Dead Man

For other uses, see Dead Man (disambiguation).

Dead Man
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Jim Jarmusch
Written by	Jim Jarmusch
Produced by	Demetra J. MacBride
Starring	Johnny Depp Gary Farmer
Cinematography	Robby Muller
Edited by	Jay Rabinowitz
Music by	Neil Young
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release dates	May 26, 1995 (Cannes Film Festival premiere)
Running time	121 min.
Country	USA/Germany
Language	English
Budget	$9,000,000 (est.)
Box office	$1,025,488 (USA)

Dead Man is a 1995 film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, and Robert Mitchum (in his final role). The movie is something of a Modern Western, dubbed a "psychedelic Western" by director Jarmusch, which includes twisted elements of the Western Genre. The film is shot entirely in black-and-white. Some consider it the ultimate postmodern Western, and related to postmodern literature such as Cormac McCarthy's novel, Blood Meridian.

Plot

William Blake (Johnny Depp), a meek accountant from Cleveland, Ohio, rides by train to the frontier company town of Machine to assume a promised job with the company "Dickinson Metalworks". The journey he embarks on portrays violent dark facets and ironic musings of the history of the American Old West.

During the trip, a Fireman (Crispin Glover) warns Blake has come all the way "out to hell" and says "you're just as likely to find your own grave". Immediately after this foreboding conversation with the Fireman, Blake is startled by the passengers massacring buffalo herds, as they begin shooting at them from the windows of the moving train. Arriving at the factory, Blake discovers someone else was already hired, and is driven away at gunpoint by John Dickinson (Robert Mitchum), the ferocious owner of the company. Jobless and without money or prospects, Blake meets Thel Russell (Mili Avital), 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 pinto. Company-owner Dickinson, the father of Charlie, hires three legendary frontier killers — Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen), Conway Twill (Michael Wincott), and Johnny "the Kid" Pickett (Eugene Byrd) — to cooperate in capturing Blake dead or alive, accusing Blake as the murderer of his son and Thel. All three bounty hunters remark that they normally work alone. Dickinson emphasizes retrieving the pinto.

Blake awakens to find a large American Indian (Gary Farmer) treating his wound. The Indian, calling himself Nobody, reveals that the bullet is too close to Blake's heart to remove, and Blake is effectively already dead. When he learns Blake's full name, Nobody decides Blake is William Blake, the poet and artist whom he idolizes but of whom accountant Blake himself is prosaically ignorant. Blake learns of Nobody's past involving Nobody's childhood abduction to England where he is used as a political exhibit and is trained to appear as a tamed and civilized former savage. In his studies he discovers William Blake's art and poetry. He returns to America ostracized and abandoned by his own people and takes the name "Nobody".

Seeing Blake as already dead, Nobody resolves to escort Blake to the Pacific Ocean to prepare him for the spirit-world, determined to make him a legendary killer of white men who interfere with their journey.

Blake and Nobody travel west, leaving a trail of their dead enemies and encountering wanted posters announcing higher and higher bounties for Blake's death or capture. One night they encounter a camp of three homicidal fur trappers eating opossum and beans. Nobody describes the fur trappers as "stupid white men". Nobody suggests to Blake that he go to their camp. Blake reluctantly goes to the camp. The fur trappers, with implicit homosexual intent, admire and begin fondling Blake's soft hair, hat, and suit. Two of the fur trappers begin arguing about who "gets him". The argument escalates into a shootout with Blake and Nobody killing all three of them.

Meanwhile the three bounty hunters become suspicious of each other. Twill tells Pickett that Wilson fucked, killed and cannibalized his parents. Shortly thereafter Wilson gets into an argument with Pickett and kills him for saying "fuck you." Later Wilson kills Twill off-screen (after Twill had begun guessing Wilson's nationality) and eats his remains.

Nobody eats peyote and decides Blake must be left alone in the wilderness to have a vision quest. While alone, Blake has haunting visions of American Indian warriors, experiences the beauty of his natural surroundings, and grieves over a dead fawn. Two U.S. Marshals find Blake's horse and soon encounter Blake himself. When they ask if he is William Blake, he says yes and asks them if they know of his poetry. He then pulls his gun and kills both of them. Their bodies are later found by Wilson and Twill. Wilson squashes the head of a dead Marshall with his boot and says it "looks like a goddamn religious icon".

