Movie Review – Dead Man

Release Date: May 26, 1995

Director and playwright: Jim Jarmusch

Genre: Western

Main Artists: Johnny Depp (William Blake), Avital (Thel Russell), Gary Farmer (Nobady), Lance Henriksen (Cole Wilson), Michael Wincott (Conway Twill) and John Hurt (John Scholfield).

Synopsis:

Bill Blake comes to the city of Machine to work in a factory as an accountant; But sadly, he has arrived a month late due to the death of his parents and dealing with their funerals, so he loses his job. On the night after his arrival in town, Bill confronts a salesgirl and is invited to spend the night with her, but the girl’s ex-boyfriend (son of the owner of Machine’s Metal Works Company) arrives and Bill leaves. he is forced to kill him as self-defense and he himself was injured. He escaped and waking up in the morning to meet Nobody who is an English literate Indian; he calls William Blake the Dead Man because he has the name of a dead English poet and he also carries a bullet in his chest. They set out on a journey to escape their prosecution (s), on the way they face different surprises and adventures; These events transform William Blake into a cold-blooded assassin just for his survival. He makes a death camp whose result is his death.

Setting:

Weather: the movie is set in the late 19th century,

Square: on the extreme western frontier of America.

Nice: Western, Drama

“It is preferable not to travel with a dead person.” It is a quote from Henri Michaux that the film begins with, so initially it is obvious that the audience is going to see a totally metaphorical film. William Blake (1757-1827), English poet, painter, and printmaker, who created an unusual form of illustrated verse; His poetry, inspired by a mystical vision, is among the most original, lyrical and prophetic of the language is the name of the main character and Nobody, which I think may be a metaphor for the most recognized work of the American playwright Arthur Miller, Death of a seller (1949) which tells the story of a traveling salesman, Willy Loman, who experiences frustration and failure while reflecting on his life, in a scene in which Charley (Loman’s friend) talks about the seller’s grave with the beginning “Nobody blame this man. You don’t get it: Willy was a salesman … “is the name of the second man. Both are metaphors that seek and fight for their identities: Blake has lost his relatives and is heading west in search of a place where he can light a new life. Although it is stated in the final scripts that it is a fictional story and no one should be considered as a real character, but to a large extent Willy Blake (the dead man) represents former president Andrew Jackson, who was an orphan like Billy and a Dead Man, since he also had a bullet in his chest.

Film Technique:

Dead Man is projected in black and white, which alone represents the painful mood of the story; furthermore, it shows that all the main characters in the play are white and good or black and villains, there is no gray main character in the story. In 1995, a black and white film can also be considered as a deconstruction and deconstruction after long color films (from 1940 and 1950). Dead Man is full of violence and that’s why it got an R rating, it conveys a total sense of bitterness and fear in 19th century America.

The music in the film is outstanding; written and performed by Neil Young using an electric guitar, it did only what all black and white did or what had been done in black and white.

Game figures (instead of words)

The train appears to be moving retroversely, which is intended to bring the public to the desired time in the western territories of 19th century America. Starting by train, Billy Blake understood that the people of that land “speak dagger” to innocents; but since a long time has passed since Shakespeare’s Hamlet, they speak and versify in arms. From the street to the bed and from hate to love, everyone should have a gun “because it’s America.” Industrialization also set more wood ablaze with brutality, as did the locomotive engineer in the opening scenes. Another notion to keep in mind is tobacco, a healing herb for the Indians that has become a smoky herb for the whites.

conclusion

Dead Man speaks and shows nothing but a dead value of humanity. It shows that in the so-called modern civilized West, even a pinto is more valuable than a man (even a white one). Jarmusch’s cinema always shows social problems and issues as can be seen in his other works such as: Stranger than paradise (1984), Under the law (1986), Mystery train (1989), Night on earth (1992), Coffee and cigarettes: somewhere in California (1993), Horse’s year (1997) and Butterfly Man (2005).