Thursday, October 20, 2011

Dead Man [1995]




An accountant from Cleveland, Walter Blake, comes out west on promise of a job working for an eccentric tycoon – only to be turned away – and become an outlaw.

This was a great star studded dark comedy – which also made for a great western. Neil Young’s soundtrack was exceptional and made Blake’s journey more unnerving. Jim Jarmusch’s direction as interesting – he allowed for very static shots where nothing was happening while the distorted guitar would blare – and somehow it worked at being interesting as opposed to being annoying. Johnny Depp was off kilter as Blake – he had some great acting chops even back then - I wish he’d have gotten the credit and continued down that quirky road – instead of being Burton’s go-to puppet. I loved how this film could be left up to interpretation as to what was actually happening. I loved how it seemed like this film was kind of a commando production done in the back woods. It was most certainly dialogue driven in a better way than Tarantino’s films. I really loved the metaphysical change in Blake from an inept accountant to outlaw.



Overall – it was a great film – my presumption disparity may be off on this one – so the shock of being pleasantly surprised may tamper my long run view of the film – but I really liked it.

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