Review: Dead Man (1995)
The movie Dead Man harkens back to a day when acclaimed actor Johnny Depp was still a major player in the independent movie scene. It is, in many people’s opinions, one of Depp’s best roles and continues to be a cult classic to this day. Dead Man is written and directed by Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers) and has a cast that consists of many great actors. There are cameos from Crispin Glover, Lance Henriksen, John Hurt, Iggy Pop, Gabriel Byrne, Billy Bob Thornton and Alfred Molina just to name a few. It’s this eclectic cast and a bizarre script that makes Dead Man such a great film.
Trying to explain the plot of Dead Man is almost like lighting the film on fire and telling people to imagine shapes in the blaze. The basic story revolves around Depp’s character, William Blake, as he makes his way to a small town to assume a new job. Things go bad for him quickly and he ends up in the care of an American Indian by the name of Nobody (played to excellence by Gary Farmer). As the two travel west, they encounter many strange people and must avoid the killers on Blake’s trail.
The bodies pile up along their journey and, in truth, much of this film seems almost random. The fun of Dead Man is in trying to decipher what Jarmusch is saying with his surreal depiction of the old west. There are plenty of people out there with plenty of theories, though in order to truly understand this film, you have to watch it for yourself and put into it what you will.
Dead Man is not for everyone. Those that love Jim Jarmusch or randomly symbolic films will find this flick to be a true treasure. If you go into it expecting something straight-forward or even expecting to understand more than half of it in the first go, you’ll be disappointed. This is a true work of cinematic art that begs the viewer to put themselves in the middle of things. Unfortunately, the critics (being the sometimes small-minded lot that they are) didn’t really get behind Dead
Photo Credits -
Dead Man courtesy of hiddenabacus.com
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