Play it for that motherf***ing money, boys: First thoughts on Treme

TREME, the new  HBO show from The Wire's creator David Simon has all the hall marks of one he intends to run and run.
Produced by Simon and Eric Overmyer it is set three months after Hurricane Katrina in the predominantly black neighbourhood of Treme which sits behind the French Quarter in New Orleans, a traditional home for the musicians and Creole community.
After the first couple of episodes those of us familiar with the greatest TV show ever will notice similar narrative and character hints being dropped slowly into a heady gumbo of a drama. Not much of major dramatic impact has happened in the first two episodes, but another large cast of characters has been introduced and plots and themes are emerging tentatively.
Signed up for at least two series by HBO, the experienced among us will know it may take all that time for everything to be tied up, by which stage series three will be taking on another set of injustices.
I'd say this series is going to deal with the institutionally racist neglect of flood victims, the deadly stasis brought on by Federal bureaucracy and the inherently corrupt political systems which allowed the huge humanitarian disaster to unfold down in N'awlins.
One thing already apparent is there's a tremendous cast working their socks off. The Corner and CSI Miami's Khandi Alexander is stressed bar owner LaDonna Batiste-Williams looking for her brother missing in the prison system, Clarke 'Lester Freamon' Peters is the Indian chief Albert Lambreaux looking to get his carnival gang back together, Wendell 'Bunk Moreland' Pierce (above) LaDonna's gifted but priapic trombonist ex-husband Antoine Batiste hustling for work while Steve Zahn plays the middle class white musician and DJ Davis McAlary in love with black music, its musicians and culture.
However, the stand-out character, and perhaps the moral barometer of the show, is English Literature professor Creighton Bernette played by  John Goodman, a man leading a crusade to get the truth about Katrina known. It's not a natural disaster he says, 'but a federal fuck-up of epic proportions, decades in the making.'
The music is incredible, in what has to be one of the best opening sequences of any TV show, a panorama of the city's heritage from ragtime to revival, be bop, rock and dirty south hip hop all comes together before concluding with a full New Orleans jazz band marching the streets of Treme.
British and Irish gobshites, content yourself with this trailer and others like it on YouTube - as yet there are no dates for either a  screening or DVD release in these parts.

 

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