Deadwood Milch
Deadwood Milch
Deadwood Milch
In
a
documentary
(“How
It
All
Began”)
on
the
Season
One
DVDs
of
Seinfeld,
co‐creator
Jerry
Seinfeld
reminisces
about
the
conception
of
the
tremendously
successful
NBC
sitcom
named
after
him.
As
is
so
often
the
case
in
the
medium,
it
seems
in
retrospect
highly
unlikely
that
such
a
phenomenal
series
ever
happened.
Seinfeld
might
have
been
sui
generis.
“The
idea
that
you
have
two
guys
[Seinfeld,
Larry
David]
who
have
never
written
a
show,
being
run
by
a
network
executive
that
had
never
had
a
show,
leading
to
a
show
that
has
a
unique
and
unusual
feel—this
is
a
model
that
all
the
networks
subsequently
ignored
and
never
did
again—except
for
HBO.”
In
order
to
produce
its
branded
“Not
TV”
television,
HB0
has
developed
a
new
method
of
engendering
shows,
one
Seinfeld
thinks,
perhaps
grandiosely,
he
had
helped
to
originate.
For
HBO
“hires
people
that
they
like
and
says
that’s
the
end
of
their
job.
We
like
you;
do
what
you
think
you
should
do,
and
it
leads
to
much
more
distinctive
programming.”
The
matchless,
“hideously
beautiful”
(McCabe,
see
below),
astonishing,
“filthy
joy”
(Jacobs,
see
below)
of
a
television
series
this
book
considers
came
into
the
world
when
its
creator
David
Milch
(Hill
Street
Blues,
NYPD
Blue)
was
invited
by
HBO
to
propose
a
project
for
their
consideration.
Similar,
unrefusable
offers
to
long‐time
network
veteran
David
Chase
(The
Rockford
Files,
I’ll
Fly
Away,
Northern
Exposure)
and
film
screenwriter
Alan
Ball
(American
Beauty)
had
brought
about
the
stupendously
successful
The
Sopranos
and
the
one‐of‐a‐kind
Six
Feet
Under
The Collected Works of David Lavery 2
respectively.
In
collaboration
with
the
influential
producer
Steven
Bochco,
Milch
had
reimagined
the
ensemble
drama
with
Hill
Street
Blues
(NBC,
1981‐1987).
Working
again
with
Bochco
on
the
tremendously
controversial
NYPD
Blue
(1993‐2005),
a
series
that
may
have
resurrected
the
hour
drama,
he
expanded
the
parameters
of
network
television
narrative,
introducing
profane
language
and
posterior
nudity
and
making
an
alcoholic,
racist
cop,
modeled
1
after
Milch’s
own
father,
the
series’
central
character.
Along
the
way,
he
had
won
numerous
awards
for
his
work,
including
2
multiple
Emmys
and
Humanitas
Prizes.
Milch
seemed
a
perfect
candidate
to
create
a
show
on
the
censorship‐free
premium
cable
channel.
A
former
Yale
University
creative
writing
professor
who
had
left
academe
to
seek
his
fortune
in
Hollywood
because
an
Ivy
League
salary
could
not
sufficiently
support
his
heroin
addictions,
alcoholism,
and
gambling
habits,
Milch
has
long
felt
a
certain
experiential
affinity
for
the
symbiotic
relationship
of
cop
and
criminal
and
3
understandably
pitched
HBO
another
police
drama,
this
one
set
not
in
Los
Angeles
or
New
York,
but
in
Rome—at
the
time
of
Nero
(54‐68
A.D.),
a
series
that,
Milch
1
“Except to the extent I reenact certain aspects of my father’s nature,
I think it’s closer to the truth to say Sipowicz’s personality is more like my
dad’s” (Milch 149).
2
A complete list of Milch’s award nominations can be found here:
http://imdb.com/name/nm0586965/awards.
3
“Is it strange for you, knowing that you have such a huge following of
cops in New York who love [NYPD Blue], and you coming from this history of
heroin abuse and time spent in jail? Is it kind weird for you?,” Laura Schiff
asked the “Phi Beta Cop” (Longworth) Milch, who acknowledges “I was a
criminal” and answers “No.”
confirms
in
several
interviews,
would
have
begun
with
the
arrest
of
St.
Paul.
