When the pilot episode of landmark crime drama The Sopranos aired in January 1999, not many media commentators would have foreseen this wildly experimental HBO collection remodeling the complete panorama of tv. However then, in addition they wouldn’t have predicted {that a} wholly unrelated Robert De Niro mobster film with precisely the identical premise would come out two months later.
De Niro’s gangster function wasn’t his typical fare, both. It noticed him star reverse Billy Crystal as a mafia don wracked with psychological well being issues he wanted to work by way of. This setup will inevitably sound acquainted to any fan of The Sopranos, because it’s the storyline that originally frames the present.
Extremely, though the collection does share some actors with the film Analyze This, there’s ostensibly no connection in any respect between the individuals who got here up with the thought for every, Sopranos creator David Chase and screenwriters Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan. Loads of TV reveals have tried to exchange The Sopranos, however it was really a 1999 movie that got here closest.
The Sopranos Pilot Aired Simply 2 Months Earlier than Analyze This Got here Out
If David Chase had caught to his unique plan to make The Sopranos a film, it might need been competing with Analyze This immediately on the field workplace. Whereas the present’s pilot first aired on January 10, 1999, Robert De Niro’s feature-length gangster comedy directed by Harold Ramis reached theaters on March 5 of the identical yr.
If The Sopranos hadn’t moved effectively past its unique premise by season 2, accusations of plagiarism would possibly effectively be bandied about by these concerned in a single mission or the opposite. It’s tough to inform who might need stolen from whom, nevertheless, as each have been apparently within the works as early as 1996.
Analyze This Has Precisely The Identical Premise As The Sopranos Pilot
Sopranos creator Chase was understandably horrified to see pre-production buzz round Analyze This doing the rounds within the mid-Nineties, simply as he was engaged on the primary season of his present (through The Guardian). The similarities between the pilot episode Chase wrote and the premise of Robert De Niro’s comedy film are spooky.
Each are premised on a central character who’s a mafia don, looking for out a psychiatrist to deal with crippling panic assaults attributable to the stress of his prison profession and unresolved childhood trauma. Naturally, given their backgrounds, they aren’t forthcoming with their emotions in remedy periods at first, however their respective shrinks get them to speak quickly sufficient.
Robert De Niro’s Analyze This Character Is A Lot Like Tony Soprano
Paul Vitti in Analyze This is remarkably just like Tony Soprano, in his demeanor, the best way he talks, and the best way he initially reacts to having his vulnerabilities uncovered to a medical skilled. In addition to panic assaults, each males expertise erectile dysfunction associated to their psychological well being, and maintain themselves answerable for a mother or father’s struggling.
Simply as these traits assist make Tony the final word antihero in The Sopranos, they assist us sympathize with Vitti in Analyze This. In the meantime, the juxtaposition of their macho attitudes with inside fragilities supplies its fair proportion of comedy moments in each the TV present and the film.
But, whereas The Sopranos has gone down in historical past as arguably the best TV present of all time, Analyze This is mostly thought to be an entertaining however light-weight comedy movie. Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal nail their performances within the film, however it may’t be in contrast with the depth and depth of David Chase’s TV masterpiece.