Dead Man

Dead Man
The original theatrical poster
Directed by	Jim Jarmusch
Produced by	Demetra J. MacBride
Written by	Jim Jarmusch
Starring	Johnny Depp Gary Farmer Lance Henriksen
Music by	Neil Young
Cinematography	Robby Muller
Editing by	Jay Rabinowitz
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release date(s)	May 26, 1995 (Cannes Film Festival premiere)
Running time	121 min.
Language	English
Budget	$9,000,000 (est.)
IMDb profile

Dead Man is a 1995 film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, and Robert Mitchum (in his final role). The movie is something of a Modern Western, with many twisted elements of the Western. The film is shot entirely in black-and-white.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 References to William Blake 4 Portrayal of Native Americans 5 Response 6 Soundtrack 7 In other media 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

Plot

Cleveland accountant Bill Blake (Johnny Depp) arrives by train at the American frontier company town of "Machine" to assume a promised job in the town's namesake metal works; but his job is already taken and he is driven from the workplace at gunpoint by John Dickinson (Robert Mitchum in his final role), the ferocious owner of both the company and (in effect) the town. Jobless and without money or prospects, Blake meets Thel, a former prostitute who sells paper flowers, and lets her take him home. Thel's ex-boyfriend Charlie (Gabriel Byrne) surprises them in bed and shoots Blake, accidentally killing Thel when she tries to shield Blake with her body. A wounded Blake shoots and kills Charlie with Thel's gun, before climbing dazedly out the window and fleeing Machine on a stolen horse. Company-owner Dickinson, whose son Blake has killed, hires three legendary frontier killers to hunt down Blake as the murderer of both Charlie and Thel, although he seems to care most about regaining the stolen horse. Blake awakens to find a large American Indian attempting to dislodge the bullet from his chest. The Indian, calling himself Nobody (Gary Farmer), reveals that the bullet is too close to Blake's heart to remove, and Blake is to all effects and purposes already dead. When he learns Blake's full name, Nobody decides Blake is a reincarnation ^[1] of William Blake the poet who he idolizes (but of whom accountant Blake himself is prosaicly ignorant). Incredibly moved that Blake is now not only a visionary poet and painter but also a "killer of white men," Nobody resolves to escort Blake, before he dies, to the Pacific Ocean for a proper sea-burial that will return Blake to his proper place in the spirit-world. Discovering that Blake is being hunted, he also determines to assist Blake in expanding his legend by killing as many more white men as may become necessary. He tells Blake, "That weapon will replace your tongue; you will learn to speak through it; and your poetry will now be written in blood." Blake and Nobody travel West, leaving a trail of dead and encountering wanted posters announcing higher and higher bounties for Blake's death or capture. In a scene patterned after Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Nobody sends Blake into a camp of amusingly homicidal fur trappers played by Billy Bob Thornton, Jared Harris, and Iggy Pop, who he and Blake dispatch. At a trading post Blake kills a venomously bigoted Christian trader (Alfred Molina) who refuses to sell Nobody tobacco but attempts to offer him a smallpox-infested blanket. Blake learns of Nobody's past, marked both by Native American and White racism, which includes Nobody's abduction to, and escape from, Europe as a model savage. Meanwhile in a series of alternately amusing and harrowing cut-scenes the three bounty hunters in pursuit become two and then one as the two less vicious hunters in turn annoy and are slain by their sociopathic partner Cole (Lance Henriksen), whose coldness and cannibalistic tendencies are one of the film's many reversals of Western stereotypes of Native American savagery. Nobody leaves Blake briefly alone in the wild when he decides Blake must undergo a vision quest. On his quest Blake spots local animal deities in human form, experiences the astonishing significance and beauty of his natural surroundings and finds the remains of a young deer whose body he grieves over in a scene mirroring his grief over Thel (It is these episodes which seem most to merit filmmaker Jarmusch's designation of the film as a "psychedelic Western"^[2]). Two U.S. Marshalls surprise Blake and are killed, their bodies later found and desecrated by Cole in pehaps the film's most disturbing scene. Eventually Blake is wounded again in a shootout, and as his condition rapidly deteriorates, Nobody takes him by river to a Makah village and convinces the tribe to give him a sea canoe for Blake's ship burial. Blake's half-delirious trip through the clean and orderly Makah village contrasts sharply with his earlier progress through barbaric and obscenely filthy Machine. Blake passes out and comes to in Native American funeral dress, alone with Nobody and a sea canoe on a beach by the Pacific. Nobody bids Blake farewell in his canoe, pushing him out to sea. As he floats away, Blake watches Cole sneak up behind Nobody but, too weak to cry out, can only watch as the two shoot and kill each other. As Blake gazes up at the clouds for the last time, he dies, and his canoe drifts out to sea towards the waiting sky on the horizon.

