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Daniel Knauf opens up about Carnivàle

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blainethemono

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http://www.avclub.com/articles/daniel-knauf-opens-up-about-carnivales-long-weird,92780/

Daniel Knauf had a couple of small credits to his name—a TV movie here, a stint on Wolf Lake there—when he managed to sell the intricate Great Depression-era genre show Carnivàle to HBO. The series, an intricate blend of meticulously researched period detail and secret-history fantasy, purported to tell the tale of what happened when the last two “Avatars”—superpowered beings of light and darkness—met in the United States on the eve of World War II. The series attracted a cult audience that remains devoted to this day, but a mass audience wasn’t sure what to make of the program, and HBO canceled it after two seasons, saying the show’s story was finished, in spite of Knauf’s plan for a six-season run. Knauf has kept the secrets of what might have happened at the series’ end close to his vest since then, but he opened up to The A.V. Club about the show in a wide-ranging interview. In this first of two installments, he talks about Bruce Campbell’s unfortunate read for a pivotal role, how Knauf came up with the series, and the excitement of a massive promotional push from HBO. In the second installment, posting tomorrow, he discusses his original plan for the series’ end.
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AVC: How did this end up on HBO, especially in that era of The Sopranos and Six Feet Under and The Wire?

DK: Well, first off, it was the only place it would end up. And it would only end up there. There was like a five-minute window. Because HBO was absolutely drunk on their success. At the time, it’s The Sopranos, it’s Sex And The City, and they can do no wrong. It’s the new TV. There were cover stories featuring executives Chris [Albrecht] and Carolyn, and they were celebrated so thoroughly in the press. There was no fear there like you’d find anywhere else. It would never occur to them that this could go really badly.

When I really felt like the first time we were fucked—I mean really fucked—was, I remember we were working, doing the episodes, looking at the dailies, we were cutting them, and then word comes down to me, filters down from Mount Olympus, “HBO’s very excited about episodes one and two…” or three, or whatever we’d done at that point, “HBO’s very excited about the episodes. They expect them to generate higher numbers than The Sopranos.” And I sat there and went, [Beat.] “Oh God. We’re dead.” Because that was our benchmark, and The Sopranos was a phenomenon. You’re lucky to green-light a Sopranos as an executive once in your whole career. That, to them, was just business as usual. They just hadn’t had failure, so they were a little crazy. If they hadn’t been, I don’t think they would have ever done Carnivàle in a million years. I couldn’t have sold that a year after I sold it, or a year before I sold it. That was the only place that would have done it. It was just an amazing piece of luck.

But once it went there, because Chris Albrecht was running [HBO]… Howard Klein was one of the producers who was in on the development. He was very, very close, went way back with Chris, brought it to Chris, we pitched it. Definitely fell into what they were looking for, which was, “We want to do great stuff that the networks wouldn’t touch. If it’s not what they would do, we want to look at it.” This was really not network. Back then, it was all doctors, lawyers, and cops. There was really nothing else on. This was before Lost, before all this genre stuff we’re seeing now. It was really an unusual show.
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AVC: What were your biggest influences for this show, outside of historical context?

DK: I would say, most of them were literary. Honestly, [John] Steinbeck. And Clive Barker. To some extent, Stephen King, giving those everyman stories and weaving in reality. I always kind of admired that meat-and-potatoes fiction. [Charles] Dickens, to some degree. Cinematically, I think David Lynch, obviously. Tod Browning. John Ford, in the expanse. The big skies, the flat lands. It’s desolate. And J.R.R. Tolkien, of course. That would probably cover most of them. I’m assuming you’re a fanboy too, so probably a half dozen beyond that. Those are the main ones.
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Much more at the link. Second installment sounds like it should be very interesting for fans of the series.

---

Part 2 -- http://www.avclub.com/articles/daniel-knauf-tells-us-his-plan-for-the-end-of-carn,92877/

AVC: What were your plans for what would have come in the four unmade seasons?

DK: Like I said, I’m not going to claim I knew the minute detail. Season three is five years later. We find Jonesy—he survived his gunshot wound and is pitching for a professional baseball team. His wife [Libby] is a typical baseball wife back in ’39. The carnival is completely split up; everybody’s gone their separate ways. The only vestige of the carnival as it was is Ben and Samson, and they’re working at another carnival, still on Management’s trail.

