film review" Dead Man"

Dead man, 1995 Directed by: Jim Jarmusch
Written by: Jim Jarmusch
Music by: Neil Young
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, western
Release date: May 26, 1995
Country: United States/ Germany

Main actors:
Johnny Depp as William Blake, a meek accountant from Cleveland, Ohio.
Gary Farmer as Nobody, a strong and opinionated Native American who was forcibly raised by whites and later given the nickname” he who talks loud saying nothing”.
Crispin Glover as Train Fireman, a coal-covered boiler man who welcomes Blake to the “hell” of Machine.
Robert Mitchum as Mr. John Dickinson, a shotgun industrialist in Machine.
John Hurt as John schofield, the business manager of Dickenson’s factory.
Mili Avital as The Russel, a former prostitute who makes and sells paper flower.
Gabriel Byrne as Charlie Dickenson, Thel’s ex-boyfriend and John Dickenson’s son.
Lance Henrikson as Cole Wilson, an infamous bounty hunter and murderous cannibal.
Michael Wincot as Conway Twill, a talkative bounty hunter.
Eugene Byrd as Johnny ‘The Kid’ Pickett, a young African-American bounty hunter
Lggy Pop as Salvator “sally”Jenko, a cross-dressing, Bible-reading fur trader at a campsite.
Billy Bob Thornton as Big George Drakoulious, a mountain man at sally’s campsite.
Jared Harris as Benmont Tench, a knife fur trader at trader at Sally’s campsite.
Alfred Molina as Trading Post Missionary, a corrupt missionary and businessman.
Gibby Haynes as Man with Gun in Alley.

Plot and analysis of the story:

The story of “Dead Man” is a metaphoric story and it is implicitly understood by the title. Dead Man talks about lack of spirituality in modern human nations. The story takes place in the 2nd half of the 19th century and it is the story of a young man named William Blake who travels to the city of Machine after a letter which had been sent to him two months ago offering him a job as an accountant. On his arrival he is told that he has been late one month and the job has been given to someone else. Hopeless and aimless he starts wandering in the town. After a stop in an inn he finds himself walking with a young girl, after a short time in girl’s room he finds himself killing the girl’s fiancé and the girl being killed by her own spouse. He runs away and comes across a native who is named “Nobody” or “he who speaks loud saying nothing”. “Nobody “imagines William Blake to be the famous poet and believes that he is a dead man. Nobody helps William to learn how to defend himself in the wilderness. Although at first Blake even didn’t know how to use a gun, but on necessity he is forced to use gun to defend himself because in that society only gun speaks and Blake learns that gun is going to replace his tongue. And eventually he starts to be a belligerous man who is an expert in using gun. One can easily notice Gun Culture in America in this movie and the fact that people don’t speak to one another much, instead they shoot to each other because there’s no common understanding among people and that is an industrial society which favors personal success and achievement and doesn’t observe human values, so everybody after personal achievement. Blake’s journey is a dialectic journey both physically and spiritually. As I said before this movie is completely metaphorical and from the very beginning the title implies it. I think ‘Dead Man” talks all about humanity in the modern world. It seems that in spite of all the modern technologies and progress that occurred in the new era, humanity didn’t grow as much and these modernity that was supposed to bring humans closer and closer together, couldn’t fulfill this aim and made the gap between people wider and wider.
“Dead man” speaks of loneliness of humanity. Humans are dead in the sense that they cannot be seen by other humans; not being seen is not the only problem, worse than that is the problem that they are not being heard and unfortunately they are not being understood by people of their own generation. So lack of understanding is the major problem of the new era or post- modern period. People do not agree on the basic concepts and when there is no common ground to build your later discussions on, you are going to be disappointed. I think in modern era because of the blurring of established boundaries and concepts, reaching to a common idea and agreement is very difficult and as understanding oneself is more difficult now than before, humans are lonely and actually they are DEAD.

metaphors of the story:

The train seems to move retroversively which might is intended to take back the audiences to the willing time in the western territories of 19th century America. Starting in train Billy Blake understood that land” speak dagger” to innocents; but as it’s a long time since Shakespeare’s Hamlet, they speak and versify in gun. From street to bed and from hate to love all should have gun “because it’s America”. Industrialization also put more wood on fire of brutality as locomotive engineer did in the starting scenes. Another notion which must be considered is tobacco, a healing herb for Indians which has been changed into a smoking grass for whites.

Conclusion
“Dead man” talks about dead values of humanity. It shows that in this new modern world humans are not as valuable as before and unfortunately even a pinto is more valuable than a human. The director wanted to depict social and humanitarian problems and dilemmas and say that how people are doubtful about their own identities and they need to prove themselves to one another because all the boundaries are now blurred and nobody is sure about anything.
reference:
www.imdb.com