Dead Man

For other uses, see Dead Man (disambiguation).

Dead Man
The original theatrical poster
Directed by	Jim Jarmusch
Written by	Jim Jarmusch
Produced by	Demetra J. MacBride
Starring	Johnny Depp Gary Farmer Lance Henriksen
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.
Language	English
Budget	$9,000,000 (est.)

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 black-and-white.

Plot

During the time of the American Old West, an accountant named William Blake travels by train to the frontier town of Machine. When he arrives, he finds that the job he expected to receive has already been taken. The company's owner, John Dickinson, drives him away with a shotgun. Jobless and bankrupt, Blake meets Thel, who sells paper flowers. While they are in bed together, Thel's boyfriend Charlie confronts Thel and attempts to shoot Blake. Thel shields him with her body, but the bullet passes through her and hits Blake. The wounded Blake kills Charlie with Thel's gun and flees.

In a forest, Blake awakes to find Nobody, a large Native American man, attempting to dislodge the bullet from his chest. Nobody concludes that the bullet is too close to Blake's heart, and will eventually kill him. When Blake introduces himself, Nobody becomes excited, mistaking him for the poet of the same name. Nobody confesses that he was captured and educated by white men in his youth, and has developed a love for Blake's poetry. Nobody takes the doomed Blake as a companion in his travels, telling Blake that his poetry will now be "written in blood". Meanwhile, Dickinson, who was Charlie's father, hires three infamous bounty hunters to kill Blake and, more importantly, recover the horse Blake stole.

Blake and Nobody travel the countryside and periodically clash with the violent and bigoted people they meet. One of Dickinson's bounty hunters, Cole Wilson, is revealed to be a cannibalistic psychopath, and kills his two compatriots when they irritate him. Dickinson grows impatient and spreads wanted posters of Blake, drawing more bounty hunters. Blake is wounded again during a shootout, and his condition rapidly deteriorates.

Nobody takes the dying Blake to a Makah village and convinces the tribe to give him a ship burial. Nobody puts Blake into a canoe and bids him farewell. As he floats away, Blake watches Cole Wilson sneak up behind Nobody. Nobody turns and they fatally shoot each other. Blake gazes up into the sky for a time before closing his eyes as his canoe floats away.

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, 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, bible-reading psychopath 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 member of Sally's company
• 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 numerous references to the poetry of William Blake in the film. Nobody quotes lines from several of Blake's poems, including "Auguries of Innocence" and "The Everylasting Gospel". When Cole Wilson warns against drinking from standing water, it references the Proverb of Hell, "Expect poison from standing water", from Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. 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.

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. 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.

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

• 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.

External links

• Dead Man at IMDb