Review of Dead Man (1995) by Aldo M — 04 Feb 2015

I still like more Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah (both are quoted in this movie, the first really explicitly: "My Name is Nobody" is a 1973 movie by Sergio Leone).

But this is not a bad movie at all. It took me a second view, to really appreciate it, to enter int the mood, and get some of the many subtleties and quotations it lists.

After the aforementioned, "It is a good day for a canoe trip" really reminds "It is a good day to die" (from The Little Big Man). One shot of a western porch, with Johnny Depp sitting, reminds the porch in the ending of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" ... and, I wonder how many more quotations could be found, including some Carl Barks ("Land of the Totem Poles", featuring Donald Duck).

Not counting, of course, the innumerable references to the poet William Blake that, unfortunately, can't be understood by any one not native English speaking.

It seems that here Jim Jarmusch had collected everything from the western genre, and out from it, assembling many maybe not really new ideas, but in an impressive package. Actually, I do not see many new original idea, here, just a tasty and original assembly of good borrowed ones.

I know this movie has became a cult, as it happens to many movies by Jim Jarmusch (these "independend" moviemakers usualy develop a network of hardcore fans, no matter what they do), but I feel it is quite overrated. Nor, despite my efforts, I could see it as a "psychedelic western". It is a western, withouth adjectives.

However, and despite I keep to like more Sergio Leone, this is a heck of a very good western movie.