Que ce soit Lost, les disparus (2004-….) pour son côté survivant, ou Deadwood (2004-2006) pour l’articulation entre chaos et sexe, ou encore The Wire (2002-2008) pour l’obsession de la surveillance, les meilleures séries américaines de ces dernières années tissent toutes ensemble un drame de la survie, de la décadence et du contrôle social. Quelque chose de post 9 / 11, ici ? Qui sait. En tout cas, le cul, c’est de la politique. Et inversement.
Le doublage est une évidence si on veut que les programmes soient vus par le plus grand nombre. Une étude a démontré en 2007 que la diffusion d’un programme en version sous-titrées pouvait entrainer une chute d’audience d’environ 30%. Ça veut dire que près d’un tiers des téléspectateurs ne peuvent pas comprendre un programme en VO.
Extrait de “Dead Soldiers” (S03E03 de The Wire)
Ray ‘Old King’ Cole is laid out in his Sunday best on the pool table, a bottle of Jameson in one hand and a cigar in the other. Many of his colleagues in the Baltimore Police Department are there, including a scattering of the faces which have become familiar to us. One of these is oversize homicide detective Landsman, who rises to give the eulogy.
‘We are Po-leece… so no lies between us. He wasn’t the greatest detective and he wasn’t the worst. He put down some good cases and he dogged a few bad ones, but the motherfucker had his moments, yes he fucking did…’
Not much further into his speech, Landsman loses it, and in the embarrassing hiatus Freamon of the wiretap unit says, ‘For Christsake, Hugh, play the fucking song already.’ The barman presses play on the cassette deck and a banjo and tin whistle intro strikes up. Fans of the Pogues will recognise the first notes of ‘The body of an American’. The intro is craftily looped to allow Landsman to rally with a joke and finish off his speech.
‘Was he as full of shit as every other sad sack motherfucker wearing the badge of Baltimore City po-leece? Absa-fuckin-lutely. His shit was as weak as ours, no question…’ But ‘he was called. He served. He is counted – Old King Cole.
Landsman stands down and all join with the unmistakeable voice of Shane MacGowan to sing the first verse of the song.
- Can’t stop watching The Wire.
- Been there. Might return there if I stop lending out my boxset.
- Been there. Might return there if I stop lending out my boxset.
Once, a man pressed a package of heroin into the hands of Andre Royo, the actor who plays the sympathetic junkie and police informant Bubbles, saying, “Man, you need a fix more than I do.” Royo refers to that moment as his “street Oscar.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Way Down in the Hole” par DoMaJe, version utilisée comme générique dans la saison 4 de “The Wire”.
When you walk through the garden, you gotta watch your back
Well, I beg your pardon, walk the straight and narrow track
If you walk with Jesus, he’s gonna save your soul
You gotta keep the Devil way down in the hole
He’s got the fire and the fury at his command
Well, you don’t have to worry if you hold on to Jesus’ hand
We’ll all be safe from Satan when the thunder rolls
We just got to keep the Devil way down in the hole
All the angels sing about Jesus’ mighty sword
And they’ll shield you with their wings, and keep you close to the Lord
Don’t pay heed to temptation, for his hands are so cold
You gotta help me keep the Devil way down in the hole
Well, I beg your pardon, walk the straight and narrow track
If you walk with Jesus, he’s gonna save your soul
You gotta keep the Devil way down in the hole
He’s got the fire and the fury at his command
Well, you don’t have to worry if you hold on to Jesus’ hand
We’ll all be safe from Satan when the thunder rolls
We just got to keep the Devil way down in the hole
All the angels sing about Jesus’ mighty sword
And they’ll shield you with their wings, and keep you close to the Lord
Don’t pay heed to temptation, for his hands are so cold
You gotta help me keep the Devil way down in the hole
“
| — | “Way Down in the Hole” de Tom Waits, générique de “The Wire”. |
Burns and Simon pride themselves on not making their storytelling obvious. They think that audiences get more out of a narrative if they have to pay attention to understand what is going on. Burns told me: “You probably won’t get it all. You might not understand the language. It’s our job by hinting along the way that this is where this character’s going, this is why this character’s acting that way. We don’t have a character come out and say: ‘I’m extraordinarily angry… I want to f*** someone up’.
The Wire soon developed a reputation that transcended the cop genre. Indeed, even calling The Wire a police drama feels insulting and reductive, like calling Citizen Kane a movie about a newspaperman, or Hamlet a story about a guy with some issues. With the first season of The Wire, creator David Simon uses the investigation into a notorious drug dealer to tell the story of an entire city. Painting on a huge canvas, Simon takes us from the corridors of power to back alleys where junkies die unmourned deaths. It’s a television show about just about everything: race, class, sexuality, money, power, urban development, politics in its myriad forms, the legal system, friendship, obsession, dedication, identity, and the cycle of poverty. Also, there’s drug-dealing and dudes getting arrested.
“
| — |
“The Wire: Season One - Better Late Than Never?” par Nathan Rabin sur The A.V. Club (January 25th, 2010) (merci à Patrick!) Comme l’auteur, je m’y suis mis récemment, intrigué moi aussi par tout le bien qu’on en disait ici et là. Et il ne m’a pas fallu 3 épisodes pour, à mon tour, être emballé. Un format, plus long qu’à l’accoutumée, avec 55 min, qui laisse la place à un rythme plus lent que dans les séries policières traditionnelles ; une narration réaliste, intimiste et intelligente à la fois avec des répliques mythiques (“Happy now, bitch ?” -Bunk), des personnages magistraux (Omar Little, Stringer Bell) et d’autres plus effacés qu’on voit néanmoins grandir, mûrir et parfois tomber et enfin une ville, Baltimore, dont on explore les facettes les plus troubles saison après saison. Croyez-moi, la fantastique réputation de The Wire n’est pas usurpée et c’est sans l’ombre d’une hésitation que je classe cette série au même plan que The West Wing et Battlestar Galactica dans mon panthéon personnel. |
Entre la saison 1 et la saison 8, en théorie, plus de 13 ans se sont écoulés dans la vie de Jack. Saison 2 (18 mois), saison 3 (trois ans), saison 4 (18 mois), saison 5 (18 mois), saison 6 (20 mois), saison 7 (quatre ans), saison 8 (laps de temps non précisé, mais court).