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Credits

Director: Jim Jarmusch Starring: Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Crispin Glover, Lance Henrikson, John Hurt, Iggy Pop, Robert Mitchum Screenplay: Jim Jarmusch Country: USA

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Johnny Depp plays William Blake, a dapper businessman travelling from Cleveland to the frontier town of Machine to take on a position as accountant in a metal works sometime in the late nineteenth century. When he gets to his destination after weeks of travel, he's informed that the position has already been filled. Blake demands to see his would-be employer John Dickinson (Robert Mitchum), who, with a cigar hanging from his lips, pulls a double-barrelled shotgun on Blake and snarls, 'get out'.

Shattered, Blake drinks his worries away at a local bar where he meets a girl, Thel, who is an ex-prostitute. He brings her back to his hotel and sleeps with her, after which they're caught by her ex-fiancé, Charlie. There's a bit of Wild West gunplay devoid of all romanticism in a vicious scrabble for weapons - a single shot kills Thel and seriously injures Blake, who returns fire, killing Charlie. Mortally wounded, Blake seeks the help of a travelling Native American, Nobody (Gary Farmer), who believes the bespectacled clerk to be the poet of the same name. Nobody takes Blake back to his camp and the duo soon discover that John Dickinson – Charlie's father – has sent a deadly hit squad to bring his son's killer to justice.

Visually speaking, Dead Man may be one of the most important films in (relatively) mainstream American cinema of the past twenty or thirty years. Jarmusch's decision to shoot in black-and-white purely for aesthetic authenticity (it was far costlier than colour, blowing the film's budget to some $US 9 million) was incredibly audacious, and the cinematography is absolutely superb. There's an epic quality about the picture and Jarmusch's scope is as sweeping as the steam train William Blake boards to Machine, chugging into motion a tragic and equally poignant chain of events.

Jarmusch has cast a number of talented character actors for Dead Man, notably Johnny Depp in the title role – Depp was already an established Hollywood actor in 1995, and starring as Blake was a brave decision in itself. Robert Mitchum's blink-and-you'll-miss-it turn is unforgettable, his imposing stance toting cigar and shotgun one of Dead Man's most iconic set-pieces. Cameo and supporting roles have also been given to Crispin Glover as Blake's beleaguered fellow passenger on the train into Machine and musician Iggy Pop as a cannibalistic hit man. It's all top-shelf stuff, a departure from the Western classics that Jarmusch's genre-bender seeks not to imitate, but transcend – there's no stony-faced, über-tough Wayne or Eastwood-type characters here. Everyone's very mortal.

Dead Man encountered censorship issues in Australia, with the offending scenes (the implied rape in the first ten minutes of the picture) leading to the film's ban upon its initial release. The decision was appealed, and the film was passed with an R18+ classification. At once, Dead Man can be startlingly violent – the Wild West has never been so formidable.