Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man

Jim Jarmusch addresses the poetic, symbolic and abstract aspects of life rather than the physical, corporeal and ephemeral in his films. From the onset, Jarmusch reveals the intension of the film, “Dead Man”. It is a journey. Its tone is completely dependent on the interpretation donated to the introductory sequence in the train. People, landscape and activities change but William Blake (performed by the multitalented Johnny Deep) remains. Might he be traversing the nation physically or might Mr. Blake be descending into a pernicious territory inhabited by mysterious people? As the film grizzles in theme and clarity, the quest is accompanied only by the repetitive and droning twang of Neil Young’s guitar. The poetic voyage upon which our hero, William Blake, will navigate is introduced without apology in the introductory sequence of the film.

Jim Jarmusch sets the tone of the movie, with a short and concise glimpse in the introduction of the movie. The film is shot in classic chiaroscuro, black and white, which reinstates the mystery and enigma bestowed in the monochromatic gray. William Blake, a taciturn accountant vulnerable to the generic menace of the western frontier represented by the town of Machine, is exposed to the ambient fornication, the gun-slinging norm and the seedy, dingy bars sheltering prostitutes, and criminals. These are ingredients of disaster when mixed with the innocuous nature of William Blake.

The declivity into perdition is a spiral of unfortunate events. William Blake, privileged enough to have found a woman in the town, must confront the woman’s lover who returns rancorous to repossess her at any cost. The chastity of the naked lovers is stirred by the celerity of murder. The lover and the prostitute are both killed in the affair. William Blake, petrified by what just happened, scurries unseen into the forest. He is later framed for both murders. The mogul employer that promised Blake a job, John Dickinson (Robert Mitchum), also father of the murdered man, gathers a coterie of the most notorious slayers to hunt down Blake. William falls ill due to a bullet planted near his heart, which ironically serves as the hemostat keeping him alive.

Within the poetic symbolism of the theme, the vivification of our hero is in part due to the apparition of a lonely, cultured, and overweight Indian. The Indian, named Nobody, believes William Blake to be the spiritual embodiment of the 18th century poet. With Nobody Jarmusch attempts to destroys the habitual portrayal of the Indian as ignorant and dumb. Yet he must revert do this by educating him in England. Jarmusch is in a cul-de-sac; the Western system still prevails on the natives. However, Nobody adds a blithe and humane touch the otherwise frigid tale of a man hauled by destiny to his death. Movies that circumvent the canorous reality to concentrate on the bland supernatural are rationally fatiguing for leisure time. This is not a film to pass the time.

“Dead Man” utilizes a western-style background as the canvas for the existential exposition of a man’s intermittent passage to death. The western is a portal from which Jarmusch develops metaphors closer to the umbra of living than to the relief of death. For its obscurity, it must stray from the didactic and sacrifice crucial parcels of character development for preventable symbolisms, like the repeated mention of tobacco or the bluntly mentioned religious icon. The film is an invertebrate composition of symbolisms but it is meant to be so.

It’s like the initial metaphor by the train-fireman “doesn’t this remind you of when you are in a boat and then the water is not dissimilar to the landscape above, and then you ask yourself why is it that the landscape is moving but the boat is still?” The opening sequence is a preface to the final scene of the film. The river passes underneath the dory while the body remains and the sky moves. Nevertheless, the ubiquitous symbolisms are reprieved by the perplexing gnomic speech of the Indian. Jim Jarmusch disarms the main character of any possible control of his life. Life for William Blake was spent in stasis below a passing sky. If the film is to represent an aspect of life, at the conclusion of it you must feel exhausted, your mind must throb and you ought to feel a total release of tension now that the movie, like life, is over.