Already
committed
to
the
new
series
Rome
which
would
air
in
the
United
States
in
2005,
an
innovative
new
joint
production
with
the
BBC,
HBO
declined,
but
Chris
Albrecht
and
Carolyn
Strauss
invited
another
proposal
from
Milch—perhaps
one
that
would
explore
similar
themes
in
a
different
setting.
Deadwood
was
the
result.
Milch
is
credited
as
writer
of
only
two
of
the
Deadwood’s
twenty
four
episodes
(The
Pilot
and
Part
I
of
“A
Lie
Agreed
Upon”),
while
a
largely
invisible
team
of
a
dozen
writers,
several
of
whom
had
worked
with
Milch
on
earlier
series,
4
authored
the
other
twenty
two,
but
the
official
authorship
credits
do
not
seem
to
reflect
the
unique
nature
of
Deadwood’s
creation
as
depicted
in
various
news
accounts
(Wolk,
Havrilesky,
Singer,
D’Alessandro)
and
in
the
documentaries
(“The
New
Language
of
the
Old
West,”
“An
Imaginative
Reality”)
and
episode
commentaries
on
the
Season
One
DVDs.
It
is
not
unusual,
of
course,
for
a
network
or
cable
series
with
a
team
of
writers
to
work
together
with
a
creator/executive
producer/showrunner
who
gets
to
do
the
final
draft
of
virtually
every
script:
Chris
Carter
on
The
X‐Files,
Chase
on
The
Sopranos,
Joss
Whedon
on
Buffy
the
Vampire
Slayer—all
exemplify
such
a
process,
each
seeking
to
maintain,
given
this
singular
opportunity
for
quality
control
in
a
4
John Belluso, Regina Corrado, Sara Hess, Ricky Jay, Victoria Morrow,
George Putnam, Steve Shill authored one episode each; Malcolm MacRury
Bryan McDonald have written two), Ted Mann did three), and Elizabeth
Sarnoff and Jody Worth are credited with four episodes each.
The Collected Works of David Lavery 4
medium
usually
considered
more
conducive
to
the
writer’s
craft
than
the
movies,
his
creation’s
signature
voice.
Unlike
most
creators,
Milch
has
never
directed
a
single
episode
of
Deadwood
(or
of
any
of
his
earlier
series
for
that
matter),
but
his
influence
is
not
limited
to
the
script.
We
know
that
he
prepares
his
actors
at
rehearsal
in
a
manner
comparable
to
that
of
the
great
directors—as
Molly
Parker
and
Keith
Carradine
acknowledge
in
their
commentary
on
“Here
Was
a
Man.”
In
Entertainment
Weekly’s
insightful
report
on
“How
the
West
is
Run,”
we
catch
a
glimpse
of
Milch
carefully
modulating—
directing?—Mr.
Wu’s
“cocksuckers,”
asking
for
the
expletive
to
be
“more
plaintive
than
angry”
(Wolk
68).
Wolk
reports,
too,
that
Deadwood’s
actors
listen
to
“long
preparatory
lectures
about
context
and
subtext,
dappled
with
historical
metaphors
to
explain
the
many
levels
he’s
aiming
for”
(70).
Singer
speaks
of
the
“typical
Milchian
riff,
a
garrulous
but
lucid
stream
of
subtextual
information—intellectually
daunting,
digressive,
arcane,
wittily
profane
.
.
.”
(192).
According
to
Ian
McShane
(Al
Swearengen),
the
subject
of
the
“polymathic”
(Wolk
70)
former
college
professor’s
impromptu
orations
th
is
more
likely
to
concern
“19 ‐century
Germany
economics”
than
the
upcoming
scene.
Wolk
describes
“Milch’s
“blitzkrieg
form
of
creativity”
in
which
“scenes
are
written
the
day
before
shooting,
leaving
his
cast
and
crew
as
dizzily
uncertain
about
their
futures
as
a
frontiersman
in
an
untamed
land”
(68‐69).
As
validation
of
his
own
creative
method
he
quotes
fondly,
on
several
occasions,
his
father’s
admonition
that
“If
you
want
to
hear
God
laugh,
tell
him
your
plans”;
Milch
prefers
to
work
without
them.
Script
outlines,
preplanned
story
arcs:
It’s
all
anathema
to
Milch,
whose
last‐
minute,
improvisatory
writing
style
is
a
conscious
decision
to
write
unconsciously.
.
.
5
.
When
he
dictates
a
scene,
he
has
no
endgame
in
mind—he
simply
begins
with
a
situation,
then
channels
the
characters,
letting
them
speak
through
him.
