A Day with a Dead Man -Review by Alison Cuthbertson

While sick, what better way to spend the time than in bed and watch a great movie? The chosen film was Dead Man, written and directed by Jim Jarmusch in May of 1996. The film opens with “it is preferable not to travel with a dead man,” a quote from Henric Michaux. Johnny Depp plays the main character named William Blake who rides a train to a new job opportunity. Blake takes this train from his home in Cleveland to the end of the line in a tiny, rough town called Machine. There he was promised an accountant’s position at Dickinson Metalworks but is instead laughed at by Mr. Dickinson and turned away regardless of the letter he had received from the company. Later that evening he meets a young woman named Thel Russal and stays with her. During the night Mr. Dickinson’s son, Charlie Dickinson, comes through the door and just so happens to be Thel’s fiancé. He came bringing Thel a gift and an apology but ends up shooting her while she protect William Blake. Blake shoots Charlie and escapes through the window also stealing Mr. Dickinson’s Pinto. He later wakes up and finds himself in the desert with a Native American who calls himself “Nobody” and he is being followed by three men hired to take him back to Mr. Dickinson for the murders against him.
The bullet had gone through Thel and stopped just before hitting Blakes heart. Nobody believed that he was the same William Blake as the poet and painter, and with the bullet so near his heart this is what made Blake a dead man. Throughout the rest of this black and white film William Blake remembers his poetry but writes it with a gun in this life. He out runs everybody that is after him or just gets rid of the problem and continues to follow Nobody on a journey to fine the place where the sea meets the sky, or the entrance to the spirit world.
This film is done in such a cool and artful way, where everything is mysterious and dark. The scoring is distorted electric guitar improvised by Neil Young, which he takes his time with in every scene, bringing the viewer down the same trail through desert and woods. This is the journey of a man on his way to the other side, and even he is not sure whether he is dead or alive. It is perfect for this film to be black and white not just because it is right for the time period of the mid to late 1800’s, but because it helps create the eerie and badass nature of the movie. I would highly recommend this film to all who have not seen it, and I will be watching it again very soon.