Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 11 September

Boardwalk Empire Episode 1 (Scorsese, 2010)

An article that I always wanted to write for Widescreen at RNZ but doesn’t really fit the format anymore is about major directors getting involved with prestige TV. In recent years we have had filmmakers like David Fincher (House of Cards, Mindhunter), Ridley Scott (Raised by Wolves), Frank Darabont (The Walking Dead) and Rian Johnson (Poker Face) shoot the pilots for series as well as executive produce the rest.

Of course, many directors got their starts in tv – Steven Spielberg famously with Columbo – and Quentin Tarantino directed an episode of ER as a lark, but the chance to be involved with a longer story, as well as setting the visual look and tone of a series, is a big attraction for directors who you might think are accustomed to feature film budgets.

A very recent example is Fernando Meirelles – director of the 2002 Brazilian smash City of God as well as The Constant Gardener and The Two Popes – and now the excellent Sugar on Apple TV+ (which we will consider here at a later date). And one of my favourites – now that I’m thinking about popes – is Paolo Sorrentino’s The Young Pope which appears to have disappeared from local streaming services.

Today I want to mention one of my favourite Martin Scorsese films, the pilot episode for the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. From memory – I haven’t rewatched – this 73 minutes is a beautiful, flowing, colourful introduction to the world of Prohibition era Atlantic City. It successfully introduces the milieu, the characters and the tensions. Aided by a terrific script from Sopranos executive producer Terence Winter and cinematography from Oscar-winner Stuart Dryburgh, this pilot episode has what so much television doesn’t have - propulsion.

It was so good that the promise it made kept me going through three seasons before I realised that it was never going to reach those heights again.

That’s why this isn’t a recommendation for the whole five seasons – I didn’t finish it. But for the first season - especially that first episode – it was about as entertaining as TV got in that period.

One final mention for the incredible cast of character actors – many wooed by the idea this might be another Sopranos, I bet, as well as the chance of working with Marty. Steve Buscemi got a well-deserved lead role as “Nucky” Thompson, the corrupt politician at the centre of all the shenanigans. Kelly MacDonald is the innocent who gets caught up in it all. There’s also Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Kenneth Williams, Shea Wigham, Gretchen Mol, Paz de la Huerta and a young Stephen Graham as a young Al Capone.

If you finished Boardwalk Empire, make a case for me to go back to it because I’ve got an itchy trigger finger now that I’m thinking about it again.

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Where to watch Boardwalk Empire