Cast

• Johnny Depp as William Blake, a meek accountant from Cleveland, Ohio.
• Gary Farmer as Nobody, a strong and opinionated Native American who was forcibly raised by whites and later given the mocking name "He Who Talks Loud, Says Nothing" by fellow natives.
• Crispin Glover as Train Fireman, a coal-covered train worker who welcomes Blake to the "hell" of Machine.
• Robert Mitchum as Mr. Dickinson, a shotgun-toting industrialist in Machine.
• Mili Avital as Thel Russell, a young woman who makes and sells paper flowers.
• Gabriel Byrne as Charlie Dickinson, Thel's ex-boyfriend and John Dickinson's son.
• Lance Henriksen as Cole Wilson, an infamous bounty hunter and cannibal
• Michael Wincott as Conway Twill, a talkative bounty hunter
• Eugene Byrd as Johnny "The Kid" Pickett, a young African-American bounty hunter.
• Iggy Pop as Salvatore "Sally" Jenko, a cross-dressing, psychopathic fur-trader at a campsite
• Billy Bob Thornton as Big George Drakoulious, a mountain man at Sally's campsite
• Jared Harris as Benmont Tench, a British-accented fur-trader who is proud of his knife.
• Alfred Molina as Trading Post Missionary, a zealous but corrupt missionary and businessman.
• Gibby Haynes as Man with Gun in Alley

References to William Blake

There are multiple references in the film to the poetry of William Blake. Nobody recites from several Blake poems, including Auguries of Innocence, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and The Everylasting Gospel, and is surprised that none of them impress, or even seem familiar to, his oddly-named travelling companion (who at one point mistakenly retorts, "I've had it up to here with this Indian malarkey!" - Depp's Blake never seems to catch on about the existence of the poet, although on the movie soundtrack and in the promotional music video, Depp recites passages from Blake.) When bounty hunter Cole warns his companions against drinking from standing water, it references the Proverb of Hell (from the aforementioned Marriage), "Expect poison from standing water". Thel's name is also a reference to Blake's The Book of Thel.

Portrayal of Native Americans

This film is generally regarded as being extremely well-researched in regard to Native American culture.^[3] Dead Man is also notable as one of the rather few films about Native Americans to be directed by a Non-Native and offer a nuanced and considerate details of the individual differences between Native American tribes, and furthermore free of common stereotypes. There are untranslated passages in several Native American Languages, and Jarmusch included several in-jokes aimed at Native American viewers, or at least those with a fluent knowledge of the languages used.

Response

In its theatrical release, Dead Man earned about $1 million for a budget of $9 million.^[4] It is the most expensive of Jarmusch's films, due to the expense of black-and-white film processing, and the costs of ensuring accurate period detail. Critical responses were mixed. Roger Ebert gave the film one-and-a-half stars (out of four stars maximum), noting "Jim Jarmusch is trying to get at something here, and I don't have a clue what it is".^[5] Desson Howe and Rita Kempley, both writing for the Washington Post, offered largely negative appraisals.^[6] Greil Marcus, however, mounted a spirited defense of the film, titling his review "Dead Again: Here are 10 reasons why 'Dead Man' is the best movie of the end of the 20th century."^[7] Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum dubbed the film an acid western, calling it "as exciting and as important as any new American movie I've seen in the 90s"^[8] and went on to write a book on the film, entitled Dead Man (ISBN 0-85170-806-4) published by the British Film Institute. The film scored a 'Fresh' 71% rating on website Rotten Tomatoes.

Soundtrack

Main article: Dead Man (soundtrack)

In other media

Gary Farmer makes a cameo appearance as Nobody in Jim Jarmusch's subsequent film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, in which he repeats one of his signature lines of dialog, "Stupid Fucking White Man".

See also

• List of recent films in black-and-white

References

External links

• Dead Man at the Internet Movie Database

•  • e Films Directed by Jim Jarmusch
Permanent Vacation • Stranger Than Paradise • Coffee and Cigarettes • Coffee and Cigarettes, Memphis Version • Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California • Coffee and Cigarettes • Down by Law • Mystery Train • Night on Earth • Dead Man • Year of the Horse • Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai • Ten Minutes Older • Broken Flowers • The Limits of Control