With Dead Man, his first period piece, Jim Jarmusch imagined the nineteenth-century American West as an existential wasteland, delivering a surreal reckoning with the ravages of industrialization, the country’s legacy of violence and prejudice, and the natural cycle of life and death. Accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) has hardly arrived in the godforsaken outpost of Machine before he’s caught in the middle of a fatal lovers’ quarrel. Wounded and on the lam, Blake falls under the watch of the outcast Nobody (Gary Farmer), who guides his companion on a spiritual journey, teaching him to dispense poetic justice along the way. Featuring austerely beautiful black-and-white photography by Robby Müller and a live-wire score by Neil Young, Dead Man is a profound and unique revision of the western genre.
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Supplements
- Q&A in which Jim Jarmusch responds to questions sent in by fans
- Footage of Neil Young composing and performing the film’s score
- Interview with actor Gary Farmer
- Readings of William Blake poems by members of the cast, including Mili Avital, Alfred Molina, and Iggy Pop, accompanied by Jarmusch’s location-scouting photos
- Selected-scene audio commentary by production designer Robert Ziembicki and sound mixer Drew Kunin
- Deleted scenes
- Jarmusch’s location scouting photos
- Trailer
- Essays by critic Amy Taubin and music journalist Ben Ratliff