.
.
.
But
once
he’s
finally
imagined
a
scene,
he’ll
never
start
over,
as
this
would
be
an
untenable
slight
against
his
imagination.
(Wolk
69)
In
his
insightful
conversations
with
Carradine
on
the
Season
One
DVDs,
Milch
speaks
fervently,
with
a
tone
that
might
be
deemed
pious,
about
the
sense
of
5
As Milch himself (as well has several set visitors and actors) note
Milch “doesn’t write scenes; he dictates them,, the lines subsequently
appearing on a large computer monitor in front of him. He’ll often repeat
sentences sometimes shuffling and rejiggering the words in the show’s early
American, profane patois until he gets the rhytm right” (Wolf 69)
The Collected Works of David Lavery 5
privilege
he
feels
in
taking
“part
in
a
sacrament”
(“New
Language”),
insisting
that
6
“the
muse
knows
where
to
find
me
every
morning.”
And
yet
Milch
does
not
operate
under
any
Romantic
notion
that
if
“Poetry
comes
not
as
naturally
as
the
Leaves
to
a
tree
it
had
better
not
come
at
all"
(Keats
318).
With
characteristic
erudition,
he
cites
(“An
Imaginative
Reality”)
the
famous
example
of
the
German
chemist
Kekule
who,
after
years
of
study
and
research,
came
by
a
solution
to
the
long‐standing
question
of
the
structure
of
the
benzene
molecule
7
in
a
dream
(Koestler
169‐71)
and
insists
that
“visions
come
to
prepared
spirits.”
His
immediate
preparation
for
Deadwood
included
reading
virtually
every
issue
of
The
Black
Hills
Pioneer,
steeping
himself
in
the
history
of
the
American
West,
the
gold
rush,
and
Deadwood
itself,
and
revisiting
the
Western
genre,
with
which
he
had
only
a
passing
familiarity
prior
to
creating
Deadwood.
In
his
conversation
with
Heather
Havrilesky,
Milch
admits
his
relative
ignorance
of
the
genre.
Having
grown
up,
uninterested
in
the
Western,
in
the
days
of
Hopalong
Cassidy
and
the
Cisco
Kid,
he
managed
to
“remain
innocent
of
the
classical
westerns”
that
followed.
His
latter‐day
research
into
the
form
in
his
preparation
for
Deadwood
led
him
to
a
typically
Milchian
complex
understanding
of
the
cultural
forces
at
work
in
the
genre.
The
western
film
“had
everything
to
do
with
what
Hollywood
was
about
at
that
time,
and
nothing
to
do
with
what
the
West
was
about.”
The
Western
as
we
know
it
was
“really
an
artifact
of
the
Hays
Production
Code
of
the
'20s
and
'30s”
and
not
about
the
West.
Heavily
influenced
by
“middle‐European
Jews
who
had
come
out
to
Hollywood
to
present
to
America
a
sanitized
heroic
idea
of
what
America
was.
.
.
.
an
America
disinfected
and
pure.”
“Working
in
network
television,”
Milch
tells
Havrilesky,
was
very
like
working
under
the
Hays
Code.
“You
can
spend
your
time
pissing
and
moaning
about
the
strictures
within
which
you're
forced
to
work,
or
you
can
try
and
find
ways
to
neutralize
the
distorting
effect
of
those
strictures,
which
is
to
develop
personalities
[or]
characters
whose
own
internal
process
winds
up
at
the
same
place
as
the
external
strictures,
but
for
internal
reasons.”
Milch’s
extraordinary
creation
NYPD
Blue’s
Andy
Sipowicz,
an
alcoholic,
racist
detective,
who,
in
the
series’
twelve
years
on
the
air
struggles
to
become
a
worthwhile
human
being
and
acquire
a
soul
6
Milch is alluding to lines attributed to director Billy Wilder (Singer
195).
7
Milch attributes these words to Kekule, but he would appear to be
alluding to the oft-quoted observation of another 19th Century scientist, Louis
Pasteur, who said that “Where observation is concerned, chance favours only
the prepared mind” (Knowles).
The Collected Works of David Lavery 6
(Lavery),
exemplifies
such
a
narrative
strategy.
Because
“[e]very
storyteller
works
within
the
conventions
of
his
time,”
however,
the
Hays
Code
produced
a
different
result:
“stoic
characters
who
lived
by
a
code
and
then
a
kind
of
justifying
dramatic
structure
which
validated
that.”
