Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
David Milch's Deadwood is one of the most acclaimed and beloved dramas in the history of American television—a tapestry of human civilization forming itself from the wilderness, and a bloody, bawdy, profane, and intensely spiritual drama that birthed important acting, writing and filmmaking careers during its three seasons on HBO. Created and assembled by Seitz, a veteran film and TV critic who has been chronicling the series since its debut in 2004, The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon offers a richly detailed and shockingly candid chronicle of the show's origins, production, cancellation, and long-term influence, written in collaboration with Milch's cast, crew, co-producers, family, and friends.
This volume includes:
* A complete account of the life and work of David Milch, co-written by Seitz and Jeremy Fassler, drawing on over 120 original interviews, plus a trove of historical material provided by the Milch family, focusing on the development and production of Deadwood, its cancellation, its artistic influence, and its resurrection as a made-for-TV movie written as its creator was struggling with Alzheimer's disease;
* Critical essays by Seitz on all 36 episodes of Deadwood, Deadwood: The Movie, and Luck, plus analyses by critic Keith Uhlich of Milch's John from Cincinnati;
* Original line-drawings by Max Dalton, Seitz's collaborator on The Wes Anderson Collection and Mad Men Carousel, depicting key moments in Deadwood's story;
* An opening appreciation of Deadwood by critic and novelist Gretchen Felker-Martin;
* An appreciation by Fassler of the series' use of theatrical techniques;
* An analysis by RogerEbert.com critic Odie Henderson of the show's unique use of language;
* An essay by Vox TV critic Emily St. James on the series' themes of reinvention
The first and most complete appreciation of Milch's classic, The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon is guaranteed to please hoopleheads of every stripe.
MZS.Press is the online arts bookstore founded by author, critic, and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz and directed by Judith Carter. It offers new, used, signed, collectible, and rare books on film, TV, music, photography, and the visual arts. The store was launched in 2019 on a different platform and has expanded to incorporate arts books published by MZSPress's private imprint: titles currently include Seitz's The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon and Dreams of Deadwood, about the HBO Western, and Walter Chaw's A Walter Hill Film.
Our deepest wish is to promote, encourage, and distribute work by small presses, academic presses, and individuals. Extraordinary work tends to get swallowed up on giant platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The store's inventory of nearly 1000 volumes is currently in the process of being reconstructed after its relocation from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Dallas, Texas. The titles featured here are personally selected by a group of curators and advisors, including Seitz, Carter, and an array of critics, artists, journalists, educators, publishers, and arts mavens who are known for their ability to suss out what Seitz's jazz musician dad liked to call "the good sh*t."
"I feel comfortable using legal jargon in everyday life... I object!" Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in Legally Blonde, 2001
Matt Zoller Seitz
Critic, Author, Filmmaker, MZS Press Creator
Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large and film critic of RogerEbert.com; Features Writer for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, Contributing Writer for D Magazine and Texas Highways as well as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. His writing on film and TV has appeared in Sight and Sound, The New York Times, Salon.com, The New Republic and Rolling Stone. Seitz is the founder and original editor of the influential film blog The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine.
Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image, Salon.com and Vulture, among other outlets such as Texas Highways and AARP. His five-part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. This book and its follow-up, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand Budapest Hotel were New York Times bestsellers.
Other Seitz books include the New York Times bestsellers The Sopranos Sessions and Mad Men Carousel; TV (The Book), The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, and The Wes Anderson Collection: The French Dispatch. He is also an interviewer, moderator, and film programmer who has curated and hosted film and TV presentations for the Museum of the Moving Image, IFC Center, San Francisco's Roxie Cinema, and other venues. He has launched a Dallas extension of his MZS Film Series at the historic Texas Theater. On October 3-6, 2024 he brought the legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone back to Dallas for a historic return to the city and the Texas Theatre!
Judith is quoted as saying "his hobbies include exotic dancing, moonwalking, and affixing masking tape labels to every food item in the refrigerator, including eggs. Oh and he has the attention span of a gnat." MZS agreed to it all except the moonwalking.