The Night Of (2016, Created by Richard Price & Steven Zallian)

I like the serial format, generally; I like what can be done with it to build suspense, to enhance mystery, and to deepen the psychological interiority of a particular work's characters. Crime & Punishment was published serially, for example. The format seems to behoove crime stories, but even dramas, like 2020's I Know This Much Is True--the best thing I've seen in the 2020s, I'll write about it at some point--benefit from the wider canvas.

Along comes The Night Of, watched at my sister's behest, which I was 100% certain had been released in 2020 but in fact aired in 2016^[1]. I was caught pleasantly off guard by its sidewalk-sniffing devotion to New York City's griminess and the roll-your-shirtsleeves-up nature of "real" law-enforcement and justice-seeking. I put the scare quotes around real because The Night Of postures itself as depicting the real, nitty-gritty, ugly business of police work and courtroom battles. The major point Price and Zallian make here--improbably, fantastically--is that the criminal justice system is broken and corrupt, yet through sheer force of goodwill and a pinch of theatrical honesty (though not without setbacks and compromises), sometimes true justice is served. Even this strikes me as overly optimistic, and, for lack of something less gag-inducing, Hollywood.

Yet it is this very incongruity that makes The Night Of successful as a drama. While I disagree with its civil conclusion, it is impossible for me to deny its achievement as a captivating story. Robert Elswitt, among our greatest Directors of Photography living, sets a dreary visual tone in episode one. (Even he, however, could not escape the wretched maw of underlit nighttime scenes in prime time television.) Zaillian directs (along with James Marsh for episode four) with an intense fixation on the small, the close, the mundane, and the taken-for-granted. While he fails to reach full panopticon vision à la Peter Weir directing The Truman Show, he does capture the explosion of surveillance cameras post-9/11 and the overall mood of paranoia which accopmanied it. Props must go, too, to the casting director and cast, who breathe deep, complicated life into every role.

Buscemi, Turturro, Ahmed, A Separation guy, mention JH, the sadness of seeing Naz become addicted to crack in jail. It's an effective jail deterrent, after watching this, not that many need convincing, it's clear: you don't want to go to jail. This is a moving depiction of the process, and as such worth investing time into. Price has a great ear for dialogue and a deep feeling for character. The sense of place is remarkable. New York City simulator. Like the notion of ending with a moving pop song, but they picked the wrong one. The cat thing is a cute button.

Then again, The Wire exists^[2] and miraculously toes the line between narrative catharsis and unflinching truthfulness w/r/t criminal justice. It's not impossible to do.