And there was Tony and his new girlfriend, Gloria Trillo,who you're starting to figure out is a little crazy. coming out of an apartment with a different girl. Of course, there were other subplots in the episode.īUSCEMI: Most people remember the episode for the guys being lost, but there was also Meadow catching Jackie Jr. It wasn't the guys either, it was the girl PAs, who picked me up. The PAs were always rubbing my feet and picking me up when I fell in the snow. They did their best to keep us warm but I was still in the snow and my foot was wet. TONY SIRICO, PAULIE WALNUTS: It was cold, boy. It just made everything so much more alien and foreign for these guys. MICHAEL IMPERIOLI, CHRISTOPHER: It was a gift. And Michael and Tony.whenever you get the two of them together in a pressurized situation, it's going to be gold.ĬHASE: Except for visually, the snow was a disaster! Why couldn't they follow their tracks back to safety? I was going to shoot myself! WINTER: The snow made it so much more plausible for them to get lost. It wasn't snowing, but the wind was blowing the snow off of the trees and there were crystals in the air. I remember the first shot we did was of the guys just trudging through the snow. And then just before shooting: four feet of snow. We talked about what would happen if it snowed. PHIL ABRAHAM, DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: When we scouted the location it was as dry and brown and barren as it could be. Finally, they said this other area in the park was available. We had looked at Harriman State Park across the border in New York before, but they only showed us one spot, which wasn't going to work. And at the last minute the Essex County commissioner (who later went to prison for corruption) decided that, because we were a ''disgrace to Italians,'' we would no longer be able to use county streets.īUSCEMI: We were all ready to shoot and then we lost the location. But it turned out to be the first episode that took twelve days to shoot.ĬHASE: We had a woods location at the South Mountain Reservation. STEVE BUSCEMI, DIRECTOR: Originally the idea was that this was going to be an easy episode: The guys go into the woods and it's short and simple. Steve Buscemi drew the directing duties, the first of four episodes he'd direct. Van Patten had his dream during Season Two, but it wasn't until the end of Season Three that the idea fit into the show's plot. TERENCE WINTER, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Tim mentioned the idea to me, and I said, ''If you don't go into David's office and tell him this, I am going to steal it and go in myself.'' So, I was lying in bed and I sort of half-dreamed this idea. It was a spooky place with a kind of magic in it. He'd tell us these crazy stories about the Jersey Devil - half-man and half-beast - living in there. On the way down, he'd always try to make an adventure out of it, so we'd stop off at the Pine Barrens. TIM VAN PATTEN, DIRECTOR: My father was a horse player and he used to take me and my brother to Atlantic City. You know, two guys from Nutley with their city shoes on, walking around the woods. Part Deliverance, part Abbott and Costello Meet the Russian, part Blair Witch Project, and all Sopranos, the resulting episode is also a case study in how good television is often a product of both good planning and happy accidents.ĭAVID CHASE: As I remember it, Tim Van Patten had some sort of dream about Paulie and Christopher lost in the forest. When they arrive, the putatively dead Russian hits Christopher with a shovel and takes off, leading the guys on a chase that leaves them lost in the freezing woods.With increasing joy, we proceed to watch them fall apart. The two decide to bury the body in the Pine Barrens, an enormous tract of woodland in southern New Jersey. Already grumbling, Paulie and Christopher show up and Paulie picks a fight that ends with the Russian apparently dead. The action was simple enough: Tony tells Paulie and Christopher to pick up some money from a Russian mobster for Silvio, who's sick with a virus.
Few individual episodes provide a more memorable example of that ethos than Season Three's ''Pine Barrens.'' From ''The Sopranos: The Book'' (out May 15): Read about the making of the mobsters-in-the-snow season 3 episode ''Pine Barrens'' - and find out why you'll never get closure on a particularly mysterious plotlineĬOMFORTABLY NUMB In ''Pine Barrens,'' Christopher and Paulie's woodland pain was viewers' gainĪll AboutThe Sopranos David Chase has said that the goal of each episode of The Sopranos is to function as a mini-movie.
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