Except for the sporadic occasional blips on the motion picture radar, the Musical and Western have become all but extinct. The irony behind that reality is that, from the birth of cinema and through its Golden Age, these two powerhouse genres brought the masses to the theater, but after industry-wide excess and relevant pictures, demand for them plummeted. Though the intermittent musical or western pops up on the big screen, those genres are for all intents and purposes, dead.
Not one to shirk from strong and controversial narrative content, HBO, in 2004, premiered one of the greatest Westerns sagas never to hit the big screen, “Deadwood.”.With the ability to build layered programs over a series of time, HBO had the aptitude to gather an audience who wouldn’t normally be interested in westerns by proving inventive genre deconstruction, great characters, excellent writing, and blood-curling acts of violence can hold viewers’ attention. Unfortunately, the show’s run ended prematurely after three seasons, but on Nov. 23 the series become available in the best medium possible: full HD 1080p transfer on Blu-ray with the release of “Deadwood: The Complete Series.”
The historical fiction program documents the birth of Deadwood, a real settlement in South Dakota based around the Gold Rush in the late 1880s. Deadwood, a town of greed and corruption, has a sheriff, Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) but was effectively run by saloon proprietor, Al Swearingen (the great Ian McShane). The town’s evolving character focuses around these men, in addition to other true life personas who ventured into the area such as Wild Bill Hickock (Keith Carradine), Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert) and George Hearst (Gerald McRaney).
Creator and executive producer David Milch revitalized what had been lost by the Western genre by infusing “Deadwood” with modern relevance. The gripping melodrama and hideous brutality combined to form one of the greatest sagas television has ever seen. The just-released Blu-ray sets up the ante by providing the episodes as gorgeous, crystal clear visions along with superb sound quality. It includes all bonus content from previous season releases plus a number of worthwhile featurettes, the most significant being “The Meaning of Endings,” in which Milch discusses what would have happened if the series continued.
With exploding budgets and marketing demands, the Hollywood studios attempt to give audiences exactly what they think they want: pretty much anything but Westerns or Musicals. At this point in time, fans of those genres will have to look to the past to find the best they have to offer. It is with great appreciation and fortune that “Deadwood” happens to fall into that category with this beautiful set. A
Ari Silber is a Loyola MBA student. Before graduate school, he worked for nine years in the Los Angeles film industry, focusing on marketing, publicity and distribution.
Ari Silber can be reached at
