Dead Man
United States • 1995
Director
#919Criterion Collection →Synopsis
With DEAD MAN, his first period piece, Jim Jarmusch imagined the nineteenth-century American West as an existential wasteland, delivering a surreal reckoning with the ravages of industrialization, the country's legacy of violence and prejudice, and the natural cycle of life and death. Accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) has hardly arrived in the godforsaken outpost of Machine before he's caught in the middle of a fatal lovers' quarrel. Wounded and on the lam, Blake falls under the watch of the outcast Nobody (Gary Farmer), who guides his companion on a spiritual journey, teaching him to dispense poetic justice along the way. Featuring austerely beautiful black-and-white photography by Robby Müller and a live-wire score by Neil Young, DEAD MAN is a profound and unique revision of the western genre.
Synopsis
With DEAD MAN, his first period piece, Jim Jarmusch imagined the nineteenth-century American West as an existential wasteland, delivering a surreal reckoning with the ravages of industrialization, the country's legacy of violence and prejudice, and the natural cycle of life and death. Accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) has hardly arrived in the godforsaken outpost of Machine before he's caught in the middle of a fatal lovers' quarrel. Wounded and on the lam, Blake falls under the watch of the outcast Nobody (Gary Farmer), who guides his companion on a spiritual journey, teaching him to dispense poetic justice along the way. Featuring austerely beautiful black-and-white photography by Robby Müller and a live-wire score by Neil Young, DEAD MAN is a profound and unique revision of the western genre.
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Credits
Crew
DirectorJim Jarmusch
WriterJim Jarmusch
CinematographerRobby Müller
ComposerNeil Young
EditorJay Rabinowitz
ProducerDemetra J. MacBride
Cast
Johnny Deppas William Blake
Gary Farmeras Nobody
Crispin Gloveras Train Fireman
Lance Henriksenas Cole Wilson