‘Deadwood’: A Postscript Dispatch from the Thoroughfare

One of our favorite things ’round these parts is discovering that someone who worked on a series/film that we loved loves it just as much. Like W. Earl Brown and Deadwood, which should surprise no one.

Brown played Dan Dority on the HBO series across its three seasons, and is returning to the role of right-hand man to Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), proprietor of the Gem Saloon for the upcoming long-promised Deadwood movie. He’s also been one of our best sources of updates on the production, even though HE’S NOT LISTED IN THE OFFICIAL CAST LIST, STILL.

Today, it was a pretty fabulous story about series creator David Milch, and a special gift:

 

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A DISPATCH FROM THE THOROUGHFARE: POST SCRIPT As previous, I will tread lightly so as not to overstep my fucking bounds, being careful not spill a single fucking plot point, design element nor casting notice – aside from verifying my fucking inclusion in said cast, despite its noticeable exclusion in all publicity missives thus far released. Nor shall I indulge in any sort of backstage gossipry about who visited, who played in the background, nor who picked up the guitar on several occasions and serenaded our bunch with some of finest fucking songs to come out of Nashville, Tennessee in the last decade. No, none of that. It is to offer a thanks for upholding a promise and bonding our motley lot through the power of the written word. That being said as preface: During production of the long-awaited DEADWOOD movie, our Maestro, David Milch would begin every morning with words of wisdom which shed a multi-hued light on the day’s work that lay ahead. It was tradition on the series that never was a scene filmed that wasn’t prefaced with Milch explaining its many layers of subtext and the context the scene would play as its part of the whole story. Those lectures were usually off-the-cuff, and those lines of thought would ricochet like bullets off every wall, never failing to find their target; big part of that was that David was creating it wholly in the moment, those words spoken would often be the seeds of the scenes he was yet to write. This time, with the movie, David had put in damned near three years of work creating a finished script. It was a locked script, meaning there would be few, if any, changes once production commenced. So, Dave started every morning, pages in hand with every single person on set huddled around. When the Sage speaks, the ekklesia listens – Hell, even the livestock seemed to hush as Dave spoke. One day, as he was walking off, he handed me the page he had just read from, “Here. If, uh, if want it, or find any value in it, it’s yours. If you want.” Yes. I wanted it. Yes, it holds a tremendous value to me… and forever will. Today, via the United States Postal Service, I received a package. Inside it was a bound book of photographs

A post shared by W Earl Brown (@wearlbrown) on Dec 29, 2018 at 3:59pm PST

A DISPATCH FROM THE THOROUGHFARE: POST SCRIPT
As previous, I will tread lightly so as not to overstep my fucking bounds, being careful not spill a single fucking plot point, design element nor casting notice – aside from verifying my fucking inclusion in said cast, despite its noticeable exclusion in all publicity missives thus far released. Nor shall I indulge in any sort of
backstage gossipry about who visited, who played in the background, nor who picked up the guitar on several occasions and serenaded our bunch with some of finest fucking songs to come out of Nashville, Tennessee in the last decade. No, none of that. It is to offer a thanks for upholding a promise and bonding our motley lot through the power of the written word. That being said as preface:

During production of the long-awaited DEADWOOD movie, our Maestro, David Milch would begin every morning with words of wisdom which shed a multi-hued light on the day’s work that lay ahead. It was tradition on the series that never was a scene filmed that wasn’t prefaced with Milch explaining its many layers of subtext and the context the scene would play as its part of the whole story. Those lectures were usually off-the-cuff, and those lines of thought would ricochet like bullets off every wall, never failing to find their target; big part of that was that David was creating it wholly in the moment, those words spoken would often be the seeds of the scenes he was yet to write. This time, with the movie, David had put in damned near three years of work creating a finished script. It was a locked script, meaning there would be few, if any, changes once production commenced. So, Dave started every morning, pages in hand with every single person on set huddled around. When the Sage speaks, the ekklesia listens – Hell, even the livestock seemed to hush as Dave spoke.

One day, as he was walking off, he handed me the page he had just read from, “Here. If, uh, if want it, or find any value in it, it’s yours. If you want.” Yes. I wanted it. Yes, it holds a tremendous value to me… and forever will.

Today, via the United States Postal Service, I received a package. Inside it was a bound book of photographs

Brown continues the post in a comment, describing the package’s contents:

..and each and every one of Dave’s morning missives.

I ain’t sharing anything inside it, because it’d give away secrets HBO publicity wants fucking kept (they have an official do USMNT that states such, believe me) and some of it is too personal for public forum. However, I will share the words of Robert Penn Warren that have lit the way for David Milch his entire creative life:

Tell me a story
In this century, and moment, of mania,

Tell me a story.

Make it a story of great distances and starlight.

The name of the story will be Time,
But you must not pronounce its name.

Tell me a story of deep delight.

Needless to say, we WISH we could get a glimpse of this collection of Deadwood, and we can’t wait for the film.

We’ll let you know when HBO gives us any hint of when that may be.