恶人谷

在看Deadwood第二季，听到一句太精彩的对白，实在舍不得不拿上来分享：

这集里面镇上的报纸人（唯一的知识分子哈）被人报复砸了家什，十分丧气，说没心情再办下去 "I'm in despair"（敏感脆弱嘛）。主角Al Swearengen问：＂你被人打过吗？＂他说只有一次，去年闹瘟疫时他怕自己得了天花，被医生扇了个耳光。Al这时打了他一耳光，说了段极其精彩的话：

Al: Are you dead?
Merrick: No. I'm in pain but obviously not dead.
Al: And you weren't dead when the doc slapped you, so including[being vendalized] last night that's three f*cking damage incidents that didn't kill you. Pain or damage don't end the world, or despair, or f*cking 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.

I worship the ground Milch walks on.

He's my favorite character in the whole show. Of course, I always fall for those no nonsense no pretense alot of guts and vidid character type. BTW, Rome season 2 is going to start next month, when I was just thinking aobut cancel HBO and Cinemax, because there's no Rome, no Deadwood, no Sopranos

Al Swearengen is easy to love. In a lot of ways he is an extension of Andy Sibowitz in NYPD Blue. However, Milch put the character on the ice at the beginning of Season 2 -- actually put him in serious vulnerability for a few episodes. He said in the commentary that it's easy to turn the series into a "one-trick pony," all about how Al runs the town blah blah blah, and he wanted to clear the stage for other characters a bit. When Al came back from his hiatus we got a fresh look at him and he seemed to have changed a bit too.

Every character is delicious and fantabulous and, most important, consistent and unpredictable. In them, Milch pays homage to precedents ranging from Herman Melville and Henry James to Charles Dickens to the Western dime novels. The fidgetin, neurotic, perpetually moist EB Farnum is perhaps my favorite. I just have to laugh everytime the actor Bill Sanderson opens his mouth.

But my favorite, favorite thing about the show is Milch's distinctive, inimitable, Baroque but effortlessly fluid and florid language, seamlessly sewing together profanity and elegance. Linguistically I have seen no match on TV. Why in the world is he not writing for the stage I simply do not know.

You girls have a bloody taste.
I bought Deadwood for classmate Jun's sake. The conclusion is that I won't buy Rome for general Hua's sake.

Oh. no, you have to see Rome. Rome is a different type of drama, better food and setting and costumes
Another line I liked in Deadwood is when Al told his employee, the plump prostitute, who just served him, "Just because I like you hefty doesn't mean you cannot stand losing a f*cking few pounds." I almost he is speaking to the whole American population as it is now

Neither is particularly bloody, especially if you have seen Mel Gibson's display of sadomasochism in Passion of the Christ and the opening Apocalypto, or similarly sadistic Seven and other movies like it. In these movies, death and suffering are a means of entertainment by exploiting the viewer's primal, physical reaction. One feels a sheer chemical release by watching humans cut up, tortured, shot, blown into pieces, etc., ANONYMOUSLY. It does not go beyond the top of your kidney (adrenal gland).

Deadwood, however, treats violence and killing differently from these movies in that they are meaningful and signficant. Every death has a consequence and effects on the living. In one of the first episodes, the character Bullock (supposed good guy), kills an Indian who attacks him. And the resonance of this death lasts well into the next few episodes and in some way changes the character a little as a person. Wild Bill Hicock's death continues to haunt the town through the third season. No death is anonymous and indifferent. There is deep humanity in the death of even a passerby who is on screen for no more than one or two episodes.

Rome is more bloody, but every bit of the violence also serves a purpose other than exploitation of the physical reaction of excitement and release. Rome is also a fascinating anthropological study with incredibly well written characters.

I have long wanted to write an analysis to compare Rome and Deadwood in their thematic similarities and differences, but I suppose no one besides General would even read it. Both are fantastic work that you rarely see in the entertainment products. I have a little more fondness for Deadwood, probably because I'm such a "Word Nerd."

I have long wanted to write an analysis to compare Rome and Deadwood in their thematic similarities and differences, but I suppose no one besides General would even read it.

Jun, please write it if you have time. I'm very interested in it. Just finished the first season of Deadwood. It's really good. Still waiting for the Rome.

我也想看。rome就出来了？不是要到2月份？