Wire Porn

matthewb:

David Simon, creator of television’s The Wire, photographed by Philip Andrews on the New Orleans set of his new HBO series Tremé, for Jesse Pearson’s lengthy interview in Vice magazine. The topic of conversation darts from the screenwriting process and studio involvement, to American healthcare reforms, to the origins of Omar and his fourth-floor jump, to the failure of prohibition, and so on.

Simon spends time discussing how and why a sixth season focusing on the immigration issue — it would have played between seasons three and four, leaving the media critique as parting shot — turned out not to be achievable, and why he feels the show’s first season was its weakest. Here’s the introduction:

David Simon is responsible for one of the greatest feats of storytelling of the past century, and that’s the entire five-season run of the television series The Wire. If that sounds like hyperbole to you, then you haven’t watched the show yet. It is the most intricate web of character, motivation, insight, action, repercussion, and emotion that’s ever been on TV, and it rivals the grand novels of the late 19th century, when novels actually, regularly, had scope. More hyperbole, but there you go.

Contains plot spoilers of course, but if you haven’t watched it, do yourself a favour this festive season.