The Wire

Dediquei uma boa parte do meu tempo livre nas ultimas 3 semanas a devorar os DVD's da série "The Wire". Em Portugal, "A escuta".
Creio que finalmente vai aparecer num dos canais do Cabo, um daqueles que eu não tenho, mas fica o alerta para quem ficar com curiosidade depois de ler este post.

Se gostam mesmo é do CSI, podem passar à frente.
The Wire é uma série policial criada por David Simon e passa-se em Baltimore. Quando comecei a ver, lembrei-me de uma série chamada "Brigada de Homicidos" passada na mesma cidade, e que por cá andou nos anos 90, e vim a descobrir ser do mesmo autor, um antigo reporter criminal do Baltimore Sun.

Que tipo de série é The Wire?
Nada como deixar o autor falar:

"The Wire is a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces. It’s the police department, or the drug economy, or the political structures, or the school administration, or the macroeconomic forces that are throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no decent reason. In much of television, and in a good deal of our stage drama, individuals are often portrayed as rising above institutions to achieve catharsis. In this drama, the institutions always prove larger, and those characters with hubris enough to challenge the postmodern construct of American empire are invariably mocked, marginalized, or crushed. Greek tragedy for the new millennium, so to speak. Because so much of television is about providing catharsis and redemption and the triumph of character, a drama in which postmodern institutions trump individuality and morality and justice seems different in some ways, I think."

"I pitched The Wire to HBO as the anti–cop show, a rebellion of sorts against all the horseshit police procedurals afflicting American television. I am unalterably opposed to drug prohibition; what began as a war against illicit drugs generations ago has now mutated into a war on the American underclass, and what drugs have not destroyed in our inner cities, the war against them has. I suggested to HBO—which up to that point had produced groundbreaking drama by going where the broadcast networks couldn’t (The Sopranos, Sex and the City, et al…)—that they could further enhance their standing by embracing the ultimate network standard (cop show) and inverting the form. Instead of the usual good guys chasing bad guys framework, questions would be raised about the very labels of good and bad, and, indeed, whether such distinctly moral notions were really the point.

The show would instead be about untethered capitalism run amok, about how power and money actually route themselves in a postmodern American city, and, ultimately, about why we as an urban people are no longer able to solve our problems or heal our wounds. Early in the conception of the drama, Ed Burns and I—as well as the late Bob Colesberry, a consummate filmmaker who served as the directorial producer and created the visual template for The Wire—conceived of a show that would, with each season, slice off another piece of the American city, so that by the end of the run, a simulated Baltimore would stand in for urban America, and the fundamental problems of urbanity would be fully addressed.

First season: the dysfunction of the drug war and the general continuing theme of self-sustaining postmodern institutions devouring the individuals they are supposed to serve or who serve them. Second season: the death of work and the destruction of the American working class in the postindustrial era, for which we added the port of Baltimore. Third season: the political process and the possibility of reform, for which we added the City Hall component. Fourth season: equal opportunity, for which we added the public-education system. The fifth and final season will be about the media and our capacity to recognize and address our own realities, for which we will add the city’s daily newspaper and television components."

The Wire foi já considerada "A melhor série que você nunca viu" por alguns, já que o seu sucesso não foi imenso e imediato. Só na quarta época o público "got it".
Obrigado ao meu amigo Nuno por insistir que eu comprasse a caixa de DVD da primeira série, que a worten vendia por um preço jeitoso.