Then on the Brother Justin side, we find he’s become this incredibly politically influential radio preacher. And there’s Iris and Sofie, and they’re both in this fight. He’s a shell, almost, and these two women are in a power struggle over who’s controlling Brother Justin. Sofie is Brother Justin’s wife. Of course, she’s his daughter, but he doesn’t know that. She knows that. She could bring him down pretty easily, but she’s afraid of herself now, too.

Then we introduce, in the very first episode, you see this 4-year-old kid come running up and hugging Brother Justin, saying “Daddy.” Is this Brother Justin’s child, or is this Ben’s child, because they both had relations with Sofie? That would kind of tee us off to the second one. That would take us through the war. And then the first half of that would be, “Avengers assemble,” winds of war calling them together, gotta get this group back together again. Ben’s like, “This isn’t just about me. This is about us.” And pulling everybody out of their lives and answering this call, and moving into going to Europe to try to acquire these documents or… I knew they were going to be talismans. What they’re going to need when they’re engaged in this war. Then there’d be a confrontation of some sort at the end of season four.

Then taking us to the end, it’s all about the [atomic] bomb. It’s all about the Manhattan Project and worrying about it, finding out what it is. The Germans have a competing project, and trying to stop it. Trying to stop the bomb from happening, because in Ben’s mind, detonation of the atom bomb is the end of the world. What he doesn’t realize is that it’s just the end of his world. To him, it’s an end to Avatars; it’s an end to everything. But he’s misinterpreted it. He’s interpreted it as the end of the world. He thinks he’s saving the world, but what he learns before the end is that, “I have to let this happen, because if I don’t let this happen, mankind will remain in a state of adolescence.” He learns that’s really why Sofie is called the Omega. She is the only female, the last Avatar. What it’s all leading up to is two Avatars, she and Ben having this child. They actually have to sacrifice this child in the blast. That was my crazy notion.

Now I have to kill you because I told you. [Laughs.]
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systematic said:
Another piece of interesting reading is the original pitch document for the show: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.harvardwood.org/resource/resmgr/hwp-pdfs/carnivale_pitch_document.pdf
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There was also something called the Gospel of Knauf that was basically a text file full of all of the mythology and future plans for the series. I can't seem to find it again though, but I have it on my kindle

Season 3

The show's third season would have opened in 1939 (four years after the end of Season 2). The Carnivale has disbanded; Ben would have been traveling (possibly with another carnival), trying to reunite the main characters in order to make a stand against Justin. Jonesy (who survived his gunshot wound) would still be married to Libby, and would be playing major league baseball. Justin, in the meantime, would have continued building his ministry in New Canaan, with both Sofie and Iris still at his side (as well as a small child being thrown into the mix, though we're not sure whose). The wound inflicted to his heart by Ben hasn't healed completely, thus posing a continuing threat to his life.

Knauf conceived the storyline for the show as being divided into 3 "books," each book comprising two seasons. Book I (seasons 1 and 2) was set between 1934 and 1935; Book II (seasons 3 and 4) would've taken place between 1939 and 1940; and Book III would've stretched from 1944 to 1945.
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So, should i watch this show. I heard its good but its has no actual ending,right? So is it worth it? I don't wanna be just left hanging with a bunch of unfinished story threads.
 
monocle_wearing_hyrax said:
So, should i watch this show. I heard its good but its has no actual ending,right? So is it worth it? I don't wanna be just left hanging with a bunch of unfinished story threads.
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You should watch it just for the visuals and music. Jeff Beal's score is incredible, easily up there with Giacchino's work on Lost. He also did the music for Rome and House of Cards among others

It's probably one of my top 5 favorite shows and i've rewatched it many times. The lack of resolution really hurt at the time, but I would say it's still very much worth watching for the overall atmosphere
 
blainethemono said:
You should watch it just for the visuals and music. Jeff Beal's score is incredible, easily up there with Giacchino's work on Lost. He also did the music for Rome and House of Cards among others

It's probably one of my top 5 favorite shows and i've rewatched it many times. The lack of resolution really hurt at the time, but I would say it's still very much worth watching for the overall atmosphere
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Carnival and Deadwood's atmospheres are something I can't get enough of. Been rewatching Deadwood, TD's never seen it so it's fresh for him.
 
All of the Trinity, NM stuff and the little Samson monologues before seasons really had me excited for the later seasons that never happened. Shame.
 
Could you bump this when part two is out? I'd love to hear what he planned for later seasons, but I'll probably forget to check. Thanks.
 
