David Simon (creator of The Wire) is over in the UK talking about his books (Homicide and The Corner) which are just being published over there, some 15 and 10 years after their original release, respectively. Anyway, he chatted up The Guardian about politics and his next show, HBO’s Treme, which was recently picked up for its first season. It seems they haven’t yet nailed down whether it’ll be 10 or 12 episodes.
On Treme, Simon said: “It picks up three months after the storm, and will deliver a story of people trying to pick up their lives and culture again. New Orleans is one of the most extraordinary cultural creations in the US in terms of almost every artform – and it is very vulnerable. The characters have to find their way back and try to solve the existential crisis that Katrina has left them.”
The show will be, he said, a “homage to one of America’s greatest achievements, African-American music. A thousand years from now, if anyone is talking about anything on this rotating orb, and they mention America, they might talk about constitutional government or democracy or baseball – but they will surely talk about blues and jazz. New Orleans is the cradle of all that.”
On a grander scale he added that the show would act as an “an allegory for the trauma that the country as a whole went through two years later.”
“The fact is that the levees on the canals were substandard, and done on the cheap at an immense profit. Ultimately that becomes a metaphor,” he said. “New Orleans was relying on things that were believed to be genuine bulwarks against tragedy and disaster. People felt that there were similar bulwarks protecting our financial institutions and foreign policy. Now, two years on, we are all essentially in the same boat as New Orleans. Katrina was an outlyer of where we are today.”
Treme is supposed to go back into production in New Orleans after the hurricane season ends for an undetermined 2010 airing. Wendell Pierce (Det. ‘Bunk’ Moreland on The Wire) stars as a jazz musician with an ex-wife and new baby. Khandi Alexander (NewsRadio, Simon’s The Corner, CSI: Miami) plays the ex and a barkeeper. Melissa Leo (Frozen River) is a civil rights attorney. Steve Zahn (Rescue Dawn) portrays another musician. Clarke Peters (Det. Lester Freamon from The Wire) plays a Mardi Gras Indian chief. Rob Brown and Kim Dickens round out the main cast.
Anything that comes from David Simon’s brain is a must watch for me. The Wire was obscenely brilliant and I have no reason to believe this will be any less engaging and thought-provoking.
