The Sopranos creator David Chase is still constantly asked about the ending to his beloved series, but this might be his best answer yet. Chase wrote a shot-by-shot breakdown of the Sopranos’ final moments. However, he refused to answer that one question that people are still wondering about. Did Tony Soprano, played by the late James Gandolfini, really die at the end?
Chase wrote the article for the Directors Guild of America Magazine, which is a fascinating read on why he made certain decisions with the sequence. He discusses framing, keeping the tension and noting the importance of the family not being completely together in one of the last shots.
“I said to Gandolfini, the bell rings and you look up. That last shot of Tony ends on 'don't stop,' it's mid-song,” Chase wrote about the last time we see Tony. “I'm not going to go into [if that's Tony's POV]. I thought the possibility would go through a lot of people's minds or maybe everybody's mind that he was killed. He might have gotten shot three years ago in that situation. But he didn't. Whether this is the end here, or not, it's going to come at some point for the rest of us. Hopefully we're not going to get shot by some rival gang mob or anything like that. I'm not saying that [happened]. But obviously he stood more of a chance of getting shot by a rival gang mob than you or I do because he put himself in that situation. All I know is the end is coming for all of us.”
Chase later said that he knew the cut to black would be jarring, but didn’t think it would still be such a controversial topic eight years after the finale aired and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” ended.
“Life is short. Either it ends here for Tony or some other time. But in spite of that, it's really worth it. So don't stop believing,” Chase concluded.
Chase hasn’t stopped talking about the ending either and found himself in some trouble last summer. He had told a Vox writer that Tony was alive after the finale, but he later backtracked, claiming that the comment was the result of him getting too chummy with the writer.
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