All the way from Cleveland to the end of the railway line town called Machine, William Blake (Johnny Depp) embarks on a journey to the far West for an accountant job which has been offered to him. After a long train ride, he realises that he is one month late and the company has already employed a new accountant. Blake then meets a saloon girl and later, for self-defence, shoots dead her lover (Gabriel Byrne) and himself is also wounded, the woman being gunned down by her lover as well. While escaping, Blake meets a Native American named Nobody (Gary Farmer), an outcast who has been transported from one place to another since boyhood and eventually is shipped to England where he is educated- and for one moment he believes that Blake is the dead English poet of the same name. The dead man happens to be the son of the boss of the company which has turned Blake down, and now he has hired three most notorious killers to find Blake, dead or alive.
Now Blake is going through an amazing transformation- an Easterner who turns into the hunted, a serial killer (for self-defence purposes) and an explorer of the dead poet's poetry. Meanwhile, Nobody is about to show Blake a spiritual world, where all spirits dwell.
It is an awesome idea to shoot this film in black and white as this adds much more to the ambience. Johnny Depp is just spectacular and so is the rest of the cast. Perhaps this movie should be re-entitled 'Dead Men', since there are several of them. Still, the story focuses on the life (and the eventual death) of William Blake, so maybe it is appropriate to call it 'Dead Man'. This movie is about one man's adventure and a whole new world that awaits him. 'Dead Man' is atmospheric, mysterious and inspiring. This is a journey many would wish to be on. This flick is almost flawless. I remember after seeing it in the cinema, I rushed down to the box office, bought a ticket and rushed back to see it again. Own the video.
And the soundtrack is VERY, VERY impressive.
Now Blake is going through an amazing transformation- an Easterner who turns into the hunted, a serial killer (for self-defence purposes) and an explorer of the dead poet's poetry. Meanwhile, Nobody is about to show Blake a spiritual world, where all spirits dwell.
It is an awesome idea to shoot this film in black and white as this adds much more to the ambience. Johnny Depp is just spectacular and so is the rest of the cast. Perhaps this movie should be re-entitled 'Dead Men', since there are several of them. Still, the story focuses on the life (and the eventual death) of William Blake, so maybe it is appropriate to call it 'Dead Man'. This movie is about one man's adventure and a whole new world that awaits him. 'Dead Man' is atmospheric, mysterious and inspiring. This is a journey many would wish to be on. This flick is almost flawless. I remember after seeing it in the cinema, I rushed down to the box office, bought a ticket and rushed back to see it again. Own the video.
And the soundtrack is VERY, VERY impressive.