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Home , Barney Wilen, Coffee and Cigarettes, Dead Man, Dead Man (soundtrack), Gabriel Byrne, Human Highway

October 29, 2013 (XXVII:10) , (1995, 121 min)

Directed by Jim Jarmusch Original Music by Cinematography by Robby Müller

Johnny Depp... Gary Farmer...Nobody Crispin Glover...Train Fireman ...John Scholfield ...John Dickinson ...Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko Gabriel Byrne...Charlie Dickinson ...Big George Drakoulious ...Trading Post Missionary

JIM JARMUSCH (Director) (b. James R. Jarmusch, January 22, 1981 Silence of the North, 1978 The Last Waltz, 1978 Coming 1953 in Akron, Ohio) directed 19 films, including 2013 Only Home, 1975 Shampoo, 1972 Memoirs of a Madam, 1970 The Lovers Left Alive, 2009 , 2005 Broken Strawberry Statement, and 1967 Go!!! (TV Movie). He has also Flowers, 2003 , 1999 Ghost Dog: The Way composed original music for 9 films and television shows: 2012 of the Samurai, 1997 , 1995 Dead Man, 1991 “Interview” (TV Movie), 2011 Neil Young Journeys, 2008 , 1989 Mystery Train, 1986 Down by Law, 1984 CSNY/Déjà Vu, 2006 Neil Young: Heart of Gold, 2003 , and 1980 Permanent Vacation. He Greendale, 2003 Live at Vicar St., 1997 Year of the Horse, 1995 wrote the screenplays for all his feature films and also had acting Dead Man, and 1980 . In addition to his roles in 10 films: 1996 Sling Blade, 1995 Blue in the Face, 1994 musical contributions, Young produced 7 films (some as Bernard Iron Horsemen, 1992 In the Soup, 1990 The Golden Boat, 1989 Shakey): 2011 Neil Young Journeys, 2006 Neil Young: Heart of Leningrad Cowboys Go America, 1988 Candy Mountain, 1987 Gold, 2003 Greendale, 2003 Live at Vicar St., 2000 Neil Young: Helsinki-Naples All Night Long, 1986 Straight to Hell, and 1984 Silver and Gold, 1997 Year of the Horse, and 1984 . American Autobahn. He also has 6 producer credits, 4 editor He also directed 6 films: 2012 A Day at the Gallery, 2008 credits, 3 cinematogapher credits and 2 composer credits. CSNY/Déjà Vu, 2003 Greendale, 1982 , 1979 , and 1974 Journey Through the Past. NEIL YOUNG (Original Music) (b. Neil Percival Kenneth Robert Ragland Young, November 12, 1945 in Toronto, Ontario, ROBBY MÜLLER (Cinematographer) (b. Robert Müller, April Canada) has been featured on 95 soundtracks, mostly as song 4, 1940 in Willemstad, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles) has been writer, sometimes as performer as well. Among these are 2012 the cinematographer on 69 films and TV shows, including 2003 “Covert Affairs” (TV Series), 2012 Burning Man: Metropolis, Coffee and Cigarettes, 2000 Dancer in the Dark, 1999 Ghost “No me la puc treure del cap” (TV Series), 2012 Dog: The Way of the Samurai, 1998 Shattered Image, 1996 “Californication” (TV Series), 2010 Eat Pray Love, 2008 Breaking the Waves, 1995 Dead Man, 1993 Mad Dog and Glory, “Entourage” (TV Series), 2007 My Blueberry Nights, 2006 Neil 1989 Mystery Train, 1989 Coffee and Cigarettes II, 1987 Barfly, Young: Heart of Gold, “” (TV Series), 2005 1986 Down by Law, 1985 To Live and Die in L.A., 1984 , Lords of Dogtown, 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11, 2000 Space Cowboys, Texas, 1984 Repo Man, 1979 Saint Jack, 1977 The American 2000 Wonder Boys, 1999 American Beauty, 1996 I Shot Andy Friend, 1976 Kings of the Road, 1973 Die Reise nach Wien, 1973 Warhol, 1993 Philadelphia, 1984 Iceman, 1982 ,

Jarmusch—DEAD MAN—2

The Scarlet Letter, 1971 “Carlos” (TV Movie), 1970 Jonathan, and 1969 Alabama: 2000 Light Years from Home.