Blake and Nobody reunite and they continue their journey. At a trading post, a bigoted missionary (Alfred Molina) identifies Blake and attempts to kill him, resulting in a shootout where the missionary is killed. Blake is shot again by a nameless bounty hunter. Although Blake kills him, 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 deliriously trudges through the village before collapsing from his injuries. He awakens in a canoe on a beach, wearing Native American funeral dress. Nobody bids Blake farewell and pushes him out to sea. As he floats away, Blake watches Wilson ambush Nobody, but he is too weak to cry out and 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.

Cast

File:Deadmanfilm.JPG

William Blake and Nobody.

• 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, Saying Nothing" or Xebeche by fellow natives
• Crispin Glover as Train Fireman, a coal-covered boilerman who welcomes Blake to the "hell" of Machine.
• Robert Mitchum as Mr. John Dickinson, a shotgun-toting industrialist in Machine
• John Hurt as John Scholfield, the business manager of Dickinson's factory
• Mili Avital as Thel Russell, a former prostitute 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 murderous 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, Bible-reading 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 knife-toting fur trader at Sally's campsite.
• Alfred Molina as Trading Post Missionary, a 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 Everlasting Gospel. However, this is just one of the unfortunate anachronisms in the film. Nobody was portrayed as being captured as a boy of about 10-12 years old by "English soldiers" and was transported to England: this places his capture - at the latest - in the early 1770s. Nobody was said to have stayed several years in school in England after which he returned to the USA, making his time in England up to about 1780. But during this time he supposedly learned Blake's poem "Auguries of Innocence" during that time in a book of collected poems . But Blake's poems were obscure during his lifetime and certainly not taught in schools. "Auguries of Innocence" was not published until 1803, and the first collection of Blake's poems (as shown in the film, with Blake's self-portrait in the frontispiece) was not written until 1863.

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.

The film's soundtrack album and promotional music video also feature Depp reciting passages from Blake's poetry.

The scenes with Thel Russell (played by Mili Avital) culminating in the bedroom murder scene visually enact Blake's poem, "The Sick Rose: "O rose, thou art sick!/ The invisible worm/ That flies in the night,/ In the howling storm,/ Has found out thy bed,/ Of crimson joy,/ And his dark secret love/ Does thy life destroy."

This scene is also peculiar, because when Thel reveals she keeps a revolver under her pillow, the reason she gives is, "because this is America." This comment makes no sense for a native American (like Thel) who does not know whether the citizens of other countries also keep guns at close hand - the comment only makes sense for a modern American, again undermining the supposed historical factuality of the film with anachronism.

Portrayal of Native Americans

This film is generally regarded as being extremely well-researched in regard to Native American culture.

Dead Man is also notable as one of the rather few films about Native Americans to be directed by a non-native and offer nuanced and considerate details of the individual differences between Native American tribes 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.

Reception

In its theatrical release, Dead Man earned about $1 million for a budget of $9 million. 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". Desson Howe and Rita Kempley, both writing for the Washington Post, offered largely negative appraisals. 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." 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" 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.

The film also was placed 398th in "They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?"'s list of the 1,000 Greatest Films of All Time .

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!"

Johnny Depp makes a brief cameo as his character William Blake in the film L.A. Without a Map.

Rudy Wurlitzer's unproduced screenplay Zebulon inspired Jarmusch's film. Wurlitzer later re-wrote the screenplay as the novel The Drop Edge of Yonder.

See also

• List of recent films in black-and-white
• Revisionist Western

References

• Dead Man by Gino Moliterno
• Tubutis, Todd J., "Filming a Makah Village for Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man." Unpublished master's thesis. University of British Columbia, 1998.
• Pelzer, Peter. "Dead Man -- an encounter with the unknown past," Journal of Organizational Change 15 (2002): 48-62.
• Widmer, Markus. "What makes the films of David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch postmodern?" (1998).

External links

• Dead Man at IMDb
• Dead Man at AllMovie
• Dead Man at Rotten Tomatoes
• Dead Man at Metacritic
• Dead Man at Box Office Mojo
• Dead Man at the Jim Jarmusch Resource Page
• Dead Man - The New Cult Canon: A.V. Club