Deadwood is superb television: a Western that makes the struggle to live together as absorbing as the violence. Ian McShane is extraordinary, though the elaborate speeches sometimes make us wish someone would interrupt.
Deadwood takes a question that Westerns can hurry past and spends its time worrying at it: how do people accustomed to getting their way learn to live together? David Milch and his fellow writers begin with a lawless camp and make every attempt to impose order feel suspect. Someone will benefit, and someone will have to pay. The series is superb because it lets us understand those competing interests without making the people who hold them tidy or agreeable. We recommend it even to anyone who normally avoids Westerns.
Ian McShane’s Al Swearengen is the performance to watch first. McShane treats the elaborate language as something a man might actually use while thinking, bullying and trying to get his own way. We laughed at his swearing, then felt uneasy about how readily he had won us over. The obscenities are so precisely delivered that the brutality can briefly seem like part of the entertainment. McShane keeps the danger present, even when he is funny.
Timothy Olyphant, as Seth Bullock, gives McShane something substantial to work against. His more contained performance can initially seem less rewarding, but the contrast keeps the series from becoming an exhibition of entertaining wickedness. Molly Parker’s Alma Garret and Paula Malcomson’s Trixie deserve the same close attention, especially when their scenes deny us the easy pleasure of a commanding speech. John Hawkes, as Sol Star, adds another distinct presence. We become interested in how these people listen as well as what they say.
The town is persuasive before anyone explains who controls it, and Maria Caso’s production design earns much of the credit. It matters that this looks like somewhere the whole ensemble can inhabit; the place has to sustain interest beyond a single confrontation. James Glennon and his fellow cinematographers make faces as worth studying as the town itself. We remain aware of a community around the speakers, which is essential in a series so concerned with who gets heard.
That attention to speech also sets the pace. Freeman A. Davies and the other editors are right to let the exchanges run: the pleasure often lies in hearing someone work towards a threat instead of delivering it immediately. David Schwartz is among the composers, and the music is effective without competing with the cast for our attention. The dialogue supplies much of the rhythm itself. It takes concentration to follow, but listening closely is part of what makes these people so absorbing.
There are costs to that approach, and the opening stretch is slower to repay the effort than what follows. Milch and the writing team occasionally make a speech so elaborate that we start admiring the phrasing instead of attending to the person saying it. Some exchanges need less ceremony, and the abundance of profanity can dull its force. These are real irritations, although they become less troublesome once the ensemble has settled into its rhythm.
The Western often offers the prospect of a clean decision, with somebody drawing a gun and settling the matter. Deadwood is interested in the awkward business of continuing to share a town afterwards. Its violence matters because we have been asked to pay attention to the people living with it, including those who cannot simply take charge. That gives the series a warmth its filthy language might lead us to overlook. Set aside an evening when you can hear every word.
