Arts: Did You See This? The Visual Style of The Wire

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Brow Beat Did You See This? The Visual Style of The Wire By David Haglund Posted Monday, Apr 09, 2012, at 03:33 PM ET Last week, David Simon told the New York Times he has "a certain amused contempt" for many late-arriving fans of The Wire. Some of those fans then expressed their own amused contempt for the famously grumpy Simon, who didn't seem to appreciate the millions of people who have come to love the show he created, regarded by many as the best TV drama ever made. Simon quickly apologized to those fans, saying that he didn't mean to complain about everyone who came to the show after it was on the air, just those who seem to enjoy the show for the wrong reasons. "What I was expressing disappointment at was specifically the guys doing all the bracketology on Grantland," he told Alan Sepinwall. Those writers, Simon said, "want to break it down like a deck of cards, and argue over whether the jack of spades is better than the jack of hearts. The Wire wasn't about whether Stringer was better than Omar." Presumably Simon would hold Erlend Lavik in higher regard: Last week, the Norwegian academic posted online a 36-minute video essay called "Style in The Wire," which carefully and thoroughly analyzes the various visual techniques used by the show's directors over the course of its five seasons. As Lavik notes, the visual style of The Wire is much less discussed than its multifaceted narrative, its wide range of complicated characters, and its social critique. But he makes a compelling case that the look of The ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Obama's New Crowdfunding Bill Will Allow Us All To Lose Big Investing in Startups Yglesias: Time To Panic About Europe Again One Man's Attempt To Retrace the Journey of Odysseus	Advertisement
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