JOHNNY DEPP...William Blake (b. John Christopher Depp II, June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky) has appeared in 64 films and television shows, among them 2013 The Lone Ranger, 2012 21 Jump Street, 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, 2010 Alice in Wonderland, 2009 Public Enemies, 2009 The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, 2007 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2007 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, 2006 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2003 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2000 The Man Who Cried, 1999 The Ninth Gate, 1998 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1997 Donnie Brasco, 1995 Dead Man, 1994 Don Juan DeMarco, 1994 Ed Wood, 1993 What's Eating Gilbert Grape, 1990 Edward Scissorhands, 1987-1990 “21 Jump Street” (TV Series, 82 episodes), 1990 Cry-Baby, 1986 Platoon, and 1984 A ROBERT MITCHUM...John Dickinson (b. Robert Charles Nightmare on Elm Street. Durman Mitchum, August 6, 1917 in Bridgeport, Connecticut— d. July 1, 1997 (age 79) in Santa Barbara, California) appeared in GARY FARMER.. Nobody (b. Gary Dale Farmer, June 12, 1953 135 films and television shows, among them 1997 “James Dean: in Ohsweken, Ontario, Canada) has appeared in 97 films and TV Race with Destiny” (TV Movie), 1995 “The Marshal” (TV shows, including 2013 “Longmire” (TV Series), 2013 Winter in Series), 1995 Waiting for Sunset, 1995 Dead Man, 1995 the Blood, 2013 Jimmy P., 2012 Blackstone (TV Series, 8 Backfire!, 1994 Woman of Desire, 1993 Tombstone, 1991 Cape episodes), 2011 California Indian, 2010 Ink: A Tale of Captivity, Fear, 1988-1989 “War and Remembrance” (TV Mini-Series), 2008-2009 “Easy Money” (TV Series, 7 episode), 2007 “Moose 1985 “North and South” (TV Mini-Series), 1985 “The Hearst and TV” (TV Series, 8 episodes), 2006 One Night with You, 2003 Davies Affair” (TV Movie), 1983 “The Winds of War” (TV “Coyote Waits” (TV Movie), 2003 Twist, 2003 The Big Empty, Mini-Series), 1982 That Championship Season, 1978 The Big 2002 Adaptation., 2001 “The West Wing” (TV Series), 1999 Sleep, 1976 The Last Tycoon, 1976 Midway, 1975 Farewell, My Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, 1998 Stolen Heart, 1995 Lovely, 1974 The Yakuza, 1973 The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Dead Man, 1995 Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, 1992- 1970 Ryan's Daughter, 1968 Secret Ceremony, 1968 Villa Rides, 1994 “Forever Knight” (TV Series, 14 episodes), 1991 The Dark 1963 The List of Adrian Messenger, 1962 Two for the Seesaw, Wind, 1990 “China Beach” (TV Series), 1988 “Miami Vice” (TV 1962 The Longest Day, 1962 Cape Fear, 1960 The Sundowners, Series), 1987 The Believers, 1984 Police Academy, and 1983 1959 The Angry Hills, 1958 Thunder Road, 1957 The Enemy “The Littlest Hobo” (TV Series). Below, 1957 Fire Down Below, 1957 Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, 1955 The Night of the Hunter, 1955 Not as a Stranger, JOHN HURT...John Scholfield (b. John Vincent Hurt, January 1954 River of No Return, 1952 The Lusty Men, 1949 The Big 22, 1940 in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, England) has appeared in Steal, 1949 The Red Pony, 1947 Out of the Past, 1947 Crossfire, 186 films and television shows, including 2013 “Doctor Who” 1946 Undercurrent, 1945 Story of G.I. Joe, 1944 Thirty Seconds (TV Series), 2008-2012 “Merlin” (TV Series, 65 episodes), 2011 Over Tokyo, 1943 'Gung Ho!': The Story of Carlson's Makin Immortals, 2011 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 2011 Harry Potter Island Raiders, 1943 The Lone Star Trail, and 1943 Hoppy and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, 2011 Melancholia, 2011 “The Serves a Writ. Confession” (TV Series, 10 episodes), 2011 Regret Not Speaking, 2010 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, IGGY POP... Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko (b. James Newell Osterberg 2010 Brighton Rock, 2009 The Limits of Control, 2008 Jr., April 21, 1947 in Ann Arbor, Michigan) has contributed to Outlander, 2008 Hellboy II: The Golden Army, 2008 Indiana 145 film, television, and video game soundtracks, mostly as Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, 2005 V for Vendetta, songwriter, sometimes as performer as well. Among these are 2004 Tabloid, 2004 Hellboy, 2003 , 2001 Harry Potter 2013 Les gamins, 2012 “True Blood” (TV Series), 2012 Dark and the Sorcerer's Stone, 2001 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, 2000 Shadows, 2012 The Cabin in the Woods, “2012 Twisted Metal” “Krapp's Last Tape” (TV Movie), 1998 The Commissioner, 1995 (Video Game), 2011 “Dexter” (TV Series), 2010 Arthur 3: The Wild Bill, 1995 Dead Man, 1993 Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, War of the Two Worlds, 2007 Halloween, 2006 Smokin' Aces, 1990 Unbound, 1987 Spaceballs, 1984 Nineteen 2006 “Scarface: The World Is Yours” (Video Game), 2004 The Eighty-Four, 1984 The Hit, 1984 Champions, 1983 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2004 Friday Night Lights, 2004 Osterman Weekend, 1980 Heaven's Gate, 1980 The Elephant “Driv3r” (Video Game), 2003 “The Simpsons” (TV Series), Man, 1979 “Crime and Punishment” (TV Mini-Series), 1979 2003 “Project Gotham Racing 2” (Video Game), 2003 The Alien, 1978 The Lord of the Rings, 1978 Watership Down, 1978 School of Rock, 2003 Coffee and Cigarettes, 2003 Rugrats Go Midnight Express, 1976 “I, Claudius” (TV Mini-Series), 1975 Wild, 2003 “The Wire” (TV Series), 2003 A Guy Thing, 2002 24 “The Naked Civil Servant” (TV Movie), 1969 Before Winter Hour Party People, 2001 Save the Last Dance, 2000 Almost Comes, 1966 A Man for All Seasons, and 1962 Young and Famous, 1998 The Rugrats Movie, 1998 SLC Punk!, 1998 Lock, Willing. Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998 Velvet Goldmine, 1998 Jarmusch—DEAD MAN—3

