PALEY CENTER FOR MEDIA, THE: PALEYFEST NY 2014: THE WIRE REUNION {LONG VERSION}

Summary

One in a series of seminars presented as part of The Paley Center for Media’s 31st Williams S. Paley Television Festival in New York. The festival celebrates the excellence and diversity of American television and is dedicated to television’s creative community. This PALEYFEST 2014 seminar honors “The Wire,” a dramatic series about the police and the criminals they target.

David Bushman (television curator, The Paley Center for Media) offers opening remarks before introducing a clip reel of highlights from the show, along with video messages from Dominic West (Jimmy McNulty) and Idris Elba (Russell "Stringer" Bell). Alan Sepinwall (TV critic, Hitflix.com) then moderates the following panelists: executive producer/creator/writer David Simon; executive producer Nina Kostroff-Noble; and cast members John Doman (William Rawls), Larry Gilliard Jr. (D’Angelo Barksdale), Seth Gilliam (Ellis Carver), Jim True-Frost (Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski), Jamie Hector (Marlo Stanfield), Michael K. Williams (Omar Little), Sonja Sohn (Shakima Greggs), and Wendell Pierce (William "Bunk" Moreland). Additional guests in the audience include cast members Tristan Wilds (Michael Lee), Robert Wisdom (Howard “Bunny” Colvin), J.D. Williams (Preston “Bodie” Broadus), and Michelle Paress (Alma Gutierrez).

The panelists touch on such topics as: the “snowballing” popularity of the show and recognition shown toward its cast despite its origins in "obscurity"; the increasingly layered elements of the show’s storyline and its attempts to weave a large-scale “visual narrative”; how the show served as a milestone for many members of the cast, representing their first major television production; the initially slow and complex nature of the show’s plot, and how it took time for the actors to fully realize the implications of the story; a particular scene in an early episode of the show noted for its creative use of profanity; the use of regional Baltimore dialect in the script and how it influenced the characters; Gilliard’s take on a particularly tense and famous scene from the show; real-life people who served as inspirations for some of the characters; concerns from the cast in the early seasons about the utilization of their characters; the feelings of cast members who joined the show several years into its run; the use of the city of Baltimore for shooting locations and reactions from locals to the show and the actors; how the deaths of important characters were handled; the level of camaraderie and loyalty among the show’s “self-policing” cast; Sohn’s personal connection to the show’s narrative and ethos; scenes from the show which the panelists feel “encapsulate” the show; and Pierce’s thoughts about the show’s commentary on the human condition.

Questions from the audience then lead to a discussion of the following topics among others: Simon’s commentary on the drug war and income inequality; the portrayal of drug dealers on “The Wire,” and its representation of the ethnic composition of Baltimore; and speculation about one character’s posssible homosexuality, and the ongoing questions it has provoked since the show concluded.

This selection from the Alan Gerry Cable Collection has been made available by the Gerry Foundation, Inc.

Details

NETWORK: N/A
DATE: November 30, 1999 7:00 PM
RUNNING TIME: 1:48:26
COLOR/B&W: Color
CATALOG ID: 116745
GENRE: Seminars
SUBJECT HEADING: African-American Collection - Drama; LGBT Collection - Drama
SERIES RUN: N/A
COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

David Bushman … Host
Alan Sepinwall … Moderator
John Doman … Panelist
Larry Gilliard Jr. … Panelist
Seth Gilliam … Panelist
Jim True-Frost … Panelist
Jamie Hector … Panelist
Michael K. Williams … Panelist
Sonja Sohn … Panelist
Wendell Pierce … Panelist
David Simon … Panelist
Nina Kostroff-Noble … Panelist
Tristan Wilds … Guest
Robert Wisdom … Guest
J.D. Williams … Guest
Michelle Paress … Guest
Idris Elba
Dominic West