Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of TV-to-Movie edits. There are shows I’ve wanted to revisit, but don’t necessarily want to devote the bandwidth for an entire season, or shows I’ve skipped altogether due to negative reviews, but decided to check out a more streamlined version and enjoyed the results. This naturally made me a bit curious about the process of putting together an edit like this, and I decided to roll the dice on a project of my own.
I think David Milch’s DEADWOOD is one of the greatest series of all time, a masterwork of language and character with an identity that feels like nothing else. But within this sprawling, layered narrative, is there a particular story that could be pared down into something a bit more straightforward? I think there is, and with that in mind, I’m taking the first half of Season One and focusing on the arrival of Wild Bill Hickok, how his presence informs the relationship between Bullock and Swearengen, and Hickok’s murder and aftermath.
I’m pretty far along in the process already – didn’t want to start a thread until I knew it was something I would see through to the end – and I’m hoping to have a cut ready by the end of the weekend. I don’t have a detailed list of changes, but the broad strokes are as follows:
- removed Brom Garrett and the entire subplot regarding his gold claim
- this also means removing Alma Garrett, as there’s virtually nothing for her to do that doesn’t start with this subplot
- removed most of Ellsworth’s scenes
- much like Alma, there’s little for him to do in the early episodes that doesn’t relate to the gold claim subplot
- greatly reduced the presence of the orphaned Norwegian immigrant, Sofia
- greatly reduced the presence of Cy Tolliver, Joanie Stubbs and anything related to the Bella Union
- also cut the subplot involving E.B. Farnum’s clandestine relationship with the Bella Union staff
- removed the entire plot regarding the smallpox outbreak
- removed Reverend Smith’s illness
- there are still hints that something is amiss, but now we mostly view him from Bullock’s perspective, and Bullock just thinks he’s a religion nut
- numerous small trims throughout to improve pacing and cut around characters or events that don’t serve the main plot
I don’t know how many other DEADWOOD fans are hanging around, but I’m hoping there will be at least a handful of folks interested in checking this out when it’s ready. Feel free to drop some comments, and I’ll be back with an update soon!