Dead Man (1996)

In choosing between two words - "perplexing" or "pretentious" - to describe this flick, I'm unsure which is more appropriate. I was drawn to it by the presence of Johnny Depp and of Robert Mitchum, despite the flurry of negative reviews. Now I understand those reviews. I almost stopped watching after the first ten minutes, which are wordless, and do nothing but show - in successive takes of no more than a minute or so each - the changing ridership of a train car in which Depp's character, William Blake, is traveling. This sets the tone for most of the movie, which will be presented, annoyingly, in brief clips, some no longer than twenty seconds. The first words spoken, addressed to Blake, are cryptic and opaque, again setting the tone for the movie. If you wonder about the reference to William Blake, the British poet and painter, you would be on point, although the nature of the relationship of Depp's character to the real Blake is still unclear at the end. The film looks like some sort of metaphor for the passage from life (gee, might that river being crossed be the Styx?), but as soon as it seems to fix on this idea a scene of knee-slapping humor will intrude (these humorous bits are actually the most appealing parts of the movie). The actor chosen to play the Indian spiritual guide looks as much like an Indian as I do an alpaca, but that might be part of the humorous angle. The second most annoying aspect of the movie after the short takes is the musical score, for distorted acoustic guitar, which is obviously a reference to Western oaters of yore and is very soon grating. Having said all that the movie is like a train wreck - you can't take your eyes off it, even though you want to.The movie succeeds in making you want to see how it all turns out, and I watched to the end, which is, alas, as cryptic as most of what preceded it.

This film has more "fade to black" scene changes than a hacked TV episode on TV Land. And that's the good news. The soundtrack will drive you insane after the first ten seconds but if you turn the sound off you won't miss anything. Johnny Depp was brilliant, John Hurt was the best part of the film and the other actors were awful. None of them could decide what dialect to use and the dialect was cringe-worthy throughout. The theme "no one can live as a legend" must have been concocted by an ad man trying to sell this turkey. The best scene was with Johnny Depp and a stuffed fawn but the director did not have the skill to make it poignant. Just awful.

Is the movie reflecting the actual living status of men at that time? Everyone except Thel in the town of machine looked hopeless, indifferent, abnormal, cold. I would doubt it's really this way in real life of that time.Secondly, this movie exposed a lot of shootings. Why did the men don't treat life seriously? Why did they shoot for trivial matters? For example, Charlie was so stupid to shoot Blake. And the reaction of shooting each other did not look realistic. There was no panic in shooting. And when one was shooting another, the other just stood there. Supposedly, the proper and instinctive reaction of the other being shot should be dodging, staying low, or moving aside to avoid being shot. But look at the scene where the shooting between Nobody and Cole, neither Nobody nor Cole dodged or stayed low during the shooting, which did not look real.

I really sought this out because of Only lovers Left Alive, a wildly entrancing, unique film. This is also unique in the pantheon of western genres. I think the score doesn't fit quite as nicely as it should with the film's content, but it doesn't distract too badly. Johnny Depp does great work here, totally in sync with what Jim intended. It's actually not as minimalist as people like to point out (from what I've read) but you can still see where some people get impatient to a point. It's hypnotizing and it does a fine job of setting up its atmosphere well enough to succeed in its points. Definitely recommended enough, even if not sure how much I really liked it.