line, we see that things are out of the common folks hand and we also see some of the motivations for rebuilding which I would argue is probably the most "wire-like" element of the whole show.  But just imagine how much more elaborate Nelson's story would've been in the wire.  That's sort of what I'm trying to say.  I feel like each setting serves a different point so to blame Simon's lack of knowledge on N.O just because he was able to fundamentally dissect Baltimore might not necessarily be the negative critique you were thinking, because the Telos of Treme seems to be completely different.  I wasn't able to explain this very well, but i've only watched the wire once and treme once too, so hopefully i'll be able to expand on that a little more in the near future.

And as far as Steve Zahn goes.  I think DJ Davis is a great character, but that's probably just because I'm that annoying, yet not-so-talented musician in a lot of circles.  I seriously have so much joy and giddiness when I talk about music, it makes me feel like a blushing boy who just saw the tag on his baby sitters undies while she was bending over to pick up my toys.  At least Davis' story line remains somewhat true in that he leaves the band that's better than he is.  I was content with that to conclude the ridiculousness of his story arc.

[pete]

I still follow the show religiously. I want to see where the characters are heading. the stories seem to make enough sense. but still, there's this almost who-gives-a-fuck quality to it, where the disparate strands of the stories never really tie together, and some characters' arcs are really fucking trivial. it's almost using realism as a crutch, substituting the tediousness of opening a restaurant (against the backdrop of katrina and new orleans yada yada) in place of drama. even the music's not as good. and it's also just got the most uninspired editing I've seen in an ensemble show, where we skip from character to character scene by scene with no momentum or coherence. I think even the creators are bored.

[Neil]

First I'd like to ask if anyone knows a place to stream this season that isn't HBOgo.  I don't have a cable provider and it appears as though this is the only way to get HBOgo.  Have i read this correctly?

Also @ pete, I suppose that tediousness is the inevitable telos for a show that is rooted in, "anti-storytelling," as you call it.

New Orleans is very much a melting pot of cultures and pasts, so it's not surprising that the only thing certain characters have in common is their geography. I feel that this is a heavy aspect in the show. You know, showing that the same struggles are dealt with through different cultural artifacts/foundational aspects of the culture.  Sure, this doesn't excuse it from any of your complaints, but it is fun to discuss. 

I'm just currently a little more hesitant to put it on the chopping block due to its wildly unconventional way of doing things.  There are often mis steps in uncharted territory.

Pete, I'm interested to see how your critiques hold up during my viewing of this 3rd season.  I've yet to check any of it out.  I hope they're not bored.

[pete]

I like the characters and the stories enough to keep watching, but sometimes the conclusions they reach at the end of the season make you realize, even by David Simon standards, they're pretty fucking leisurely and can't just be chucked up to "bold storytelling" when twelve or thirteen episode seasons feel at least three episodes too long, and when you see some of the conclusions, you realize you were right about wondering what some of the scenes peppered throughout the season leading up to their end were even there. Simon kinda placed himself above criticism by being very aggressive towards anything related to traditional television, but a hoaky take on fine dining is a hoaky take on fine dining (I think that thread is by far the weakest and the most self-congratulatory), and uninspired editing of an ensemble story that spans over 13 seasons, can't be debated into otherwise either. I understand that he says "this is not The Wire" (which was terrifically edited, connecting stories and characters thematically or plot wise or just by having a very strong, infectious point of view towards their ambitions and struggles) and I understand this is not Nashville, but at the end of the day, you've gotta leave the viewer with something to get still, right?

[AntiDumbFrogQuestion]

I'm not sure if Simon & Co. have had this slow-burn going for awhile on purpose now, or that they're just improvising their way through each season.
Notice characters are starting to connect to other characters in ways we haven't expected, such as LaDonna and Albert, or Delmond and the building developer...is that just because the writers have had these meetings planned all along? Did they want us to get to know our characters better and then appreciate their connections?
OR is it that every character arc is planned then paced out in a leisurely way because they can't figure out a way to give the show momentum without a police case fueling it?

If there's one good thing I can say about this season it's that it seems to flow more naturally.  There's less awkward introductions to musical legends and at least every character seems to have an agenda. I personally enjoy Delmond dedicating himself to the Indians.

As for "watching it just to see where it goes", yeah, I'm on that page too. It's not like watching "The Office" where you STRUGGLE to care, but still want to see what happens with your characters. I'm still not sure what this show's legacy will be, although the people of NOLA surely seem to appreciate the portrayal.

[Neil]

I'm about 3 episodes away from the series finale  

There's a lot of cringe worthy bullshit from me throughout this thread, but I mean it when I say, this show has been a truly fantastic experience.  There are definitely comparisons between Treme and The Wire.  But, with Treme I don't believe the aims are the same. I believe they use similar techniques and themes, however Treme as a show is much more 'slice of life,' or something.  I don't think it's "bold storytelling," I'm just not sure it's interested in the arcs that are commonly found, because there's so much that exists off the page in the case of TREME.   To me, the "smugness" of this show comes from the pride that this area has, which I believe is earned. Honesty is not arrogance, it's awareness.  This show has A LOT of awareness.

most will likely argue against this, but I enjoy the fact that things have picked up so much.  I feel like the stakes are high for everyone at this point, and i'm excited to see it through to the end.

@Antidumbfrogquestion

I'm not sure if it was planned or if that even matters at all.  What I will say is that the connections don't seem too radical to me.  I feel like all the pieces fit together nicely, which is not really what I would've expected, but nothing seems overly forced.  Really enjoy this show