Directed by: Jim Jarmusch.
Written by: Jim Jarmusch.
Starring: Johnny Depp (William Blake), Gary Farmer (Nobody), Lance Henriksen (Cole Wilson), Michael Wincott (Conway Twill), Eugene Byrd (Johnny 'The Kid' Pickett), Crispin Glover (Train Fireman), John Hurt (John Scholfield), Robert Mitchum (John Dickinson), Iggy Pop (Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko), Jared Harris (Benmont Tench), Gabriel Byrne (Charlie Dickinson), Mili Avital (Thel Russell), Jimmie Ray Weeks (Marvin, Older Marshal), Mark Bringelson (Lee, Younger Marshal), Billy Bob Thornton (Big George Drakoulious), Alfred Molina (Trading Post Missionary).
Dead
Man is an odd film. It’s an existential Western that paints a cold, violent,
dark picture of the American West, basically concluding that the American West
was a brutal place – and perhaps America hasn’t changed much since. The film is
almost like a slow descent into hell. It’s a film that takes its time – as all
Jarmusch films do – so if you’re not on its wavelength, the film is probably a
long, dull slog. But if you are with Jarmusch, than the film is haunting –
beautiful and mournful in between the sudden bursts of violence. To some it’s
Jarmusch’s masterpiece, to others it’s one of his worst films. I’m more in the
former camp than the later.
Johnny
Depp stars as William Blake – not the poet - an accountant who is taking a long
train ride from the big city of Cleveland way out to the end of line – a little
town called Machine, where he has been promised a jump at the Dickinson Metal
Works. The train ride that takes up the pre-credits sequence is like the film
itself – long, slow, surreal at times, as everyone seems to be staring as Blake
as if he’s an alien creature – which in some ways he is. Before he’s even
arrived, the Train Fireman (Crispin Glover at his most Crispin Glover-esque)
warns him away from Machine. But Blake doesn’t listen. He shows up at the Metal
Works, and is told by John Scholfield (John Hurt) that he’s too late – the job
has been filled. Blake is laughed at by Scholfield, and the rest of the office
workers, but insists on seeing Mr. Dickenson himself. He is played by Robert
Mitchum, in his last film role, a big bear of man, smoking a huge cigar, and
wielding a shotgun. Blake quickly realizes his journey has been for nothing.
At the
local bar he meets Thel Russell (Mili Avital) – a woman who sells paper
flowers. Blake is nicer than the rest of the men of Machine – he doesn’t mock
her, treat her like a whore, or throw her and her flowers in the mud. He ends
up in her hotel room for the right. Early the next morning, Charlie Dickinson
(Gabriel Byrne) – son of Mitchum – shows up. He was once Thel’s fiancé, and
wants to patch things up. Things quickly go awry; shots are fired leaving Thel
and Charlie dead, and Blake with a wound to the chest that should have killed
him. He runs off into the wild, where he meets Nobody (Gary Farmer) – a Native
who is an outsider even among other Natives, who thinks Blake is the poet – and
decides to help him. He needs all the help he can get, because Dickinson has
hired three assassins – Cole Wilson (Lance Henrickson), Conway Twill (Michael
Wincott) and Johnny “The Kid” Pickett (Eugene Byrd) to track Blake down and
kill him. The three aren’t thrilled to be working together, and are just as
likely to kill each other as kill Blake.
Given
his previous work, Dead Man marked a departure of sorts for Jarmusch – he’s
working in a genre film for the first time (there are some hints of genre in
Down By Law, but not entirely) – and he remains focused on a single character
from beginning to end. Yet the film is still every inch a Jarmusch film. The gorgeous
black and white photography by Robby Muller makes this the most visually
stunning film of Jarmusch’s career. He still favors long takes though. The
framing is a little off-kilter – nothing seems to be in the middle of the
frame, giving the film a more surreal look. When the violence comes in the film
– and it comes often – it’s quick, brutal and deadly. There are no protracted
gun fights in Dead Man – I was reminded of a line in Ed Harris’ Appaloosa when
his character was asked why the gunfight was over so quickly and he responds
“Because everyone knew how to shoot”. That’s the case here as well – although
sometimes, it ends quickly because the characters don’t really play fair with
each other – killing them when they are not expecting it.
Johnny
Depp’s performance is one of his finest. This was the period of his career
before he became a huge, bankable movie star and was interested in doing odd,
quirky little films and didn’t seem to care if they would make him a movie
star. Now, he does almost nothing but huge blockbusters, and tries very hard to
be odd and quirky in them all – but it’s wearing a little thin, as all of them
start blending together as basically, they are all variations on Captain Jack
Sparrow (tellingly, his last great performance was in Michael Mann’s Public
Enemies – 2009 - where he mainly played it straight). Here, he’s got a baby
face, and seems almost hopelessly naïve when the film begins – he doesn’t
belong in Machine, which is the most alien city in Jarmusch’s filmography full of
alien cities. He is a stranger in a world he doesn’t understand. Gradually, his
William Blake learns the rules of land he inhabits, and becomes the vicious man
he needs to become to survive. But by then it’s already too late. You can take
the title of the movie a number of ways, but basically, I think Blake is dead
pretty much the moment he’s shot by Charlie – he just doesn’t realize it yet.
He goes from a man who comically takes shot after shot at Charlie before
getting lucky and hits him, into being a crack shot with his gun. Nobody views
him with a kind of pity as the pair makes their way West to the Pacific Ocean.
Farmer is Depp’s match in terms of weirdness – his talk is profane, yet witty
and funny – and he seems to be smiling to himself often – as if he’s in on a
joke that Blake hasn’t gotten yet.
Jarmusch
surrounds these two with the oddest assortment of characters imaginable – from
Crispin Glover looking and sounding like something released from the bowels of
hell, to John Hurt’s laughing maniac, to Mitchum who is great, as always, by
just being Mitchum – to the trio of hit men on their trial. The most brutal of
the three is Lance Henrickson, who doesn’t say much, but doesn’t have to – when
the rumor about you is that you raped, killed and ate both of your parents, you
don’t need to say much to look menacing. Michael Wincott, as one of the other
assassins, almost never shuts up putting him at odds with Henrickson from the
start. Then there’s the odd scene with three fur trappers – Jared Harris, Billy
Bob Thornton and Iggy Pop, in a frontier dress, which is as odd as it sounds.
The
most remarkable thing about Dead Man is how it maintains its surreal tone
throughout the film. The cinematography helps, as does Neil Young’s guitar and
feedback heavy score. As the film winds down, it becomes more wordless, moves a
little bit slower than a pace that to many was already too slow – yet remains
utterly transfixing. This is Jarmusch at his best. He offers a bleak worldview,
for the first time not tempered with humor, and delivers a portrait of the West
we haven’t really seen before or since. It’s one of the few Western post-Clint
Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992) that really gives us something different. When
Depp discovers a gun under Thel’s pillow he asks her what she has it for. “This
is America” she tells him as if it explains everything. To Jarmusch, it does.
His Dead Man paints a bleak, brutal, violent picture of the American West – and
it’s one of his best films.
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