Dead Man
Posted by svcd1ads on March 19th, 2010
Well famous rock critic Greil Marcus loved the hell outta this Jim Jarmusch flick. Somebody asks what the Amazon reviewer who called “Dead Man” “disappointing” was smoking. I might want to ask the same of Greil Marcus who’s lavish praise influenced me to buy this DVD. I mean it really is an interesting movie. I liked it a lot, but “the best movie of the dog days of the 20th century”?? Why? Best is sayin’ a lot, but it is best of the dog days. Marcus gave ten reasons (*spoiler warning*):
1. Made in 1996, it might as well be a silent. You can read the whole film off its faces.
2. I can never keep track of how many people Johnny Depp shoots.
3. The running Cleveland joke, which makes the whole movie — not to mention the hero’s whole life — into a shaggy dog story.
4. There is no hint in director Jim Jarmusch’s previous work that he was interested in anything but irony, and this movie has no irony.
5. Lance Henriksen reprising his head-vampire role from “Near Dark” — as a bounty-hunting cannibal.
6. The fact that you agree with him that the only way to shut up one of the other bounty hunters is to eat him.
7. The sense of an undiscovered West — a West that vanished before it could be incorporated into national myth. That’s all there on the train ride from Cleveland to the Pacific, some time after the Civil War, as the white passengers shift inexorably into barbarism.
8. Depp is an accountant named William Blake; as he heads into the accursed little Northwest town to work at what almost smells off the screen as a tannery, you realize you are now seeing the dark satanic mills, and that it’s no big deal.
9. I’m not sure it’s Robert Mitchum or the painting of his character that has a stronger screen presence, but it was his last role.
10. But you know, when it comes to sweeping the century off the table, Ildik Enyedi’s film “My 20th Century” (1989) might be the one.
ANd then Marcus goes on to list 10 reasons why Neil Young’s “Dead Man” soundtrack is the best music for the “dog days of the 20th Century.
I can dig it, to an extent. It’s a cool movie worth seeing. There are some other movies at the end of the 20th Century that are just maybe as good.
Dead Man Feature
Dead Man Overview
Johnny Depp (CHOCOLAT) delivers a remarkable performance in this highly acclaimed tale of adventure and intrigue in the wild, wild west! A young man in search of a fresh start, William Blake (Depp) embarks on an exciting journey to a new town … never realizing the danger that lies ahead. But when a heated love triangle ends in double murder, Blake finds himself a wanted man, running scared — until a mysterious loner teaches him to face the dangers that follow a “dead man.” With an outstanding supporting cast including Gabriel Byrne (THE USUAL SUSPECTS) and Robert Mitchum (CAPE FEAR), and a sizzling soundtrack, DEAD MAN is another motion picture triumph from filmmaker Jim Jarmusch.
Dead Man Specifications
This disappointment from Jim Jarmusch stars Johnny Depp in a mystery-Western about a 19th-century accountant named William Blake, who spends nearly all his money getting to a hellish mud town in the old West and ends up penniless and doomstruck in the wilderness. A benevolent if goofy Native American (Gary Farmer) takes an interest in guiding Blake on a quest for identity in his earthly journey, but the film is really just a string of endless shtick about inbred woodsmen, dumb lawmen, and a trio of irritable killers. With Robert Mitchum, Iggy Pop, Gabriel Byrne, Alfred Molina, and a noodling soundtrack by Neil Young. –Tom Keogh
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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Mar 19, 2010 09:30:10
Dead Man Available at Amazon OfferPrice =$6.57
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