Wild Things, 1998 The Wedding Singer, 1998 Great Man, 1992-1995 Hearts Afire (TV Series, 54 episodes), 1993 Expectations, 1996 The Crow: City of Angels, 1996 Basquiat, Tombstone, 1993 Grey Knight, 1993 Blood In, Blood Out, 1990 1996 Trainspotting, 1995 The Babysitter, 1995 Tank Girl, 1994 “The Outsiders” (TV Series, 10 episodes), 1988 South of Reno, “Beavis and Butt-Head” (TV Series), 1991 Freddy's Dead: The and 1986 Hunter's Blood. Thornton also wrote 9 films—2012 Final Nightmare, 1991 Problem Child 2, 1991 “The Fresh Prince Jayne Mansfield's Car, 2001 Daddy and Them, 2001 of Bel-Air” (TV Series), 1990 Hardware, 1990 Problem Child, Camouflage, 2000 The Gift, 1996 Sling Blade, 1996 “Don't Look 1989 Black Rain, 1989 Slaves of New York, 1988 Crocodile Back” (TV Movie), 1996 A Family Thing, 1994 Some Folks Call Dundee II, 1987 Adventures in Babysitting, 1987 “The Laughing It a Sling Blade, and 1992 One False Move—and directed 6— Prisoner” (TV Movie), 1986 Dogs in Space, 1986 Sid and Nancy, 2012 Jayne Mansfield's Car, 2011 The King of Luck, 2001 1985 Just One of the Guys, 1985 Desperately Seeking Susan, Daddy and Them, 2000 All the Pretty Horses (which he also 1984 Repo Man, 1983 The Hunger, 1983 Rock & Rule, 1980 produced), 1996 Sling Blade, 1991 Widespread Panic: Live from D.O.A., and 1980 Up the Academy. In addition to his soundtrack the Georgia Theatre, Athens, GA. contributions, Pop has appeared in 30 films and television shows, including 2012 L'étoile du jour, 2011 Iggy and Live ALFRED MOLINA...Trading Post Missionary (b. May 24, 1953 at Academy of Music New York City, 2010 Arthur 3: The War of in London, England) has appeared in 140 films and television the Two Worlds, 2007-2008 “Lil' Bush: Resident of the United shows, 2 of them now filming and 4 in post-production, States” (TV Series, 13 episodes), 2007 Persepolis, 2007 including 2013 “Drunk History” (TV Series), 2013 “Monday “American Dad!” (TV Series), 1998 The Rugrats Movie, 1998 Mornings” (TV Series, 10 episodes), 2011 “Harry's Law” (TV “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” (TV Series), 1997 The Brave, Series), 2010-2011 Law & Order: LA (TV Series, 16 episodes), 1996 The Crow: City of Angels, 1995 Coffee and Cigarettes III, 2010 The Tempest, 2009 The Pink Panther 2, 2006 The Hoax, 1994-1995 “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” (TV Series), 1995 2006 As You Like It, 2006 The Da Vinci Code, 2005 “Law & Dead Man, 1995 Order: Special Tank Girl, 1990 Victims Unit” (TV Cry-Baby, 1986 The Series), 2005 “Law Color of Money, & Order: Trial by 1986 Sid and Nancy, Jury” (TV Series), 1983 Rock & Rule, 2004 Spider-Man 2, and 1982 “Hold 2003 Coffee and Tight! “(TV Series). Cigarettes, 2002 Frida, 1999-2001 GABRIEL “Ladies Man” (TV BYRNE...Charlie Series, 30 episodes), Dickinson (b. 2001 Texas Rangers, Gabriel James 2000 Chocolat, 1999 Byrne, May 12, Magnolia, 1997 1950 in , Boogie Nights, 1997 Ireland) has Anna Karenina, appeared in 93 films 1995 Dead Man, and TV shows, 1995 Hideaway, among them 2013 “Vikings” (TV Series, 6 episodes), 2012 1994 Maverick, 1993 When Pigs Fly, 1993 The Trial, 1990-1991 Capital, 2008-2010 “” (TV Series, 106 episodes), “El C.I.D.” (TV Series, 13 episodes), 1991 Not Without My 2009 Attack on Leningrad, 2005 Assault on Precinct 13, 2004 Daughter, 1987 “Miami Vice” (TV Series), 1985 Eleni, 1985 The Bridge of San Luis Rey, 2004 Vanity Fair, 1999 End of Ladyhawke, 1983 “Reilly: Ace of Spies” (TV Mini-Series), and Days, 1998 Enemy of the State, 1997 The End of Violence, 1996 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark. Somebody Is Waiting, 1995 Dead Man, 1995 , 1994 Little Women, 1993 A Dangerous Woman, 1993 CRISPIN GLOVER... Train Fireman (b. Crispin Hellion Glover, Point of No Return, 1990 Miller's Crossing, 1985 “Christopher April 20, 1964 in New York City, New York) has appeared in 60 Columbus” (TV Mini-Series), 1983 The Keep, 1981 Excalibur, films and TV shows, including 2012 Freaky Deaky, 2010 Open 1980 The Outsider, and 1978 On a Paving Stone Mounted. Season 3, 2010 Hot Tub Time Machine, 2010 Mr. Nice, 2010 Alice in Wonderland, 2009 The Donner Party, 2008 Open BILLY BOB THORNTON...Big George Drakoulious (b. William Season 2, 2007 Beowulf, 2007 Epic Movie, 2003 Charlie's Robert Thornton, August 4, 1955 in Hot Springs, Arkansas) won Angels: Full Throttle, 2003 Willard, 2002 Crime and a best screenplay Oscar for Sling Blade (1996). He has appeared Punishment, 2001 Bartleby, 2000 Charlie's Angels, 1996 The in 76 films and television shows, including 2014 The Judge, People vs. Larry Flynt, 1995 Dead Man, 1993 What's Eating 2013 Red Machine, 2013 Parkland, 2012 Jayne Mansfield's Car, Gilbert Grape, 1993 Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, 1991 The 2011 Puss in Boots, 2010 Faster, 2008 The Informers, 2006 Doors, 1990 Wild at Heart, 1985 Back to the Future, 1984 School for Scoundrels, 2005 Bad News Bears, 2003 Bad Santa, Teachers, 1984 Racing with the Moon, and 1981 “Best of Times” 2002 Waking Up in Reno, 2001 Monster's Ball, 2001 Bandits, (TV Movie). 2001 The Man Who Wasn't There, 1998 Armageddon, 1998 Primary Colors, 1997 The Apostle, 1996 Sling Blade, 1995 Dead Jarmusch—DEAD MAN—4

