Tony Soprano: Conflict Resolution? Or How the Sopranos is Like a Spreadsheet
June 11, 2007 | By Jack Yoest
Tony Soprano HBO Your Business Blogger and Charmaine are not happy with the ending of the Sopranos series last night.
For the same reason that most entertainment today fails to entertain: Because of a failure...
No, not to communicate. But,
The failure to resolve the conflict of the protagonist.
What happened to Tony's current conflict? Resolved or on-going? On-going as life goes on?
Every play, book, comic book, movie must have an ending and not, well, just end. Movies and real life, as our show bizie friends tell us, are not quite the same -- except when they are. On-going.
But who wants to watch a non-ending ending in a movie? We get enough of that in-real-life. We all are living the non-ending. (Except that in-real-life dying part...)
An ending can be simple -- but it should not simply end. This makes customers mad.
Or was the going to black Tony getting whacked? That would be an ending, but who knows? It is an unanswered question open to interpretation.
Interpretation. My favorite mentor, Dr. Dad, (without whom my MBA would have been impossible) says that financial spread sheets always raise more questions than they answer. It takes a seasoned boss to exercise wisdom and judgment to question the answers in the numbers. And this is real work.
I didn't want to work when watching the Sopranos' finale.
It was like watching a spreadsheet. No answers.
Thank you (foot)notes:
Are movies supposed to be like life? Or, are movies more like business marketing?
See what Captain Ed thinks.
The Anchoress does not mind the ambiguity.
