Deadwood

[poliphilo]

The Western has been pronounced dead a whole heap of times. The nineties were a lean period, but they produced Eastwood's Unforgiven- one of the greatest Westerns of any decade.

Now there's Deadwood. Book by David Milch, direction by Walter Hill. No, the western ain't dead yet.

The western has always provided a mythical space in which America can examine its dark, dark heart. Mythical enough for feathers not to be unduly ruffled at the political implications.

I'm trying to decode Deadwood. I'm thinking that the stone-eyed brothel-keeper played by (wonderful, wonderful Britisher) Ian McShane has to be Dick Cheyney. So does that make Wild Bill Hickcok and Calamity Jane the Kerrys?

Hill made a film about Bill and Jane once before. It wasn't very good. Now he's back for another try because he loves them so much. I love them too. I'm not sure about Keith Carradine's Bill- he could be too chiselled for the role- but Robin Swigert's Calamity is a delight. She's ugly, she's drunk, she's filthy and smelly and she strides out of bars saying "I don't drink in places where I'm the only one with balls." But also she cares. There's a woman's heart beating under all that encrusted muck.

Was the old west really this hellish? Did they really call one another cunts and cocksuckers? I dunno. I supect that the "realism" of Deadwood is as ahistorical as Roy Rogers and Trigger. The first director to give us a really filthy-dirty-disgusting Wild West was Sam Peckinpah- and his heretical version has since become the established orthodoxy.

When I was a little kid there was Hopalong Cassidy. Then things got a little more sophisticated and there was Eastwood playing a cow-punching Jimmy Dean in Rawhide. Later I caught up with the classics- meaning mainly John Ford. Then came Leone and Peckinpah and Eastwood again. The 80s produced the odd but adorable Silverado. I've loved them all. And now I really, really want Deadwood to succeed.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

My dad, who was born on the Texas plains in Comanche County in 1915, loved Zane Grey's westerns. He'd take Mother and us children downtown, and while we were out shopping in Penneys and Sears and Woolworths, Dad would pull out the latest Zane Grey he'd bought at the drugstore and happily read in the car. Luckily for Dad, Zane Grey was a prolific writer.

I haven't seen (or heard about) Deadwood, but I'll look for it.

When we were children, we'd go to the Royal Theater and watch Saturday matinees, either bad horror movies or bad westerns--we loved them all. (My brother, the chicken, actually crawled under the seat next to me during a horror movie about a giant tarantula.)

I liked the dusty trails, the sounds of horses running fast, and the fancy riding--leaping from treebranches onto horses, shooting backwards in the saddle. Mike and I would sit in the back and eat Smith Brothers cough drops (5 cents a box) or sunflower seeds. (What WERE we thinking?)

At home with our new Zenith television set, though, it was Davy Crockett that we loved. We had racoon hats.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I loved Davy Crockett and all those guys. Britain imported a lot of western TV series in the 50s and 60s. I never had a coon-skin hat (though I'd have liked one) but I did have a full cowboy outfit with fringed pants and (mock)leather waistcoat. I owned various cap-guns, the pride of my arsenal being a scaled down Winchester rifle with a mechanism for loading and ejecting shells.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I owned various cap-guns, the pride of my arsenal being a scaled down Winchester rifle with a mechanism for loading and ejecting shells.

So did my brother--and all the boys in our neighborhood. I had a cowgirl outfit, and my brother had a full cowboy outfit just as you did. I have a photo of him taking aim at my walking doll with his capgun.

Didn't gunpowder smell great? I loved those little red rolls of caps.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I still love the smell of gunpowder.

I guess most of my generation of little Brits spent several key years desperately wanting to be American.