The Wire Season 1 Analysis

saderpathia

1152

The Target - Episode 1

The first shot of the series. Blood running down the streets of Baltimore. As it will run throughout the series

RIP Snotboogie. Why did they let him in the game. Stupid America.

Moody boys in a moody bar.

FBI rarely looks this cool.

In the small sad corner of his own little world bathing in golden glow of the sun Bubs gets his own glow going (as someone put it on TWP-forums).

This picture also feels religious to me. There's seems to be a lot of religious imagery in the scenes with Bubbles throughout the series. Maybe because Bubs's journey is a personal one. Like creators have said Bubbles may not be prisoner of any institutions but he is a prisoner of his own addiction.

McNulty and an oncoming train.

Here they explain the symbolism of the trains that they use throughout the series. McNulty is standing on the tracks complaining that he will indeed go through with the case even though the bosses have all deliberately told him to back off.

You can jump on a train and go with the system like everyone else, or you can fight it and get crushed by it (like so many characters on this series do).

Real men eat burgers.

The Detail - Episode 2 -Here Daniels and others are searching for their new office that is in the basement of Mitchell Courthouse.

And this shot is like it's taken straight from a horror film. That's probably what everyone was feeling when they saw what a dungeon the new "office" was.

Carv checking out Kima. Hey, it makes me laugh.

D'Angelo pondering about his life on the corner, eh?

That's McNulty's bedroom and living room. And you thought that shot of Bubbles sitting in the corner of an abandoned house in the pilot was sad.

The Buys - Episode 3- This is the opening shot of the episode, it's all continuous. It's great, like a documentary. There's a lot more handheld and organic camera work in the first season.

Also a lot more of this sort of surveillance shots.

Here Stringer is imparting his wisdom of financial side of things and giving D'Angelo a bonus. There's a lot of shots like this in The Wire where the real action of the shot is happening in the backround.

Can't go without mentioning this.

Episode 4 - Old Cases - "Damn, boy."
All messed up Boadie wakes up to this in Boys Village. Poor Boadie.

Boadie hitting camera with a rock.
Everyone knows this shot. It's been part of the opening credits on every season. It speaks about the forever ongoing dance between cops and robbers. Authorities always come up with new ways to monitor criminals and they always adapt to them.

Omar's gang watching a little dude.
This is what Omar is about; family. But the tragedy of Omar's character is that while he tries to do good for his family and for Baltimore (selfish reasons or not), he's only adding to the circle of violence. Children and Omar have a specific relationship on the Wire.

"Motherfuck."

Episode 5 - The Pager - Omar is Wire's equivalent of a superhero of whom all the bad guys are afraid of. This is surely one of the best shots to illustrate this. His coat flapping in the wind even looks like a cape.

It's so great how they can make the ugliest parts of Baltimore look so arresting and even beautiful. Rarely do tv shows achieve a visual context as unique and distinctive as they did in the Wire.

It's Bodymore, Murdaland.

I like how this almost looks like Carv is looking at a mirror. A cop and a street thug are not that different, point that is made a lot of times, especially during the first season.

And sure enough Carv looses his temper here and starts to pound on Boadie even though "he was supposed to be the good cop,"

Episode 6 - Again a great long opening shot that is impossible for me to capture without making a video out of it. From Brandon's body the camera rises to follow a phoneline - as the episode's name is The Wire - to the house where Wallace and Poot live.

This shot makes me laugh. Oh, Herc.

As McNulty's boys are playing soccer they hear Omar screaming in anguish and their ball escapes and rolls through the hallway. The scene may be a bit melodramatic for my tastes but this shot does a good job capturing the feeling of a sudden and wrongful death.

Good use of the whole frame.

Another good example of using the entire frame.

This is like a shot from Alien. Bird sure is creepy.

Episode 8 - Lessons - All kinds of towers.
To me this speaks once again about the small role and small amount of power an individual has. It's the institutions, larger systems that control everyone and everything. Like in this shot we have Terrace towers (symbol for Barksdale crime organization) and a church.

Lots of this kind of symmetrical shots.

Again Omar and children. I like the mood here.

Episode 9 - Gameday -

Lot of people love the slow motion shot of Avon and Stringer walking through the projects in the episode 1x06 The Wire, but I was never fan of that. A bit too cool and it breakes the shows music rule.

This here is much more effective and earned usage of slow motion as Daniels sees the man he's been after the whole season for the first time and only fleetingly. And Avon is just mockingly waving his finger at him. This small gesture and brief shot makes Avon a lot more dangerous and charismatic than the loong and slow projects walk.

Episode 10 - The Cost -

Bubbles.
Episode starts with what is surely one of the best teasers of the series, clean Bubbles just sitting on a bench and watching the world around him. Baltimore never looks as peaceful and beautiful as it does here. Here Bubs sees small children playing with soap bubbles

Again a mere picture can't capture this shot. Camera follows String and Omar for quite a long time as they walk around the water fountain.

D'Angelo is already a prisoner (strong colored shirt is a nice touch). Here he's getting more and more frustrated with his wife and ordinary family life; he wants out.

Very X-Files-ish helicopter shot. That's always a plus.

Episode 11 - The Hunt

First shot of the episode is a very ER-like minute long walk through all the different characters who are trying to get a sense of what happened when Kima got shot. Accomplishes the confusion perfectly.

I always like this kind of group pictures.

I'd say this captures season 1 versions of Carv&Herc to a t.

Just a cool picture is all.
It must be a pain or a really fun challenge for the crew to come up with fresh ways to create these typical copshow scenes like interrogation.

The main point of the first season was to tell how modern America was ultimately broken. All its various institutions suffered from the same problems. With season one the focus was on police and criminal organization and there were a lot of parallers drawn between the two. And here we have two different scenes in the stairways that are shot and composed in exactly the same way. Bodie&Poot are going to kill Wallace and McNulty&Daniels are arresting Avon. Both scenes are about removing a player off the game. But this time the point is to illustrate how different they are on this issue. And with all the previous parallers, it's an important point to make.