(Originally written April 7, 2007)

“That weapon will replace your tongue. You will learn to speak through it. And your poetry will now be written with blood.”

What makes Jim Jarmusch’s films so memorable is the way in which the images burn into one’s mind. They resonate on the screen in a powerful way. Jarmusch takes the austere style of filmmakers such as Ozu and Bresson and perverts the content in a way that delves deeper into a darker side of human nature. In the film Dead Man, he uses his technique to examine the surreal and mystical aspects of the old West. The film is a loss-of-innocent tale of an accountant played by Johnny Depp who turns violent after murdering a man. He meets a Native American named Nobody, who mistakes Depp’s character for the poet William Blake, since both the poet and Depp share the same name. Meanwhile, three famous gunslingers are hired by a factory owner named Dickinson, the father of the man murdered by William Blake. Dickinson is played by Robert Mitchum in a very haunting way. The film then continues as the accountant assumes the position of an outlaw and as the poet William Blake.

Jarmusch is an intelligent man, paying close attention to his characterizations of the Native Americans and the old West and subtly making references to the poetry of William Blake. Someone like Quentin Tarantino wears his cultural references on his sleeve in a clever way while Jarmusch subtly hints at the poetry in a way that adds to the movie instead of distracting. One of the best aspects of this film is the fact that it does not glorify the violence. The violence is, actually, quite grisly in a way that allows the film to look more at the violent nature of humans. What makes the violence in this film so effective is that it is dispersed among Jarmusch’s otherwise very quiet style, so the gunshots cut through with full effect, typically accompanied by the violent-sounding electric guitar of Neil Young. Young’s score perfectly establishes the mood of the film. Something that is lost in much of contemporary cinema is the power of human faces. This film photographs the faces of the actors in a way such that their distinct features remain in our mind long after the movie. Dead Man is not so much about the events in the movie but about the characters involved and the way in which the old West drives them to violence.