"No one gets out alive, Doc."
That's Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) talking to the tenderhearted, terminally ill Doc Cochran (Brad Dourif) in Sunday's Deadwood. Swearengen's terse statement didn't just reveal the empathy that has become his watchword; it was the key that unlocked this episode's unexpected sweetness and wrenching power.
Death has always hovered over Deadwood; like many hard-edged TV dramas, it's set in a savage universe that kills characters without warning. But Deadwood separates itself from nearly all other such series -- with the possible exception of ABC's "Lost" -- by portraying death (and its kissing cousin, near-death experience) not just as random individual tragedies, but as communal events that have the power to change the course of human events.
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To read the rest of the Star-Ledger review, click here.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Deadwood Monday: Season Three, Ep. 31, "Unauthorized Cinnamon"
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22 comments:
A fine analysis beautifully written, Matt.
I really enjoy your writing about Deadwood, including today's column, but I have one little nitpick (I think). Didn't Swearengen throw the swatches to Cochran after the two met in Al's office?
Whatever the case, I thought that scene -- Swearengen tossing the swatches to the dying doctor -- was the most powerful of the episode. Al's concern for Cochran coming out as anger and sarcasm . . . in lesser hands than Ian McShane's it would have been an over-the-top, sentimental mess.
As good as the episode was, the most priceless moments for me were Ian McShane's facial expressions as Gordon Clapp did his sales pitch for the swatches in his office.
Louis--I'd have to watch it again to be sure. I watched the episode twice before writing the piece, but there was a lot to process.
Great analysis. I guess the one wrinkle I'd add is that this episode showed us something new and surprising about Hearst. His fatal flaw isn't a monomaniacal obsession with gold but almost the opposite: a lack of the true self-knowledge that he cares about more than gold. Conceiving himself the servant of a great civilizing agent, commerce made possible by gold, he takes any opposition as barbarism opposed to the great civilizing "truth" he brings. But what his speech in the street reveals is that he isn't the purely, and virtuously, gold obsessed man he thinks himself. He actually wants people's respect, admiration, even affection, as he half-admits: “Isn’t that foolish? An old man, long ago disabused of certain yearnings and hopes as to how he would be viewed by his fellows, and yet I weep.” Hearst’s actions can’t be explained by pure self-interest and love for gold. That’s what always puzzled Swearengen. Judged by a pure love for the color, Hearst’s actions are counterproductive: Its wasteful to demand complete control, to take down a whole town. A pure love for gold and commerce can actually have some of the civilizing effects of which Hearst boasts. The possibility of making more money in a true orderly community is certainly what started Swearengen down the right path, even if the civilizing process is radically incomplete and only starts becoming whole when community becomes valued for its own sake, as happened with the reading of Bullock’s letter. Hearst’s inability to even start down this process follows from irrationally lashing out when his buried hopes for respect and admiration are disappointed once again, because he can’t recognize his needs for what they are. Instead he interprets his every move as following from the great civilizing power of the color, making every opposition to him an opposition to truth itself. Hearst can’t recognize his own need for community. His problem isn’t greed; its lack of self-knowledge.
Thomas Gray (Elegy in a Country Churchyard) would have approved of Bullock's elegaic letter on behalf of the deceased Cornishman. Lovely stuff.
Beautiful piece, Matt. You're Jack to my Al -- articulating what I felt but couldn't express.
rd said, "Hearst’s inability to even start down this process follows from irrationally lashing out when his buried hopes for respect and admiration are disappointed once again, because he can’t recognize his needs for what they are."
I think you're absolutely right about this. If Tolliver is not beyond redemption (though he, like every other person with free will, may choose not to embrace it) then Hearst isn't beyond redemption, either.
Interesting that Milch and company rarely seem to feel hatred and disgust for evil or sociopathic characters; they do feel pity, though. I got the impression that the series felt sorry even for Wolcott, to my mind the nastiest and coldest character the show has ever given us.
Agree about Wolcott. We would see him alone, with the life of the camp swirling around him, and one could sense his longing to be part of it, an example being on the day of the bicycle race. The only times I ever felt sorry for him...
Favorite moment (there seem to be a lot of candidates this week): Langrishe explains to a baffled Swearengen that he suggested printing the letter because it's an assertion of decency -- the camp values human life, even if Hearsy doesn't. Swearengen's responds by exiting his office and ordering his whores to get their legs in the air, which is either a horrified reaction to being called decent or a veiled moment of joy.
Worst, or at least worst-contexualized moment: the Joanie/Jane scene. There's been a little build to this, but just dropping it in the middle of an episode with no prologue or follow-up seemed extremely awkward, and made the sudden burst of physical tenderness between these two damaged women seem as unlikely as Hostetler blowing his head off.
I think the Joanie/Jane kiss has been building for a while. Joanie's tenderness towards Jane has always had a near-palpable sexuality to it, especially when Joanie committed to Jane that as long as she has a place, Jane is welcome to it. I think Charlie Utter is going to be quietly devastated by this, though.
If we have time to see it, that is, 'cause this show is as sadly terminal as Doc Cochran.
The part I disliked the most was Steve The Drunk's surprising offer to the NG. Sure, that character, more than any other on Deadwood, has needed another note to play, but did it have to come so long after his music has turned to white noise? That guy has had way too much screentime; I hope they have a huge payoff for us.
