E-mail a friendDavid Milch
airdate March 31, 2004
Emmy-winning writer David Milch's TV success marked the end of his academic career. For nine years, he was a lecturer at Yale. He also co-authored several college textbooks on literature. A script Milch wrote for Hill Street Blues began a long writing association with Steven Bochco, with whom he co-created NYPD Blue. Milch exec produced HBO's Western drama series, Deadwood, and his latest series, also on HBO, is John from Cincinnati, described by some as "the show that could replace The Sopranos."
David Milch
Tavis: David Milch is a very talented and prolific writer and producer whose credits include such acclaimed TV dramas as 'Hill Street Blues' and 'NYPD Blue'--you like the color blue, I guess--a show he helped create along with Steven Bochco. He's traded the gritty streets of urban America for the lawless plains of the Old West in his new series 'Deadwood.' The show airs Sunday nights on HBO. Here is a scene from 'Deadwood.'
Charlie Utter. You got some mighty clammy hands there, partner.
Damp palms run in my family. Here to prospect, Mr. Hickok? Or on other business?
I'm here to get a room.
Uh, could we get 2? We're worn out lookin' at each other.
Separate rooms. I'll arrange that by tomorrow, but today I can't fix it...unless you kill a guest. Ha ha ha!
Tavis: Ha ha ha! Very funny. David, nice to see you.
David Milch: Good to see you again.
Tavis: What a difference a year or two makes. I had the pleasure of meeting you a couple of years ago on a panel that I was moderating that you were one of the stars of, and now here you are on my show. I'm glad to have you.
David: I feel lucky to be here.
Tavis: I feel lucky to have you, so it's a mutual admiration society. Let me start--I could do this at the end or I could do it at the beginning. Let's just do it at the beginning and get it out of the way. Thank you for giving me a clip that I could actually air on PBS. You know where I'm going with this, don't you?
David: It took 3 people 4 days to find one.
Tavis: Ha ha ha! 3 people 4 days to find a clip that I could air without a bunch of bad language in it. You're gettin'--I mean, people love the show. And let me say congratulations, not just on the show. 2 episodes, and you get picked up. 2 episodes, they've already picked you up for a second season.
David: Well, that's HBO, you know? They are very decisive and very supportive. In fact, you and I, both being in the same business, have so much experience with irresolution on the part of the bosses, and these people--
Tavis: That's a nice way to put it--irresolution.
David: Yes. That took me 3 days, too.
Tavis: Ha ha ha! As opposed to stonewalling or recalcitrant. I like that word--irresolution. So congratulations on being picked up after 2 episodes, but back to this earlier point I was making. What do you make of the--you're getting critical acclaim, no question about that, but a lot of people are saying, 'David, this language.'
David: Yeah, and I don't blame 'em because the language is rough. And I spent so much time researching the project, and language is precious, obviously, when you're trying to tell a story, and particularly when you're trying to create a reality for the viewer about a world which is different from the viewer's own experience. That's the way they talked, and they were outcasts and they were criminals.
This was a criminal camp. It was on land that was stolen from the Indians. There was no government. There was no law, by design. And you know that an outcast group tends to develop its own language and specialized meanings for words which it has in common with the dominant culture. And the primary sources, all without exception, state you could not believe the way these people talked. H.L. Mencken wrote a book called 'The American Language,' in which he devoted a specific chapter to the profanity of the West. So, it also seemed to me that, because we associate a particular kind of sanitized language with the western, and this was not going to be a western like other westerns, that it was particularly important to get the language right.
Tavis: So what you're telling me is that John Wayne wasn't keepin' it real.
David: Uh, I think when he went home at night, he probably kept it good and real.
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha! Let me ask you--just from talking about language, and you are so up on this--what are your thoughts-- I'm just curious, so indulge me, if you will--what are your thoughts on this whole FCC issue of late? They have really gotten--
David: Yeah.
Tavis: You know, they're a little prickly these days.
David: Is this an election year?
Tavis: Good question. I think it is an election year. What do you make of this whole controversy? The FCC's on everybody's butt these days.
David: Yeah, and I think that, uh, from the FCC's point of view, it has to do with--it's good press, uh, because they are perceived as sort of the hand puppet of the administration in terms of deregulation and so forth. And the people who are holding the hearings tend to hold these hearings every 4 years, which is not to say that a genuine issue is not involved.
I think that the irresponsible, the kind of promiscuous use of profanity and titillation is something that's a genuine issue in society, and the way that it's being handled on television is because every form of behavior is turned into an article of commerce to the extent that you can sell whatever you're selling by titillating an audience, that that stuff is used. But I think the political demagoguery that's associated with this--there's no more chance that they are going to regulate language unless it's a gesture that the bosses in our business have agreed to beforehand. It just isn't gonna happen. This is--this is a show. That's gonna make me popular.
Tavis: Yeah, well...ha ha ha. It's out there now. I promise not to rerun it after tonight. Let me ask you--I'm always fascinated, David, at the opportunity to get in the heads of people I consider geniuses, and you are a genius at what you do.
David: You're very kind.
Tavis: On this show tomorrow night, we'll talk about Marvin Gaye, you know, all these many years after his tragic death-- 20 years, in fact--but talk to me, because you've talked so openly about it in the past, about what it is about the great ones and whether or not that greatness is in part brought out by flirting with, playing around with, abusing drugs. You've talked very openly about it. Marvin Gaye had his own demons. But the guy was a genius. You've had problems in the past, I mean, it's because I don't do drugs, that means I'm not a genius?
David: No. No. You are a genius and you're doing an awful lot of good, but that's another conversation. But the--no, I gotta tell you. I watched a program you did. It was kind of a consciousness-raising or what Kierkegaard would have called up-building. And the spirit moved in there. That was great.
Tavis: I appreciate that.
David: I think that people who have less of a stake in the given reality, risk-takers, are drawn to experimentation. They feel less inhibited, and oftentimes they feel driven to an alternative reality. I think that one doesn't create because one takes drugs. I think one creates in spite of it. Saint Ignatius said whom the devil would tempt, he tells not a lie but a lesser truth. Drugs are a lesser truth.
And I believe that they're... And Jung said that spirits--there is spirit--and there are spirits and that spirits are offered to us by the devil as a shortcut to reaching out to God...but that the indwelling with the spirit is achieved by humility. We're looking for ego-suppression in either case. And so creativity, I think, is a separate process, but what happens is we associate--I used to say, 'Well, I can't quit smoking because I wouldn't be able to write. I can't quit drinking because I wouldn't be able to write. I can't quit dope because I wouldn't be able to write.'
Tavis: You're a genius. I'm out of time.
David: You can quit it all.
Tavis: No, no. I wanna talk off-camera. Don't move. I feel sorry for you guys. I'm gonna get some more of this good stuff in a second off-camera. Congratulations on 'Deadwood.' Nice to see you, David.
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