Talon said:
This hurts my heart to read. :(
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iknowthatfeelbro.jpg

One of the best television shows I've had the pleasure to watch and the series finale is still BRUTAL to watch just because of what might have been.:(

Jeff Beal's music is fucking incredible I might add. Still part of my regular listening rotation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOGJmESPFU8

The final
confrontation between Justin and Ben was so fucking epic. My god. Justin on the Ferris wheel as Ben healed the people in the tent, etc. EPIC.
 
Part 2 - http://www.avclub.com/articles/daniel-knauf-tells-us-his-plan-for-the-end-of-carn,92877/

AVC: What were your plans for some of those characters who had to be cut?

DK: With the twins, I wanted them to kind of be like Radar O’Reilly was in M*A*S*H, sort of the harbingers of what’s coming up next. We never really got to play them that way. Their usefulness became less apparent. There was something creepy about Siamese twins. Well, even twins, like in The Shining and shit.

Gecko, I always thought he’d be our Mr. Spock. That he’d break out. He sort of did, a little bit, and probably could have if we’d written to it a little more. But we never did. I never thought of him as big in the context of Ben’s arc, or hyper-arc, or meta-arc. [Laughs.] [Aside.] That’s really Hollywood. But you want those characters that are a little off. A little oddball. A little strange. They have this relationship, he and Dora were best friends, and once Dora dies, I think it really kind of sucked a little bit out of the Gecko character. And it’s funny, because I had to fight really hard to keep him in the beginning.

There was one character I had, his name was Shoton, who ran the medicine show, and he was a full-blood Indian, lived in a teepee. There are these characters that didn’t even make it out of the living room. [Laughs.]
Click to expand...

AVC: What were your plans for what would have come in the four unmade seasons?

DK: Like I said, I’m not going to claim I knew the minute detail. Season three is five years later. We find Jonesy—he survived his gunshot wound and is pitching for a professional baseball team. His wife [Libby] is a typical baseball wife back in ’39. The carnival is completely split up; everybody’s gone their separate ways. The only vestige of the carnival as it was is Ben and Samson, and they’re working at another carnival, still on Management’s trail.

Then on the Brother Justin side, we find he’s become this incredibly politically influential radio preacher. And there’s Iris and Sofie, and they’re both in this fight. He’s a shell, almost, and these two women are in a power struggle over who’s controlling Brother Justin. Sofie is Brother Justin’s wife. Of course, she’s his daughter, but he doesn’t know that. She knows that. She could bring him down pretty easily, but she’s afraid of herself now, too.

Then we introduce, in the very first episode, you see this 4-year-old kid come running up and hugging Brother Justin, saying “Daddy.” Is this Brother Justin’s child, or is this Ben’s child, because they both had relations with Sofie? That would kind of tee us off to the second one. That would take us through the war. And then the first half of that would be, “Avengers assemble,” winds of war calling them together, gotta get this group back together again. Ben’s like, “This isn’t just about me. This is about us.” And pulling everybody out of their lives and answering this call, and moving into going to Europe to try to acquire these documents or… I knew they were going to be talismans. What they’re going to need when they’re engaged in this war. Then there’d be a confrontation of some sort at the end of season four.

Then taking us to the end, it’s all about the [atomic] bomb. It’s all about the Manhattan Project and worrying about it, finding out what it is. The Germans have a competing project, and trying to stop it. Trying to stop the bomb from happening, because in Ben’s mind, detonation of the atom bomb is the end of the world. What he doesn’t realize is that it’s just the end of his world. To him, it’s an end to Avatars; it’s an end to everything. But he’s misinterpreted it. He’s interpreted it as the end of the world. He thinks he’s saving the world, but what he learns before the end is that, “I have to let this happen, because if I don’t let this happen, mankind will remain in a state of adolescence.” He learns that’s really why Sofie is called the Omega. She is the only female, the last Avatar. What it’s all leading up to is two Avatars, she and Ben having this child. They actually have to sacrifice this child in the blast. That was my crazy notion.

Now I have to kill you because I told you. [Laughs.]
Click to expand...

AVC: Have you ever considered trying to do it as a novel or a comic book?

