Jim Jarmusch takes the western, strips it down to its bare bones, and reassembles it as a liminal death march. Dead Man (1995) follows Johnny Depp’s William Blake (not that William Blake, but also, kinda) as he stumbles into a surreal, existential odyssey through the American frontier, guided by a Native American named Nobody (Gary Farmer). It’s shot in stark black and white, scored by Neil Young’s ghostly, feedback-drenched guitar, and feels like the kind of thing you should watch alone with a glass of absinthe.
It’s a western, but only in the sense that there are horses and guns. This isn’t Tombstone – it’s poetry, violence, and slow decay wrapped in Jarmusch’s usual deadpan style. The cast is a stacked deck – Robert Mitchum in his last film role, Crispin Glover channeling Crispin Glover, Lance Henriksen, Iggy Pop in a bonnet, and a quiet, weary Depp in full disassociation mode.
It died a quick death in theaters (I only caught it by chance at a rep house midnight showing during the tail end) but found its cult audience on VHS. You don’t put something this strange and hypnotic out into the world without it becoming a staple for insomniacs, film school kids, art house buffs, and people who have a lot of thoughts about the myth of the American West. -Pop