(aka 'Dead Man" or "Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man')
directed by Jim
Jarmusch
USA 1995
Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, a disturbing,
mysterious black-and-white western, opens with someone named William Blake
(Johnny Depp), a recently orphaned accountant from Cleveland, traveling west on
a train with the promise of a job at a metal works in a town called Machine. He
keeps dozing off and waking to new sets of fellow passengers, including several
who fire their guns out the windows at a herd of buffalo. (Such occurrences were
common in the 1870s, encouraged by the government as a means of wiping out
Indians by eliminating one of their staples; in 1875, over a million buffalo
were slaughtered.)
When Blake arrives at his destination--a nightmarishly squalid settlement of
festering meanness and pollution--he's told derisively by both Dickinson (Robert
Mitchum), the blustering, hostile metal-works owner, and one of his henchmen
(John Hurt) that they no longer need an accountant, having filled the position
some time ago. After repairing to a saloon to spend the remainder of his meager
supply of cash on a small bottle of whiskey, Blake runs into a former prostitute
named Thel (Mili Avital) selling paper flowers and winds up in bed with her.
Later that night Thel's former lover (Gabriel Byrne)--who happens to be
Dickinson's son--bursts in and, after a brief exchange, shoots her dead and
seriously wounds Blake in the chest with the same bullet. Grabbing Thel's
bedside pistol, Blake fires back three times, eventually hitting his assailant
in the neck, and makes a clumsy getaway on the man's pinto after falling out the
window.
Excerpt from Jonathan Rosenbaum's review at the Chicago Reader located HERE
Posters
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Theatrical Release: May 26th, 1995 - Cannes Film Festival
Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews
Incidental Reading (CLICK COVERS or TITLES for more information)
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The A List: The National Society of Film
Critics' 100 Essential Films by Jay Carr (Editor) |
Movie Mutations: The Changing Face of World
Cinephilia by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Adrian Martin |
Dead Man (Bfi Modern Classics Distributed
for the British Film Institute) by Jonathan Rosenbaum |
Jim Jarmusch: Interviews (Conversations
With Filmmakers Series) by Ludvig Hertzberg |
How to Read a Film: The World of Movies, Media, and
Multimedia : Language, History, Theory by James Monaco |
Teach Yourself Film Studies
by Warren Buckland |
Moving Places: A Life at the Movies by Jonathan Rosenbaum |
The Art of Watching Films by Joe Boggs, Dennis W. Petrie |
DVD Review: Miramax Home Entertainment - Region 1- NTSC
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| Distribution | Miramax - Region 1- NTSC | |
| Runtime | 2:01:08 | |
| Video | 1.78:1
Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.91 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s |
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NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
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| Bitrate: |
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| Audio | English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo) | |
| Subtitles | English (close captioned), French, None | |
| Features |
Release Information:
Edition Details: • Deleted
Scenes (3:28) • Trailer
(1:55) |
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Comments: |
This is a very good DVD. The picture quality is
excellent, it has some decent, if not illuminating, extras, is
anamorphic and has removable close-captioned subtitles. I guess another
of the big pluses of this intriguing film-on-DVD is that the price is
very reasonable. This appears to be as clean and sharp a black and white
print as I can remember and is accented further by the great outdoor
cinematography. For Jarmusch fans and those ready to become one - this
is a must-own DVD.
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| Distribution | Miramax - Region 1- NTSC | |
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