Season 3, episode 2 dealt with the on and off-screen death of one of The Sopranos’ major players. How HBO handled it is reminiscent of a very modern trend
It’s easy to see why people call The Sopranos a pioneer of modern TV. Without its focus on the humanity of criminals, we might not have Breaking Bad. Without what it ddi to boost HBO, we might not have Game of Thrones. However, there’s one area of filmmaking The Sopranos adapted early that’s a whole lot less beloved these days, and on its 24th anniversary, it’s worth revisiting. So really quickly, let’s go over the time the Sopranos used CGI to bring Livia Soprano back to life.
The year is 2001. After two successful seasons, The Sopranos is already one of the most talked-about shows in the world, at least in part because of the relationship between Tony Soprano and his mother, Livia. Season 3 of the series was going to bring the tension between them to its highest point yet, with a mentally slipping Livia set to testify against her mob boss son. Suddenly, the unthinkable happened. Nancy Marchand, the actor who brilliantly played Tony’s mother, died while the next season was filming.
Out of respect, series creator David Chase decided not to recast the role and to write in Livia’s death to the third season. However, not recasting also meant there would be no resolution to the character’s story, as Marchand passed away after the filming for episode 1. So, The Sopranos team and HBO decided to do something pretty new in the field of filmmaking – using CGI, they would bring Livia to the screen one more time.
Of course, this technology was in almost a primitive state compared to, say, what Lucasfilm used to bring Peter Cushing back as Moff Tarkin for 2016’s Rogue One. Not only that, but the procedure was extremely costly. In order to take pre-shot footage of Nancy Marchand and work it onto another actor’s face, HBO shelled out $250,000 (according to a 2002 USA Today article). Adjusted for inflation, that would be almost half a million dollars (roughly $451,000). The episode, titled Proshai, Livushka, aired on March 4 as part of a two-hour premiere, 24 years ago as of this writing.
Today, a process like that would be called “deepfaking” by some, and would be met with an understandable amount of hesitation. Having a stand-in for a deceased actor during shooting was not new – Sam Raimi coined the term “Fake Shemp” to refer to the process, a nod to Three Stooges actor Shemp Howard, who died and was stood-in for during a film shoot – but using CGI to actually put the actor’s face on was. Granted, the footage used was some Marchand already filmed and was paid for, but the actor certainly didn’t have a say in HBO using it.
So did The Sopranos open a Pandora’s Box of modern filmmaking, or were they just using the technology of the time to respectfully send off a major character, à la Paul Walker in Furious 7? Honestly, that answer may depend on how the future of AI affects the rights actors (and indeed, private citizens) have to their own appearances.
Maybe in the next 24 years, they’ll have that one figured out.