DK: Constantly. Yeah. Marvel, we had it all set up. At one point, they wanted to go forward and do a series of graphic novels, and they just couldn’t turn the corner with HBO. Since then, yeah, I’ve considered it. But one of the things that makes me a little crazy about Hollywood is, they’re idiots when it comes to their contractual stuff. If I write a novel, it’s like Random House publishes the novel, copyrights it, but when you do business in Hollywood, they say, “Everything in this thing, in all forms, in all potential forms invented and uninvented…” The language is draconian! “…throughout the universe. We own everything in your head. We own everything.” And it’s like, “If you own everything, at least exploit those rights, please. Could you please exploit the rights? And if you’re not going to exploit the rights, can I at least have them back, so I can exploit them?” It’s just a silly way of doing business. They do it because they can, and that’s all.

Let’s say I take a new-project idea to Sony, and they give me that language. I go, “You know, this whole copyright-influential-property thing, I’m not so hot on that. I’ll take less money if I can retain the copyright or the ancillary rights,” they’d say, “Take a fucking hike.” If I go, “Well then, I’ll take a hike. I’m going to go to Warner Bros.” And Warner Bros. has the exact same contractual language. It’s basically an illegal trust. It’s like the mob. Artists are first to give up intellectual rights to do business with Hollywood. But they’re not rights you give up in any other medium. It’s BS.

Carnivàle is one thing. I hate telling people I can’t… I did a Kickstarter campaign for BlackBxx, and I had a person who donated $1,500, a really generous donation, and I had something in there, the Kickstarter-type stuff, “I’ll take you out for dinner.” And I did, I took him out for dinner. It was his wife’s birthday, and he said, “Would you mind sending my wife an email? She’d get a big kick out of it.” And I sat down, and I thought, “I’m going to get this guy so laid.” He was going to give it for her birthday or Christmas or something, and he wanted me to write a note. I sat down, and I just wrote a scene with Jonesy and Samson at Christmastime, and it was like putting on the most comfortable pair of shoes I’ve ever had in my life. It was like, [exhales] “I can’t believe how good it feels to be walking around in these shoes.” The dialogue just spilled out, and they were alive and three-dimensional. The characters are still alive, and they have so much to say, and it was joyful writing it, and then sending this to another person who got immense pleasure from it. And I’m going, [disbelieving pause] “What the fuck? Okay. It didn’t make sense to spend $3.5 million an episode. So let’s do a graphic novel. Let’s tell the story!” But they’re on to other toys now. It’s like doing business with that kid down the street whose parents give him really bitchin’ toys, and he’d just leave them broken in the backyard. It makes me crazy, Hollywood.
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AVC: Is there a certain thing you had really wanted to show in those last four seasons that you’re sad you never got to do?

DK: It’s the full scope of the idea, the big idea. The big idea that we were children until we detonated these two bombs out in the desert. We always say, “Oh, isn’t it a horrible thing? Oh, it’s the nuclear age. Now we wrestle with destroying ourselves as a species,” and it’s looked upon as a completely negative thing. But in a way, I look at it as when we were able to put away childish things. That’s when we got our first apartment. That’s, people started to go, “Hey, wait a second.” I think right up until that moment, the idea that we could destroy ourselves was absurd. Now we take it for granted. We start to look at it, “Well shit, we got the holes in the ozone layer.” We become aware that we’re capable of existential destruction, and I think that’s part of growing up as a species.

I mean, homo sapiens rock. When you see a bunch of people trying to push a whale off a beach, I go, “Okay, what other fucking species does that?” That just makes me feel like we are different. We aren’t a part of the animal kingdom. We’ve got something going on. Yeah, we’re capable of horrible things. We’re capable of holocausts. But we’re also capable of such amazing things. To me, the exploding of the nuclear bombs was in a way a declaration of independence from nature. In a way, to almost celebrate it. But it’s a cautious celebration. It would be nice to have gotten that idea all the way out there. It didn’t make it.
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AVC: Have you ever considered trying to do it as a novel or a comic book?

DK: Constantly. Yeah. Marvel, we had it all set up. At one point, they wanted to go forward and do a series of graphic novels, and they just couldn’t turn the corner with HBO. Since then, yeah, I’ve considered it. But one of the things that makes me a little crazy about Hollywood is, they’re idiots when it comes to their contractual stuff. If I write a novel, it’s like Random House publishes the novel, copyrights it, but when you do business in Hollywood, they say, “Everything in this thing, in all forms, in all potential forms invented and uninvented…” The language is draconian! “…throughout the universe. We own everything in your head. We own everything.” And it’s like, “If you own everything, at least exploit those rights, please. Could you please exploit the rights? And if you’re not going to exploit the rights, can I at least have them back, so I can exploit them?” It’s just a silly way of doing business. They do it because they can, and that’s all.
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That's pretty frustrating. I can imagine David Milch would love to write a novel that finishes off Deadwood, but like Carnivale I doubt they'd ever do it. HBO is never going to make more of the show, so why not? It's so silly.
 
