God, I love Deadwood.
I love the characters, the stories, the sets, the photography, the acting. I can
relate more closely to The Wire, and
no series ever strung stories together to a more fitting climax than did The Shield. The sense of place
established by the characters and dialog in Justified
is unsurpassed. What Deadwood did—and still does, after repeated viewings—is
create a hyper-reality where disbelief need not be suspended; it’s torn away as
brutally as James Ellroy describing a Los Angeles that existed, but never quite
the way his does.
How does Deadwood do
it? This may seem ironic when discussing a visual medium, but the whole things
is about language. For a person who loves words—their uses meanings, the sounds
as they fall upon the ear—Deadwood is
the ultimate experience.
The Beloved Spouse and I recently finished what was our
fourth (or fifth) trip through the 36 episodes. Not ready to give it up, we
worked out way through the bonus features disks. They were a revelation, and
highly recommended for fans, especially for insights into the creative process
of David Milch.
Let’s talk about Milch for a minute. For years I spoke of
him as if his given name were “That Cocksucker.” (“Don’t forget how That
Cocksucker Milch fucked us on Deadwood.”)
Jim Beaver recently placed the lion’s share of the blame on HBO on his Facebook
page. He was there, I wasn’t, and a re-reading of the relevant portions of
Brett Martin’s wonderful book Difficult
Men shows I had been largely unfair. I still wish Milch hadn’t been quite
so sensitive to HBO’s snub and found a way to get the two two-hour movies made
to wrap things up, but that’s small potatoes compared to his overarching achievements
in Deadwood.
The bonus features were another eye opener. True, they’re
edited, and I’m sure Milch had final approval, but the respect, admiration—awe,
even—the actors had for Milch was evident, even in candid shots. Watching him
speak showed a bit of the charisma they must have felt. Something special was
happening there, and while I can’t say everything they did worked—the George Hearst
character might have been a little more believable had he not become evil
incarnate—the flaws are negligible when compared to the accomplishments. (Some Season
Three subplots don’t go anywhere, but I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that
Season Four would done something with them.)
Probably the greatest praise I can give Deadwood is that it has made me re-examine my
creative process.
(Such as it is.) I’ve toyed with the idea of a Western for several years; now I
have a file full of notes for it, and plot ideas are springing up unbidden in
the car and after showers. I’m paying special attention to the language I’ll
use. Not just the style and voice, but the language, both narrative and spoken.
I’m not fool enough to try to copy Deadwood’s
unique speech, but some things Milch said in the bonus features stuck with me:
the task is to create a language. It will sound like English, and it will have
elements of the vernacular of the times, but the point will be to develop
something unique.
Development. That’s the key. The story develops. The
characters. Even the language. Milch spent over a year “developing” Deadwood before bringing in the crews
and getting to work. The universe must be set in the creator’s mind before
“work” begins. The story and characters and language and setting can develop in
whatever form and direction, and the whole will not be ill-affected if the
vision of the world is true. That’s where the real effort must take place for
this book, and even for the Penns River books I have on the back burner, though
that world is known to me well enough now that deliberation is less important
than interpretation.
Gustav Mahler said after revising his Fifth Symphony, “I
cannot understand how I could have written so much like a beginner. . . .
Clearly the routine I had acquired in the first four symphonies had deserted me
altogether, as though a totally new message demanded a new technique.” I’m no Mahler, but I understand what he meant.
I’ve been dissatisfied with writing in general and my writing in particular for
some time. Now I think I know why. I’d said as much as I could say with the
tools and approach I had developed. So it’s time for me to develop, too. Even
if the end result is not dissimilar, the approach will differ.
I might have come to these conclusions even had I not seen Deadwood as this precise moment in time.
Maybe. I defy any limber-dicked cocksucker to gainsay it had nothing to do with
it.
3 comments:
This is so interesting. I have saved the final season. Maybe it's time to watch all three.
Great piece. I'll add that Milch tried for five years to get the movies made, and almost succeeded. In the end, another studio (a silent partner in the show with no creative input but a financial stake) decided it was too much trouble and nixed the whole deal. And that was the end of that.
And yes, season four would have explored threads that were only set up in season three, particularly the theatrical troupe.
Hell of a show, ain't it?
Thanks for stopping by, Jim. It means a lot and I appreciate it. And thanks for setting me straight about David Milch. I'd rather be right than think I am.
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