Yesterday fans of The Sopranos were finally given answer to the burning question they've been waiting seven years for – is Tony Soprano dead?
Yesterday screenwriter David Chase's quote suggesting the mobster was still alive and well when asked whether James Gandolfini's most iconic character's met his end in the show's final episode sent the world wide web into a frenzy when he surprised a journalist by assuring: "No he isn't".
But now a representative for David, Leslee Dart has slammed the article for being "inaccurate". Back tracking, they say: "A journalist for Vox misconstrued what David Chase said in their interview. To simply quote David as saying, 'Tony Soprano is not dead,' is inaccurate. There is a much larger context for that statement and as such, it is not true."
Dart continued: "As David Chase has said numerous times on the record, 'Whether Tony Soprano is alive or dead is not the point.' To continue to search for this answer is fruitless. The final scene of The Sopranos raises a spiritual question that has no right or wrong answer."
David Chase slams reports Tony isn't dead (WENN)
The show's final episode, which aired in 2007, ended with some shady-looking guys entering the diner that mob boss Tony was eating at with his family. The screen faded to black just as viewers were about to learn Tony's fate, leaving fans guessing as to whether or not Tony, made it out of the diner alive. I
n the story published on Vox, journalist Martha P. Nochimson wrote that Chase once revealed to her what actually happened to Tony after much badgering. "Why are we talking about this?" Nochimson claims Chase asked after she demanded to know during a meeting at a coffee shop. Eventually, she said, Chase told her. "No, he isn't [dead]," Chase said of Tony Soprano.
Game Of Thrones Season 4 Premiere Brings In Best Ratings For HBO Since The Sopranos
Sopranos Star Lorraine Bracco Reveals The Secrets Behind Her 35 Pound Weight Loss
James Gandolfini Died Of A Heart Attack As Autopsy Results Are Released
PHOTOS: Ice Cream Parlour From Final Scene Of The Sopranos Becomes Memorial For James Gandolfini
Although Nochimson said that Chase did not go into great detail about what happened to the Soprano family, he did explain why he chose to fade the screen to black at the end of the episode.
"He said that it is about Poe's poem 'Dream Within a Dream,' Nochimson wrote. "What more can I say?" he asks when I prod him to speak more, and I admire his silence."
Chase is often asked to explain the finale to fans. During a panel discussion at New York City's Museum of the Moving Image in May, he was asked to address the show's final scene. "Well, the idea was you get killed in the diner or not killed," Chase told a fan.
James Gandolfini died, aged 51 last year (WENN)
"And what's the idea? You know I am not trying to be coy about this. It's not trying to guess if he's alive or dead. That's not the point for me. I don't know how to explain this. Actually, here's what Paulie Walnuts says. In the beginning of that episode he says, 'In the midst of life, we are in death, or is it, In the midst of death we are in life? Either way we're up the a**.' That's what's going on there.'"
When panel attendees seemed unhappy with Chase's long-winded answer, he decided to offer some comic relief. "I don't know. Maybe [Tony] choked on an onion ring," Chase said, referring to the food Tony orders right before the screen goes black.
"There was something else I was saying that was more important than whether Tony Soprano lived or died," Chase told the AP in 2012.
"About the fragility of all of it. The whole show had been about time in a way, and the time allotted on this Earth."
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