Futurevoid said:
iknowthatfeelbro.jpg

One of the best television shows I've had the pleasure to watch and the series finale is still BRUTAL to watch just because of what might have been.:(

Jeff Beal's music is fucking incredible I might add. Still part of my regular listening rotation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOGJmESPFU8

The final
confrontation between Justin and Ben was so fucking epic. My god. Justin on the Ferris wheel as Ben healed the people in the tent, etc. EPIC.
Click to expand...

Oh man...

T_T
 
Clevinger said:
That's pretty frustrating. I can imagine David Milch would love to write a novel that finishes off Deadwood, but like Carnivale I doubt they'd ever do it. HBO is never going to make more of the show, so why not? It's so silly.
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Its even more frustrating because of how hard they seem to have dropped the series. It was up on HBO Go when the service first opened, but then it got removed shortly afterward and it hasn't been up there since. No blu ray release and seemingly no plans for one either despite Rome and Deadwood getting BD releases years ago. Not to mention Deadwood was airing back to back with Carnivale in their second seasons

I would totally read some Deadwood and Carnivale novels though
 
I REALLY enjoyed this series and to this day I'm still extremely pissed off that it ended the way it did. No wrap up whatsoever. It made my blood boil. lol
 
Futurevoid said:
I started after reading the first interview. I'd give an appendage for a Blu-Ray release.:(
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That'd be glorious. I'd double dip for sure.

EDIT: By the way, the Season 2 soundtrack is available for free at Jeff Beal's website for anyone interested:

http://www.jeffbeal.com/Pages/FILMS Pages/Carnivale.html#
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Whoa. Happy birthday to me! I love Jeff Beal's work on this series so much. The first season's score has been played to death by me. Thanks for the heads up!
 
TheListener said:
Season 1 was cool. Season 2 was abysmal.
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Yup. That S2 season premiere, explaining everything, was like parodically bad. Those recent interviews made me reconsider it a little but, yeah, I remember sitting up during that whole episode like "Uh, maybe you should have just kept this idiotic bullshit a secret."

The first season was so tense and perfect, no idea who or what the Management was.

Then you find out and it's literally the all time dumbest thing in TV history.
 
ive been rewatching this show since this thread .. im 2 episodes from the finale

all the great mythology from the early episodes had such disappointing answers.. the long search for scudder
and he turns out to be some bumbling old fool who has one cool scene before hes killed (that scene has some great visuals tho)

last person i lent the dvds too said they couldnt even finish season 2

i thought the ending was intriguing enough for it go in some interesting directions

clancy brown as brother justin was fantastic.. charismatic and terrifying

all ben ever says is "its none of your business god damnit "

show has the most adorable anal sex scene ever

samson is fantastic
 
The hardest one was Brother Justin. We read Keir Dullea; he was the closest to Clancy. He was probably No. 2. We presented Clancy and Keir to the network. We read John Ritter. He was really interesting. We read Bruce Campbell, which would have been a terrible Brother Justin. [Laughs.] I remember one time, he came in to read. We were reading Samson [ultimately played by Michael J. Anderson] so we had 20 little people waiting to read, and Campbell walks in the room and just stops and says, [Bruce Campbell voice] “Whoa. What a freak show!” I’m surprised they didn’t all attack him. [Laughs.] I was going, “Dude. That’s not a really auspicious use of ‘freak.’”
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The imagery going through my head with this quote had me almost in tears.
 
Eric C said:
It was already on HBO GO in 2011 when they were advertising HBO GO had HBO's entire back catalog.

HBO removed it for some reason near the start of 2012. Glad they're putting it back on HBO GO again.
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Ah, interesting. I didn't know it was up before. In any case, it's good news. I should get around to watching S2 at some point.
 
Not a huge fan of the show. Haven't seen too many HBO type shows but it was sort of smutty from what i've seen (the first season). It didn't stick in my mind that well, but the premise is definitely interesting. And i love the idea of the clancy brown, evil preacher type role.

Maybe i'll go back and watch it, cause i have it on dvd. Just never delivered on the premise for me.
 
Damn this thread. Once I started to think about Carnivale again the urge to rewatch became impossible to resist. Just finished S1
"There is no demon in me, the demon is me" damn...always gets me.
 
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