Film Review: DEAD MAN (1995, Jim Jarmusch)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 121 minutes.
Tag-line: "No one can survive becoming a legend."
Notable Cast or Crew: Johnny Depp (CRY-BABY, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS), Gary Farmer (ADAPATION, GHOST DOG), Crispin Glover (BACK TO THE FUTURE, WILD AT HEART), Lance Henriksen (NEAR DARK, ALIENS, PUMPKINHEAD), Michael Wincott (THE CROW, ROMEO IS BLEEDING), Eugene Byrd (SLEEPERS, THE SUBSTITUTE 2: SCHOOL'S OUT), John Hurt (ALIEN, I CLAUDIUS), Robert Mitchum (CAPE FEAR, OUT OF THE PAST), Iggy Pop (TANK GIRL, ROCK AND RULE), Gabriel Byrne (THE USUAL SUSPECTS, MILLER'S CROSSING), Jared Harris (NATURAL BORN KILLERS, THE WARD), Billy Bob Thornton (ARMAGEDDON, TOMBSTONE), Mili Avital (STARGATE, THE END OF VIOLENCE), Alfred Molina (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, SPECIES).  Music by Neil Young.  Cinematography by Robby Müller (REPO MAN, DANCER IN THE DARK, BODY ROCK, TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., and PARIS, TEXAS).
Best One-liner: "That weapon will replace your tongue. You will learn to speak through it. And your poetry will now be written with blood."

Welcome to DEAD MAN, the metaphysically brutal 90s art-acid-Western you didn't know you needed, and quite possibly the enduring masterpiece of indie auteur Jim Jarmusch.
 
You could call it 'the ERASERHEAD of Westerns,' or perhaps 'Franz Kafka-by-way-of John Ford,' or maybe 'an Ansel Adams horror movie.'  It shuns Western nostalgia and renounces Hollywood aesthetics. It's tangibly authentic and usually frightening.  A collage of dirty, vintage Americana set to squealing Neil Young soundscapes.  A movie of dark textures, of grease and grit and gristle, of cesspools and ink wells and open wounds, of smoke and gears and timber and bone.






It goes without saying that cinematographer Robby Müller (REPO MAN, TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., BARFLY; PARIS, TEXAS) really outdoes himself here.  And for reference, let me remind you that the Academy Award for cinematography that year went to John Toll, for BRAVEHEART.

Our story follows the accountant William "no, not that William Blake" Blake (Johnny Depp) as he journeys from Cleveland to a job out west in the company town of Machine.
 
In a twist that would feel at home in THE TRIAL or THE CASTLE, there is no job––only an endless stream of bureaucratic contempt, paranoid behavior, and existential menace.

Said stream is initiated by an aggressively weird and soot-covered Crispin Glover:

continued by a surly, greasy John Hurt:

and brought to a crescendo by a latter-career Robert Mitchum who, naturally, continues to not give a damn.

My only question is: who got to keep that painting after the shoot wrapped? I'm only asking, cause there happens to be a Mitchum-painting-sized empty space on my living room wall.

Quite obviously, to anyone with even a vague conception of my interests, I think this is magnificent––and we're only about twenty minutes in.

After Blake is forced by circumstance to become a murderer (of Gabriel Byrne, no less!),

he goes on the lam

with a man named Nobody (Gary Farmer), a Native American who came of age after being kidnapped by a "savage circus" traveling show.
 
 Gary Farmer, pictured here doing a Slash impersonation.

The film at this point develops into an episodic, memento mori-style picaresque; an extended meditation on death and dying.  Jim Jarmusch thrives on textural juxtapositions and combinations of actors with different flavors (see also:  MYSTERY TRAIN, NIGHT ON EARTH, COFFEE AND CIGARETTES), and DEAD MAN treats us to several of these bizarre tableaux.  For instance, in one scene, Iggy Pop (wearing a LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE dress),

a molest-y Billy Bob Thornton,

and Jared (son of Richard) Harris share a campfire with Johnny Depp, in turns petting him and being generally terrifying.


Perhaps my favorite element of this scene is that Iggy Pop makes no attempt to conceal his conspicuous Detroit accent.

Elsewhere, we have Hurt, Mitchum, Michael Wincott (THE CROW, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY), Eugene Byrd (SLEEPERS, THE SUBSTITUTE 2), and Lance Henriksen sharing the screen together,


an event that is clearly historic (and possibly on par with this Bill Murray/Robert Mitchum/John Glover shared scene).

I must give special mention to Lance Henriksen, whose résumé already boasts an entire rogue's gallery of frighteningly committed psychos.

He evolves into the film's major antagonist, death-angel of inevitability, a bounty-hunting cannibal of unimaginable cruelty who "fucked his parents," according to the gossip mill.

Perhaps needless to say, Henriksen is scary-good.  He has the look of a boogeyman who wandered beyond the confines of a cursed daguerreotype, and he fully embodies the role.  I'm reminded of the stories of from behind the scenes of NEAR DARK, when the method-acting Henriksen wandered the Southwest for real and picked up hitchhikers, all while in character as a Civil War-era, serial-killing vampire. Yikes! I really hope they had an SFX guy on set for the cannibal scenes...

Lance enjoys some takeout.

Perhaps betraying his Henriksen fandom, Jarmusch inserts a scene where a character says "God damn your soul to the fires of hell!" to which another replies, "He already has," which is a direct line from PUMPKINHEAD.

