to the Other World...

William Blake (Johny Depp) is an accountant by profession. He is traveling from his hometown Cleveland to the western city of Machine to join a steel factory. Blake’s parents are dead and he is in desperate needs of a job. Unfortunately is not aware of the fact that the job position has already been filled. Depp comes across a former prostitute beside a dingy bar in a muddy street at night. The woman, a paper flower seller insists Depp to come with her. This woman had an affair with Mr. Dickinson’s (the fowl mouth steel merchant) son and soon unhappily the night gets tinged with gunfire between all of the three. Both the merchant’s son (his name is Charles) and the woman is killed, Depp with a fatal wound escapes with Charles’s horse. Mr. Dickinson puts a hefty price on Depp’s head and hires three qualified murderer to bring him back dead/alive (firstly – he has stolen the prized horse, secondly – murderer of his son and thirdly – probable murderer of the woman). The Next morning, Depp meets an aboriginal Indian (named – Nobody) in the jungle who mistakes Depp as the original Blake (as in the poet) and from this point on, Depp’s journey begins. In other words I can put this as – the journey of one of the longest and beautiful death sequences in movie records.

Not surprisingly Dead man is a B&W film (Jarmusch’s major ventures are shot in B&W - stranger than paradise, down by law, coffee and cigarettes) but the interesting fact remains that dead man has a western charm (or, neo western) and the movie is all about Depp’s reallocation from the western planet to the other side, say the native world. Culture clash or fights between different paradigms has always been a prime motif of many westerns and Dead Man is no exception but certainly with a twist. From the very beginning we see that Depp is not appropriate in the big-picture of the movie (he is polished, sober, clean outfit, round spectacle – diametrically opposite with his fellow travelers in the train or the city of Machine residents) and by little by little how he is trying to fit in the spiritual stance of the movie. I can recall a beautiful shot in beginning: - Depp is mostly sleeping in the train and with every single crack he watches how the fellow passengers and the nature outside the window are changing. He is sober, polite, no action hero but quicker he is getting the taste of blood in his hands with sporadic killings. I think Jarmusch draws this allegory with the theme of “violence in poetry” and fascinatingly used the metaphor of William Blake.

The name Nobody surely gives a budge; he is nobody and so can be anyone to guide Depp. Jarmusch meticulously planned this character to give a wider characteristic, to give a taste of an open world but closer to nature. That’s why the dialect of Nobody is a mixture model of various American Indian clans!

Dead man is all about a journey en route for a spiritual uplift of Depp. It is a lonely expedition of a wounded man who will be dead soon. Remember from the very beginning how Nobody (who seems to be almost a scholar) helps Depp in preparing him for the journey. Nobody is more interested in healing Depp’s western soul than his wounds. Being with Nobody, traveling through the woods, meeting and facing merciless fates Depp is a learner here. The film and Depp both gradually transit to a native terrain without any “intrusion”. His physical condition is worsening; his eyes are just open to see the fragility of the cruel world that defines the realms. There is no explicit camera trickery or motivating speech or preach yet the transition is sleek and very smooth.

In the ending we observe Blake’s solo voyage into the sea where his death is waiting, a lone ornamented boat is drifting away with him and suddenly we realize our regular so called refined world is such temporary and short-lived.

Dead Man - 1995
Directed By : Jim Jarmusch