‘The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn from the crow...’
This is going to be a short one as I can’t bare to devote any more of my life than I already have to the work of Jim Jarmusch. I have seen many of his films and barely enjoyed any of them. Dead Man shoots to the top of that list as for the first time, Jarmusch has actually created a world here that I wanted to inhabit for more than five minutes…
After being slated for death following a misunderstanding, accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) teams up with a Native American simply named ‘Nobody’ (Gary Farmer) on a spiritual journey. On that journey, Depp and the viewer will also encounter Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton and Gabriel Byrne among others.
Filmed in stark black and white and penned by Jarmusch himself, Dead Man contains everything that I struggle to find in his other work. Humour. Heart. Someone continuously referring to Depp as ‘Stupid White Man’. And while there were some passages here that left me cold, there is enough good stuff to be able to confidently proclaim that this is my favourite Jarmusch movie. It also features a lovely score from Neil Young. A winner.