Martin Scorsese and David Chase are two of the biggest names in American crime stories. Scorsese changed the gangster genre with films like ‘Goodfellas‘ and ‘Casino‘. Chase, on the other hand, created ‘The Sopranos‘ on HBO, which many people call one of the best TV dramas ever. They both deal with similar themes and even share many of the same actors.
However, these two icons are not on the same page creatively, and the reason comes down to something pretty simple. It is the trees.
The One-Sided Feud Between Two Crime Story Icons
The feud, if you can even call it that, is mostly one-sided. For years, Scorsese has been quietly critical of the show that changed television. In a 2019 interview with Sight & Sound, he gave a rare and blunt opinion: “I think I only saw one episode… because I can’t identify with that generation of the underworld. They live in New Jersey with the big houses? I don’t get it.” He went on to explain why he felt disconnected from the show: “They use language – four-letter words – in front of their daughters, at the dinner table? I don’t get that. I just didn’t grow up that way.”
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This was a notable dig because ‘The Sopranos‘ clearly looks up to Scorsese’s work, and is full of nods to ‘Goodfellas‘. There is even an episode where an actor plays a director named Marty who is making a mob movie. But for Scorsese, the suburban setting was the main problem.
David Chase Explains The Real Reason Behind The Divide
David Chase, the man behind ‘The Sopranos‘, has finally given his own take on why Scorsese feels this way. He spoke about it on The Hollywood Reporter’s It Happened in Hollywood podcast and in the 2024 documentary ‘Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos‘. Chase remembered Scorsese’s famous criticism: “He said, ‘I don’t get it – it’s like all these trees and shit’.”
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Chase thinks the divide is about geography and personal experience. “It’s very simple,” Chase said. “He grew up in New York in Little Italy, and there is Five Families organized crime there. That’s what he depicted. I grew up in New Jersey and there was branches of suburban New Jersey… People go to the suburbs to build fancy houses and get trees and stuff. It’s that simple. It was real for that place. Like his is real for his.“
A Deeper Difference In Tone And Morality
The funny thing is that while Scorsese’s gangsters usually walk around New York City, his own film ‘Goodfellas’ had scenes shot in the leafy suburbs of Long Island and New Jersey. The real difference might be in tone and morality. Scorsese’s movies often have a world where bad actions are eventually punished. ‘The Sopranos‘, though, is more cynical and morally unclear, where consequences feel random, and seeing a psychiatrist is as normal as committing a crime. It is a dark comedy about decline, a world that the director of ‘The Irishman‘ just could not relate to.
Even with the rejection, Chase does not hold a grudge. He has met Scorsese briefly, but they never talked about it. For Martin Scorsese, ‘The Sopranos‘ is still a show he does not understand, a masterpiece hidden behind the trees.
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