In connection with Henriksen, I also must make special mention of the film's unique visceral aspects. This isn't quite a gorefest, though there are some exceptionally vivid moments of violence that I remembered with terrible clarity.  That's especially surprising since this was only my second viewing, and my first must have been in 1996 or 1997, shortly after DEAD MAN hit the VHS rental shelves.
 
There is a brutal, dangerous beauty at play here, and the experience lays somewhere between "suffering from fever dreams" and "perusing a haunted taxidermy shop."  Depp, whom I've essentially neglected to mention thus far, brings it all together with a lyrical detachment worthy of his poetic namesake.  Five stars.


P.S.––Note the in-joke of two Johnny Depp-hunting marshals named "Lee" and "Marvin,"
 
a nod to Jarmusch's intense Lee Marvin fandom and notorious secret society, "The Sons of Lee Marvin."



–Sean Gill

Only now does it occur to me... MAVERICK

Only now does it occur to me... that MAVERICK is a real "Donner Party."  By that, I don't mean that it involves cannibalism, torture, or Mel Gibson Jesus-poses,

Though if this isn't in his contract, I'll eat my hat.

instead I mean that its director, Richard Donner, has packed the film with actors and references from other "Donner" films.

Obviously, it stars Mel Gibson (of 4 Donner LETHAL WEAPONS and a CONSPIRACY THEORY), but there's plenty more where that came from.

Margot Kidder (Donner's SUPERMAN 1 & 2, he also produced her appearances in TALES FROM THE CRYPT and DELIRIOUS) shows up as a grouchy spinster obsessed with a stolen wedding dress:

Alfred Molina (Donner's LADYHAWKE) appears as a recurring villain and instrument of Gibson-torture:

Stephen Kahan ("Captain Murphy" from all 4 LETHAL WEAPONS, but also appeared in Donner's SUPERMAN, INSIDE MOVES, THE TOY, SCROOGED, CONSPIRACY THEORY, 16 BLOCKS, RADIO FLYER, TIMELINE and a few TALES FROM THE CRYPTs) plays a riverboat card dealer, who shares an unusual interaction with Mel Gibson, whereupon he congratulates him on his win (with familiarity), and takes the chair with him as he stands, prompting Mel to nearly crack up.

Then, for the piéce de résistance:  Mel Gibson and Geoffrey Lewis are shootin' the shit inside a bank when three robbers bust in to relieve them of their wallets and blow the safe.  The lead robber piques Mel Gibson's interest and there is a note of recognition.

 

He pulls down the robber's bandana to reveal Murtaugh himself, Danny Glover:

And to the strains of the LETHAL WEAPON theme, they share a moment, then decide––nahh, this ridiculous.  Glover goes on his way, revealing the rest of his gang:

Corey Feldman (of Donner's THE GOONIES, and the Donner-produced THE LOST BOYS and BORDELLO OF BLOOD), country musician Hal Ketchum, and apparently transportation coordinator John M. Woodward, who coordinated such on LETHAL WEAPONS 2-4, CONSPIRACY THEORY, and TIMELINE.  I think that qualifies as a Donner Party!

Oh yeah, and even in the Wild West, Danny Glover is getting...

...too old for this shit.

BONUS QUIZ:  Can you identify which of the following pictures are screen captures from MAVERICK (featuring the lush cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond), and which are Western Americana picture postcards?

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

It's a cheap trick question––they're all screen captures from MAVERICK!

PS––and apparently, the brilliant Linda Hunt (THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY, THE BOSTONIANS, KINDERGARTEN COP) and my fave glam rocker Alice Cooper had their scenes deleted (damn!) as "The Magician" and "The Town Drunk," respectively.

Film Review: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981, Steven Spielberg)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 115 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Eliot, William Hootkins, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, Dennis Muren, John Williams, George Lucas, Pat Roach, Alfred Molina, Lawrence Kasdan
Tag-line: "The Return of the Great Adventure."
Best one-liner: "You want to talk to God? Let's go see him together, I've got nothing better to do."

Ah, Indiana Jones. A true hero for America. He's basically a grave robber, a cultural appropriator, sucker-punch thrower, a 'shoot first and ask questions later' kind of guy. He feels justified in everything he does, and when he gets called out on it, he defuses the situation with a smarmy grin. And the film acknowledges it, with Belloq's whole "shadowy reflection of you" speech, which is the screenwriter Kasdan beautifully channeling the days of Hawks and Huston. According to the original RAIDERS novelization, college-age Indy seduced 16-year-old Marion, promised her the world, and then left her. His friend and favorite professor's daughter! She was so broken down that she followed her dad to Nepal, he promptly died, and she had to work as a prostitute for some years in order to survive.

Now, with THAT subtext, watch their reunion scene, and soak in what a dick Indy is.

Cause that's exactly it. Indiana Jones is a dick. Case in point, in the Nazi sub base, Indy is dressed as a Nazi soldier. His mission- which risks not only his own neck and that of a woman he loves, but possibly the fate of the entire world- hangs in the balance. Yet, when he sees Belloq, he's willing to risk it all just to smack his shoulder into him. Of course, Belloq assumes it's a clumsy Nazi, and exits disdainfully, but Indy could have ruined the entire plan right there. Just so he could be a dick.





And look at that final, smug look of self-satisfaction. That really sums it all up.

Yet... when it all comes down to it, we love Indy. Because in the context of the films, he's usually fighting the most vile, venomous enemies the planet has ever excreted. So keep fighting the good fight, Indy, but cool it with the hypocrisy. There's a pretty blurry line between elitist private collection, 'public' museum, and Hovitos Temple. Aww, there you go with that lopsided grin again. Damn it. Fine. Five stars. But this is the last time!

-Sean Gill