To Have Done With The Judgement Of Others
Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair - or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man . . . and give some back.
Showing posts with label Deadwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deadwood. Show all posts
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Monday, August 20, 2007
King Of The Cocksuckers
Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) - Deadwood, 2004-6
'Swearengen's swarthy brute-ness and intelligent charm clearly relates him to some famous literary figures, most obviously Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff but also Oliver Twist's Bill Sikes. In casting McShane, Deadwood acknowledges this heritage physically: compare him, for example, with Robert Newton or Oliver Reed playing Sikes in Oliver Twist (Lean, 1948) and Oliver! (Reed, 1968). However, these figures, while not exactly one-dimensional, do not have the complexity of Swearengen. As David Ellison argues, it is important to acknowledge that Swearengen represents a "fusion of characteristics that Dickens could only distribute across characters. In other words, Swearengen is Sikes in all of his brute menace but he is also Fagin - a super-adaptive, improvisational opportunist with a dab line in self-parody." In this way, one of the major achievements of Deadwood lies in Milch's discovery of McShane's ability to nuance a British kind of villainy: one that references but also transcends (Americanizes?) the binary tic of Victorian psychology that opposes, say, Heathcliff against Edgar, Jekyll/Hyde, Picture/Dorian, Jack the Ripper/Prince Albert. [The] fortuitous casting of McShane Swearengen (the real Al was born in Iowa) allowed David Milch to articulate and realize a depth to Swearengen that not only enhanced the vividness of a real historical character but was also to overcome one of the pervasive oddities of nineteenth-century British literary characterization....Al Swearengen, as played by McShane, is a philosophic intervention into the nature of characterization itself.'
From Al Swearengen, Philosopher King by Jason Jacobs.
'Swearengen's swarthy brute-ness and intelligent charm clearly relates him to some famous literary figures, most obviously Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff but also Oliver Twist's Bill Sikes. In casting McShane, Deadwood acknowledges this heritage physically: compare him, for example, with Robert Newton or Oliver Reed playing Sikes in Oliver Twist (Lean, 1948) and Oliver! (Reed, 1968). However, these figures, while not exactly one-dimensional, do not have the complexity of Swearengen. As David Ellison argues, it is important to acknowledge that Swearengen represents a "fusion of characteristics that Dickens could only distribute across characters. In other words, Swearengen is Sikes in all of his brute menace but he is also Fagin - a super-adaptive, improvisational opportunist with a dab line in self-parody." In this way, one of the major achievements of Deadwood lies in Milch's discovery of McShane's ability to nuance a British kind of villainy: one that references but also transcends (Americanizes?) the binary tic of Victorian psychology that opposes, say, Heathcliff against Edgar, Jekyll/Hyde, Picture/Dorian, Jack the Ripper/Prince Albert. [The] fortuitous casting of McShane Swearengen (the real Al was born in Iowa) allowed David Milch to articulate and realize a depth to Swearengen that not only enhanced the vividness of a real historical character but was also to overcome one of the pervasive oddities of nineteenth-century British literary characterization....Al Swearengen, as played by McShane, is a philosophic intervention into the nature of characterization itself.'
From Al Swearengen, Philosopher King by Jason Jacobs.
Friday, June 08, 2007
The Philosopher of Fightin', Fuckin' 'n' Fartin'
'Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man...and give some back.'
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Deadwood: David's Inferno
Deadwood (2004-2006) - created by David Milch
Al Swearengen
The proprietor of The Gem Saloon was six months ahead of everyone else in Deadwood, and he runs the town like a corrupt riverboat captain. He knows every move that every person in town makes, anticipates problems and eliminates them. His girls aren't exactly the class of the town, but he controls the most successful bar and whorehouse in all of Deadwood - bringing in $5,000 a day in 1876 - and anybody that threatens his sources of income may well end up fed to Mr. Wu's pigs.
Tim Driscoll, who helped facilitate Al's swindle of the city dude Brom Garret, met such a fate, as did Persimmon Phil, who deeds as a road agent brought too much attention to Al's enterprise. Garret himself was killed at Al's behest, though Swearengen eventually abandoned his efforts to retake the Garret claim. And when Mr. Wu came to Al to avenge a murdered opium courier, the saloon boss took care of things by personally drowning the guilty junky.
But Al's hands-on approach has earned him some enemies, and his main commercial rival, Cy Tolliver - proprietor of the more upscale Bella Union - is exploiting the Wu situation to fuel a full-on race war in Deadwood. Al suspects Tolliver of trying to expand his turf.
With outsiders expressing an interest in the wealthy outpost and government soldiers threatening to bring civilization to town, Al is under siege from several directions. And when the territory's magistrate threatens him with an outstanding murder warrant from Chicago, Al decides that the official is not to leave Deadwood alive.
For all his Mephistophelean qualities, Swearengen does have a soft spot for certain people, including the whore Trixie, Jewel, his handicapped house servant, and the brain-addled Reverend Jim, whom Al was forced to euthanize.
From HBO's Deadwood web site.
"Trust. Hell of a way to operate, huh?...Then all the ins and outs of gettin' killed...Every fuckin' beating I'm grateful for. Every fuckin' one of them. Get all the trust beat outa ya...Then you know what the fuckin' world is."
Al Swearengen (Ian McShane - above, far right)(Deadwood, Episode Three - 'Reconnoitering the Rim': w. Jody Worth, d. Davis Guggenheim)
Al Swearengen
The proprietor of The Gem Saloon was six months ahead of everyone else in Deadwood, and he runs the town like a corrupt riverboat captain. He knows every move that every person in town makes, anticipates problems and eliminates them. His girls aren't exactly the class of the town, but he controls the most successful bar and whorehouse in all of Deadwood - bringing in $5,000 a day in 1876 - and anybody that threatens his sources of income may well end up fed to Mr. Wu's pigs.
Tim Driscoll, who helped facilitate Al's swindle of the city dude Brom Garret, met such a fate, as did Persimmon Phil, who deeds as a road agent brought too much attention to Al's enterprise. Garret himself was killed at Al's behest, though Swearengen eventually abandoned his efforts to retake the Garret claim. And when Mr. Wu came to Al to avenge a murdered opium courier, the saloon boss took care of things by personally drowning the guilty junky.
But Al's hands-on approach has earned him some enemies, and his main commercial rival, Cy Tolliver - proprietor of the more upscale Bella Union - is exploiting the Wu situation to fuel a full-on race war in Deadwood. Al suspects Tolliver of trying to expand his turf.
With outsiders expressing an interest in the wealthy outpost and government soldiers threatening to bring civilization to town, Al is under siege from several directions. And when the territory's magistrate threatens him with an outstanding murder warrant from Chicago, Al decides that the official is not to leave Deadwood alive.
For all his Mephistophelean qualities, Swearengen does have a soft spot for certain people, including the whore Trixie, Jewel, his handicapped house servant, and the brain-addled Reverend Jim, whom Al was forced to euthanize.
From HBO's Deadwood web site.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
