“Cunnilingus and Psychiatry Brought Us to This”

Twenty years have passed since the first episode of The Sopranos (1999–2007) premiered on the premium cable channel HBO. Most critics mark this as the beginning of the “Golden Age of Television”, when TV production started raising its standards and could stand alongside the much more established film production. But The Sopranos are also important due to all of the themes they deal with, especially the concept of the Italian Mafia, which is – like in Scorsese’s work a couple of years prior – analyzed within a postmodern context. Even more important is the concept of analysis in its literal sense, that is, our getting to know its protagonist Tony Soprano through the process of therapy, which gives the viewer a chance to get a deeper understanding of his character and his psyche, while paving the way to a number of similar anti-hero protagonists that have filled our TV screens in recent years.

The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!