Dead Man (1995, Dir. Jim Jarmusch)

Synopsis:

Meek Cleveland accountant, William Blake (Johnny Depp) spends his last few pennies getting to the remote town of Machine to take up a job in a metal works factory, run by local big shot John Dickenson (Robert Mitchum). However, when he arrives he’s told that the job has already been given to someone else. Later that evening he befriends a local prostitute, Thel (Mili Avital) and goes home with her, but they are discovered in bed by Thel’s ex-lover and Dickenson’s son, Charlie (Gabriel Byrne) who attempts to shoot Blake out of jealousy. Thel tries to protect Blake and she is shot instead and Blake is mortally wounded in the chest by the same bullet as it passes through her. In shock, he clumsily ends up shooting and killing Charlie before escaping on his horse. Slowly dying from the bullet near his heart, he is found and befriended by Native American Indian, Nobody, (Gary Farmer) who believes him to be the reincarnation of the poet William Blake. In the meantime, Dickenson has hired bounty hunters to tack down and bring Blake back “Dead Or Alive”…

Welcome to a new year of posts about underrated films. Bookending the posts this year we have two atypical westerns. It seems fair to mention that I’m not much of a western fan (it’s my second least favorite film genre after war films), those I do love tend to fall into the the category of anti-western, films which are technically part of the genre but which at the same time subvert many of the genre’s rules.

Here we have cult filmmaker, Jim Jarmusch’s take on the genre. Made at a time when Johnny Depp was busily trying to rid himself of his teen heartthrob image by appearing in a variety of unusual roles, Jarmusch’s western feels closer in feel to Orson Wells’ Touch Of Evil or David Lynch’s The Elephant Man than anything by either John Ford or Sergio Leone. We are already given clues that this will be a very different type of Western when, in one of the opening shots, Depp wanders along the main street of Machine and sees a horse urinating in the street followed by a shot of a woman performing oral sex on a man in a nearby alley. This a vision of the West as a lonely, brutal, dirty, monochromatic, existentialist version of hell; where only the Native Americans show any form of compassion for their fellow creatures and white people (or more specifically white men) are shown to be almost exclusively nasty, mean, pathetic and violent. This deserves particular mention as this is one of the few films that ever done this in the history of the Western. It also, daringly, allows several scenes between Native American actors speaking in their own dialects to go unsubtitled.

Depp’s performance here, is one of his most beautifully underplayed and it’s a worthwhile reminder (particularly these days) of what a brilliant and daring young actor he once was. Like the titular character in McCabe & Mrs Miller, he’s an initially cowardly and weak man who ultimately comes to accept that he must transform himself into a killer. Like McCabe, his acts of violence are pulled off, at least at first, by a combination of stupidity and luck. As the film progresses he becomes more comfortable with the role society has forced him into, resigned to the fact that he cannot escape what he has become.

Depp, is surrounded by a stellar cast, especially Gary Farmer as his loyal companion, Nobody, and there’s a whole host of great cameos from the likes of John Hurt, Iggy Pop, Gabriel Byrne, Crispin Glover, Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Winslow (playing a more cowardly and amusing character than those than he normally does here) and Robert Mitchum in what would be his final screen appearance before his death. There’s also a suitably psychotic performance from Lance Hendricksen (The Terminator, Aliens, Near Dark) as one of the bounty hunters on Depp’s trail and a wonderfully sleazy portrayal of a bigoted trading post preacher by Alfred Molina.

Robby Müller, who shot Jarmusch’s other great Black and white masterpiece: Down By Law, conjures up similar magic here — creating a version of the west that feels both period correct and yet beautifully alien at the same time. A feeling that is heightened by Neil Young’s minimal electric guitar score -supposedly recorded live, in a single session as he watched the film.

Ultimately, the film like much of Jarmusch’s work, is a fascinating one-off. A look at a familiar subject from an unfamiliar angle, that pays little or no heed to the conventions of the genre it’s nominally part of. As with Down By Law (which would play nicely on a double bill with this) it’s a film that works best when seen late night and when you’re in a mood for a film that will take you, unhurriedly, on its own particular journey to the end of the line.