Anyway, lovely analysis, Matt. And RD's read on Hearst is spot-on.
Milch's larger intent finally announced itself: To demonstrate how life feeds writing, and how writing, in turn, shapes life -- by expressing basic truths in language simple enough to move strangers to action. This might seem a tall order in a place as foul as Deadwood. But the assembly's astonished silence after the reading suggested that the impossible had already occurred: One letter had pushed nearly everyone within earshot toward common cause, cementing a civilizing process that had begun in the series pilot.
I wondered why Farnum, and Tolliver were at the meeting, and your passage above, MZS, seems to explain it. All know that Farnum, and Tolliver, are in the pay of Hearst, so why invite them to the meeting where you are going to discuss going up against Hearst?
Nicanor writes: "All know that Farnum, and Tolliver, are in the pay of Hearst, so why invite them to the meeting where you are going to discuss going up against Hearst?"
I think they were invited because they are important citizens in Deadwood, and are therefore invited to sit at the table. Simple as that. To fail to invite them would be detrimental to the common cause -- forming an organized opposition to Hearst. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, etc.
Hayden Childs writes, "Joanie's tenderness towards Jane has always had a near-palpable sexuality to it, especially when Joanie committed to Jane that as long as she has a place, Jane is welcome to it."
I agree completely. That Joanie hesitated to act on that sexual undercurrent is a tribute to her innate decency. She is pure tenderness, though it has taken her a long time to figure it out.
Hayden Childs said: "The part I disliked the most was Steve The Drunk's surprising offer to the NG. Sure, that character, more than any other on Deadwood, has needed another note to play, but did it have to come so long after his music has turned to white noise?"
I actually loved and appreciated this moment, because it humanized Steve. It reminded me, in its crude and cartoonish way, of the Hearst/Odell scene, where Hearst inadvertently revealed his neediness, his buried humanity. Steve is a drunk, racist thug, but deep down, he's terrified of being alone, and will accept anyone's company in lieu of solitude. It felt quite true to me -- as did the N.G.'s utterly noncommital reaction.
Oh, I agree that Steve's moment with the NG wasn't fake. I hated it because I feel like we've endured a hell of a lot of Steve's cartoonishness to get to this moment, and it doesn't seem worth it in retrospect.
"I agree completely. That Joanie hesitated to act on that sexual undercurrent is a tribute to her innate decency. She is pure tenderness, though it has taken her a long time to figure it out."
I agree that Joanie is pure tenderness, but I've never once felt a sexual undercurrent or chemistry or tension between them.
They're incredibly attuned to each other's needs. Jane invited the kiss, believing it's what Joanie wanted. Joanie complied, because it was what Jane needed.
Hell, I don't know. Maybe that's what sexual chemistry is.
auntiepam said: "Hell, I don't know. Maybe that's what sexual chemistry is."
Maybe not the exact definition, but I'd say that's where it often originates -- in empathy, need and nonjudgmental love.
I also think Joanie and Jane have been gradually coming to terms with the fact that they're not really attracted to men -- Joanie's preference was established in Season One, and Jane seemed asexual until she started hanging around Joanie and occasionally revealing a more stereotypically "femme" interior (albiet only occasionally). It's fascinating to see a budding lesbian relationship occur under such incredibly reactionary circumstances; as tough as it would be in, say, the modern-day military, I can't even imagine the ramifications of their feelings for each other in a place like Deadwood, where women are mostly second-class citizens, and female winos (Jane) and ex-prostitutes (Joanie) rank even lower.
Matt said: I also think Joanie and Jane have been gradually coming to terms with the fact that they're not really attracted to men -- Joanie's preference was established in Season One, and Jane seemed asexual until she started hanging around Joanie and occasionally revealing a more stereotypically "femme" interior (albiet only occasionally).
The show has always seemed to define these two's sexuality in terms of the trauma suffered in the past: Jane's withering in the face of Al's sexual-tinted threat in.. Episode 2, I think, and Joanie's history of abuse surfaces reguarly, even in the aformentioned scene.
The show has been pointing this way for a bit, but the way the scene developed surprised me. Full blown (or even half blown) romantic love/lust between the two would have been out of character for both. But, this sort of tenative attempts to meet mutual non-sexual needs through sexuality makes a great deal of sense.
In the Season 1 commentary with Brad Dourif and Robin Weigert, Weigert talked about her research into the historial Jane. Evidently, one of the (I apologize, I have no memory of whom) actresses who played Jane in an old Hollywood romanticized production researched with contemporaries of the historical Jane. She drew some conclusions that she was obviously not able to use in the particular Western she was staring in. Weigert then talked about her conclusions differeing from Milch's, and her own approach splitting the middle. I wonder (and this is pure speculation) if this change from Wild Bill/booze devotion to something else reflects Milch changing his view towards that other one.
Cheers!
Matt, you talk about the dead not being forgotten on the show. I think in the first season, the Indian whose head Al speaks to was the same guy that was being buried by the warrior that attacked Seth as he rode out after Jack McCall.
Josh: Wow. As many times as I've seen the first season episodes, I never made that connection.
testing one two
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