Milch’s
preparations
to
make
“reality
come
alive”
in
his
imagination
so
he
might
make
Deadwood
didn’t
just
include
his
very
professorial
research
into
history
and
context.
“I’ve
spent
decades
learning
my
craft,”
he
tells
Carradine.
The
influence
of
Robert
Penn
Warren
(beautifully
articulated
in
Joe
Millichap’s
contribution
to
this
book),
his
wide
reading
(in
interviews
Milch
routinely
makes
reference
to
a
wide
variety
of
writers
and
books,
from
the
Bible
to
Shakespeare,
Hawthorne,
Santayana,
William
and
Henry
James,
Nathanael
West),
his
work
on
Hill
Street
Blues
and
NYPD
Blue,
even
his
numerous
failed
series
(Capital
News,
Big
Apple,
Brooklyn
South)—all
made
Deadwood
possible.
Milch’s
creation
is
rich
in
character‐based
humor
(the
oleaginous
E.
B.
Farnum
might
be
funnier
than
any
sitcom
character
now
on
TV);
scatological
(what
other
show
has
depicted
the
passing
of
kidney
stones,
the
suppression
of
a
“digestive
crisis,”
the
“situating”
of
phlegm?);
macabre
(Woo’s
Pigs
are
extremely
well
fed);
articulately
profane
(see
John
Allan
Bridge’s
consideration
of
Deadwood’s
language
8
on
the
book’s
website) ;
unpredictably
observant
(receiving
a
blowjob
from
Dolly,
Al
exclaims,
looking
down,
“Do
you
dye
your
hair?”);
wonderfully
Shakespearean
(the
series
is
full
of
monologues
and
soliloquies:
Al’s
to
Dolly,
The
Chief;
E.
B.’s
to
the
imbecilic
Richardson
and
a
blood‐stained
floor;
Charley’s
and
Jane’s
to
the
grave
of
Wild
Bill);
graced
by
minor
and
mid‐major
characters
(Ellsworth,
Dan
Dority,
Jewell,
Johnny
Burns,
Mr.
Wu,
Tom
Nuttal,
Con
Stapleton,
Silas
Adams,
Blazanov,
Andy
Cramed)
beautifully
realized
and
three
dimensional;
rudely,
crudely,
and
perfectly
in
9
keeping
with
the
both
the
era
and
Milch’s
world
view,
not‐politically
correct
(racism,
Indian‐hating,
anti‐semitism,
sexism,
in
word
and
brutal
deed,
are
all
Deadwood
realities,
part
of
its
“reckless
verisimilitude”
(see
the
Ellroy
epigraph
to
Wright
and
Hailin
Zhou’s
essay
in
this
volume).
In
its
elaborate,
intricate,
“cold‐
blooded”
reconnoitering
of
a
place
and
a
time,
Deadwood
reminds
this
viewer
at
8
Perfectly capturing Deadwood’s water cooler public fame, a New
Yorker cartoon shows a road sign on which we read “DEADWOOD 25——-
MILES.”
9
“For me,” Milch has insisted, “democracy is a patent delusion. It’s an
ideal, but this society is far from democratic, nor can it be. The idea in
America, even as the Declaration of Independence was put forward—‘We hold
these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal’—that was
bullshit” (Schiff 6).
The Collected Works of David Lavery 7
least
of
the
work
of
William
Faulkner,
who
once
scrawled
on
a
map
(included
in
Absalom,
Absalom
[1936])
of
his
brainchild,
the
“fictional”
Yoknapatawpha
County,
“William
Faulkner,
Sole
Owner
&
Proprietor.”
Given
the
collaborative
nature
of
television
creativity,
the
world
of
a
series
can
never
be
solely
owned,
but
make
no
mistake:
David
Milch
is
Deadwood’s
proprietor.
“It’s
not
by
any
virtue
that
I
have
received
a
gift,”
Milch
insists.
“It’s
an
accident.
But
the
crime
would
be
not
to
be
respectful
of
it”
(“An
Imaginative
Reality”).
Cast
and
crew
on
the
films
of
the
late
Federico
Fellini
spoke
of
“the
daily
miracle”
(Fellini:
I’m
a
Born
Liar)
of
working
with
the
constantly
improvising
“Maestro.”
By
all
reports,
the
creation
of
Deadwood,
Milch’s
masterpiece,
decades
in
the
making,
has
been
similarly
miraculous.