#!@%!! Deadwood!!!

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brianluce

Carbonite Member
I've been looking at this HBO series Deadwood which apparently has a big cult following. Was wondering what some of you thought of the use of profanity. I can't see what they gain from it. I find it difficult to watch. Tarantino seems to have fun with profanity, but this stuff is just vulgar. It's frustrating because minus the cursing, the dialog is extraordinary.

So for any Deadwood fans out there, what's your take on the dialog?
 
I always scratched my head at the profanity, but the writers swore up and down that it was period-accurate.

It neither adds to, nor detracts from the quality of the show, for me. Where the dialog doesn't consist of expletives, it's brilliantly written.
 
Guess it's so consistent and creates a tone that invokes another world and time for me. Better than stilted accents, which so many directors use to evoke times in the past. Oh, speaking of which, tried to watch 10,000 BC. I didn't know early humans spoke with fake British accents. Just terrible.

Anyhow, the profanity worked for me in terms of character and tone. I love Deadwood.
 
Deadwood was an incredible showcase for the actors and a guilty pleasure for their fans. That collision of 19th century Elizabethan formality and rough-and-tumble frontier obsenity was just a small part of what made it all work so well. The language is just a small aspect - call it a hook - of what brought such a rabid base of viewers to Deadwood. Tarantino does the same in his pictures. It is a show for grown-ups, to be certain.

I've had a running interest in the folklore of Deadwood since I performed in the stage play melodrama, Deadwood Dick,in high-school. The fact that many of the characters really existed and that the show went so far in developing them as people is another part of what drew viewers.

If you didn't know everything about Swearengen or Calamity Jane or E.B. Farnum, you kept coming back each week to try to discover more. Very few shows ever accomplish this.

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I agree that as it went on, they got a little heavy-handed with the dialog. Though the characters were well worth it. It is an amazing show. Really amazing.

I guess I never get this whole "profanity" thing people seem to have. A thread came up in the timefest forum about this too. I just don't separate those words from all of the other words in the English Language. It always takes me aback a little when someone takes note of "cursing" or profanity.

Maybe I just cuss a lot...
 
Strange that the foul-mouthed ensemble of John From Cinncinatti could do nothing to save that one from the ax.

It just goes to show that audiences are fickle and you have to have some sort of a story or conflict or characters of interest to hook the viewer. At least there was a narrative line you could follow in Deadwood.

Yeah, I got the show, but nobody gave a **** at the end of the day. You would think it would've been a home run. Maybe it's because nobody talks like that in San Diego. ****, all the San Diegans I know can barely put together a sentence that doesn't revolve around a blended coffee drink or booze / pot or surfing or not having a job or car insurance.

Ah... I miss PB. Which, is, of course, the part of town that JFC was based upon.

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They changed the language somewhat from what I understand to give it the same level of punch it had back then. What in tarnation would have made some people wince back then, for instance. Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant, Brad Dourif... all the actors/characters on that show just ruled.
 
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