A Twisted Love Story

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The Wire: A twisted love story to a city and its people

It's The Wire week on GM

If the underlying conceit of The Wire is essentially socialistic, that the venality and greed, in all its guises, of corporations, civic institutions and the drug trade is killing the city of Baltimore - then there is one burning high note.
That is the belief, of the creators and writers, in the spirit of the city and many of its inhabitants to be reborn.
The Wire is cynical in the truest form: it protests at how bad things are because it shows just how good they could they can be.
While many characters are brutalised and become almost feral in their pursuit of power, wealth and influence, at the core of the programme are a handful of shining beacons.
Among others, The Deacon (played by former real life heroin lord Little Melvin Williams), to the gangster-turned-boxing coach Cutty, to top cop Bunny Colvin and Miss Donnolly (assistant principal of Edward J. Tilghman Middle School) these characters are quixotic outposts of hope and belief in the human ability to change.
They mirror the work of Miss Ella who runs the nursery in the Wire’s HBO mini-series precursor, The Corner; community workers investing great bundles of emotion and optimism in the face or overwhelming disappointment.
In many ways the moral barometer of The Wire is Bubbles, played wonderfully by Andre Royo (pictured above right with Wire creator David Simon). He is a troubled but immensely likeable and intelligent junkie trapped in the all-consuming grip of drugs and their trade.
Bubbles may be a chronic drug addict but he has an acutely and righteously tuned moral compass which illustrates the wider complex morality at work in the programme. There is no real good and bad, just shades of whatever colours those vague concepts may be represented by.
It’s a terrible cliché, but, his prison is his addiction. The bridges that addiction has helped to burn with his family and the suffocating reach of drugs, both spiritually and geographically in Baltimore, conspire to offer him no obvious means of escape.
We watch Bubbles’ multiple bids for salvation from the abyss and they mirror Baltimore’s. We watch how cops, friends, outreach workers and reformed addicts reach out to him and how he reaches out to other addicts in a bid to leave this world.
It takes 60 hours of viewing to resolve itself, though, ultimately nothing is ever that morally simplistic in the world of The Wire.
It is nevertheless, addictive TV. Utterly compelling, vital and paradoxically, uplifting.

The Wire on terrestrial! At last everyone can see TV's highest achievement

The BBC has announced that it is to show all 60 Hours of The Wire spread across a number of weeks.

Those of us in the know, and that is hundreds of thousands of people in Britain with DVD box sets, are aware that is the greatest programme ever made for TV and could quite conceivably be the highest achievement in narrative cinema, if Dr Mark Kermode had not rendered this phrase a cliche.
The Wire is about the slow death of the American city told through the conventions of the cop show. The city is dying thanks to the drug economy and the venal greed of the institutions of society which turn a blind eye to the degeneration of Baltimore.
Politicians, the media, police and community leaders put self-interest first as the city they live in falls foul of the effects of crack cocaine and heroin addiction and all their attendant social ills.
The characterisation and acting are inspired. Brits Dominic West (above right) and Idris Elba play central figures Det Jimmy McNulty and drug lord Stringer Bell respectively. (Show creator David Simon has said: "Give them credit for playing these two very American characters.")
Michael K Williams and Andre Royo give stand-out performances as the principled non-cussing stick-up man Omar Little and Bubbles the troubled junkie respectively. Wendell Pierce as Det Bunk Moreland is absolutely flawless.
Most of these heroes are compromised in some way, some of the villains and anti-heroes are noble and virtuous at various points. It makes no apologies at killing off people you grow to love and it allows bastards to succeed. It is, in short, a lot like real life.
There are few happy endings and, in one case, something that could could have been an explosive and dynamic plot line was simply ignored without ever being mentioned again. (Bill Rawls and a bar is all I can say to avoid spoilers).
It has a great soundtrack of soul, rock and Baltimore hip-hop which only rarely penetrates the story when required.
The Wire, created by Simon and former Baltimore cop Ed Burns is a twisted love story to their city tied up in the form of a protest song about the inequalities in modern US society. Simon says that ultimately it is about how money and power route themselves into the American political system and how this effects the lives of 'ordinary' people.
It has balls and character and yanks you by the lapels, pulls you to its face and screams: "CARE ABOUT THESE PEOPLE, YOU BASTARDS."
Next week is The Wire week here on GM