William Blake (1757—1827): Man was made for Joy & Woe; from Dead Man. Jonathan Rosenbaum. BFI Publishing And when this we rightly know London 2000 Thro' the World we safely go. There isn’t much agreement about when the post- Auguries of Innocence succeeded the Western in American movies. Some might date the end of the traditional Western around 1962, the year in which both The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Ride the High Country appeared; others might think of 1969 (The ). 1970 (Little Big Man and El topo), 1971 (McCabe and Mrs. Milller and The Last Movbie), 1972 (Ulzana’s Raid), or 1973 (Pat Garret and ). So it shouldn’t be too surprising that a post-Western as important as Dead Man had a fairly mixed as well as puzzled reception in the US when it came out in 1996, among critics as well as general audiences. After his second feature, Stranger ThanParadise, made him an international name, Jarmusch seemed at the height of arthouse fashion. Consistently rejecting all Hollywood offers. . . Jarmusch cultivated a stylish international reputation by acting the films of such friends as Alex Cox, Robert Frank, Raul Ruiz, the Kaurismaki brothers and Billy Bob Thornton—creating a certain model for independence that combined the conviviality of the French New Wave with some of the down-home brashness of storefront theatre. The combination of his white hair and his all- black clothes (the latter perhaps an influence of Wim Wenders, one of his early supporters) made him immediately recognisable as a figure.

