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"  It&amp;#039;s been more than two years since HBO&amp;#039;s Baltimore-based drama The Wire, created by former crime reporter David Simon, went off the air, leaving its devout viewership doubting that any TV show could ever be, as The New York Times put it, so &amp;quot;Dickensian.&amp;quot; Fortunately, Simon doesn&amp;#039;t see it that way and returns to HBO this month with Treme, an honest, exceptionally entertaining series about a New Orleans neighborhood struggling to reestablish its community and cultural spirit in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Simon tells ELLE about the city&amp;#039;s resilience and trying to portray a daunting musical legacy on-screen.   Why did you decide to explore the neighborhood of Treme?  It&amp;#039;s a chance to speak to the idea of culture as a sustaining force in American life. New Orleans suffered a near-death experience in 2005, and it&amp;#039;s surviving on its culture. African-American music could only happen in America, and it happened in that 12-square block of New Orleans.   Were you nervous trying to capture New Orleans&amp;#039; music scene?  We used to think whenever we had to film an action sequence on The Wire, Oh, this is going to be a lot of work. No amount of planning for any of those shots prepared us for what it&amp;#039;s like to film music. Musicians are not actors, and actors are not musicians. And yet we have to get our actors to be credible playing the role of musicians.   So Wendell Pierce doesn&amp;#039;t actually play the trombone?  No, but his fingering, his work on the slide, and the work on his mouth and his air is accurate to the notes.   Your work has a theme of the institution versus the individual, but Treme seems to be about individuals coming together after the institution failed them. To me, that&amp;#039;s fascinating. The amount of rigor with which ordinary New Orleanians pursued the reestablishment not just of their city but their culture was as civic an act of heroism as I&amp;#039;ve ever seen.   Baltimore really embraced your show during The Wire. Have the people of New Orleans done the same? So far. But they are devoted to their culture\u2014they&amp;#039;re protective of it. I expect there to be a moment when I&amp;#039;m buying someone a beer and apologizing for getting something wrong. And I wouldn&amp;#039;t have it any other way.    Ideally, how long would you like to see Treme air?  I&amp;#039;d love to get three or four or five seasons in to complete the cycle of what&amp;#039;s happened down here in New Orleans, right up to the last election. Here&amp;#039;s hoping we get there. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/reviews/a11133/the-sounds-the-fury-hbos-treme-443839/?click=smart&kw=ist&src=smart&mag=ELM&link=-SMT-ELM>