David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
SHAPIRO: Ok, so you’ve spent your career television without AI, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had that tool to solve those thorny problems…
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: … Or saying…
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: … Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don’t think AI can challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you’re trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you’re stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an AI and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I’d rather put a gun in my mouth.
Could you imagine the derivitive piece of trash The Wire would be if genuine masters of their craft like David Simon, Ed Burns, George Pelacanos et al resorted to ChatGPT every time they got a little stuck?
Side note, I watched The Corner for the first time a few weeks back. All of the episodes are on YouTube.
It’s based on the book Simon wrote about Baltimore that would eventually lead to The Wire, but all it the stories are true which makes it a major bummer at times.
The Wire DNA is there, but some of the dialogue and acting isn’t quite at that level (but is that even really fair to compare?), but once you get into it and remember it’s true stories, it’s incredibly engrossing. Proto-Wire. Barely any stuff from the cop side, not much from the dealing side, almost all from the side of the addicts living “the game” day to day.
Some familiar actors too. But the woman who plays Fran was just outstanding. Honestly seems like she wasn’t even acting most of the time. I hope she was, because otherwise goddamn… She absolutely fucking kills it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in anything else.
But yeah, brutal shit, be warned.
Here’s the first episode. Stick with it, they drop the fake interview thing almost immediately before getting into unfiltered David Simon magic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMJMOoW8y6o
Senator Clay Davis would probably just say “shit” like a normal person.
Wallace: “Man, these chicken nuggets is right, yo. Man, whoever invented these, yo, he off the hook.”
Deangelo: “You’re absolutely right! The Chicken McNugget® is a core feature of the McDonald’s® menu and has provided a wealth of shareholder value since it’s inception in 1979. They’re not just tasty — they’re a profitable staple of any McDonald’s® franchise!”