JIM JARMUSCH from The St. James Film Directors Though it’s possible to see a director such as Alfred Encyclopedia. Andrew Sarris, Editor. Visible Ink. Detroit Hitchcock developing certain formal and thematic ideas in his 1998, entry by Rob Winning & Rob Edelman 50s movies, there is little likelihood of such an evolution being Jim Jarmusch has risen quickly to the forefront of possible for a studio director today, what with agent packages, young, independent American filmmakers. script bids, multiple rewrites, stars who get script approval/and or The focal point of all Jarmusch’s work is the apparent say over the final cut, test marketing and so on. Within such a contradiction that exists between the popular perception of the context, it’s significant that Jarmusch as a writer-director, American Dream and what that dream actually holds for the virtually alone among American independents who make individual who doesn’t quite fit in. Each of Jarmusch’s films is narrative features that get mainstream exposure, owns the built around a trio of characters, although Mystery Train varies negatives of all his films. That means that, for better and for that slightly by using three separate stories to explore this central worse, all the developments—and non-developments—that have theme. The characters are all off-beat, but all seem to have a taken place in his work between Permanent Vacation and Ghost vision or aspiration which echoes a popular perception of Dog are of his own making. America. The central characters—’ down and out disc This provides one model of American independent jockey in Down by Law, or John Lurie’s small-time pimp in the filmmaking, but not the one that most of the media are presently same film—are forced to confront their misconceptions and preoccupied with. Their model tends to gravitate around the misguided dreams when they are thrown together by fate with a Sundance festival, where success in the independent sector is foreigner who views this dream as an observer. typically defined as landing a big-time distributor and/or a studio Stylistically, Jarmusch’s work echoes the work of the contract—the exposure, in short, that goes hand in glove with French “New Wave” filmmakers, in particular the Godard of dependence on large institutional backing, hence loss of films like Breathless and Weekend. Jump-cuts are frequently independence. And though it would be wrong to assume that used to disconnect characters from sublime and rational passages Jarmusch isn’t himself dependent on such forces to get his films of time and space. A sense of disenfranchisement is created in into theatres (Dead Man was distributed in the US by ), this way, separating characters from the continuity of space and the salient difference between him and most other independents time which surrounds them. is that he’s strong enough to afford the luxury of brooking no A product of contemporary American film school creative interference when it comes to making production and savvy, Jarmusch incorporates a sense of film history, style and post-production decisions. awareness in his filmmaking approach. The tradition which he By the time Dead Man appeared, the popular notion of has chosen to follow, the one which offers him the most freedom, American -making had largely shifted from the is that established by filmmakers such as Chabrol, Godard, and paradigm represented by Jarmusch to the murkier model of Truffaut in the 1950s and 1960s. Quentin Tarantino—a film-maker who has never owned the Jarmusch—DEAD MAN—5 negatives, much less had final cut, on any of his features. The I hasten to add that its approach to this issue is casual and poetic role played by Miramax in this shift is of course crucial, and not rather than preachy. The warm, comic friendship between only because Miramax has distributed Dead Man as well as Nobody and Blake, neither of whom entirely understands the Tarantino’s features, so some consideration of this hands-on other, is central to the film. distributor and its flair for promotion is crucial to understanding the altered public perception of ‘independence’. The immensity of the [Native American Indian] Dead Man was trimmed by fourteen minutes after its genocide. . .remains so staggering that it might be said that white Cannes premiere—without serious injury, in my opinion—but all racism against Indians, in contrast to racism against Jews, blacks of this recutting was done by Jarmusch, without Miramax’s and Asians, has been qualitatively as well as quantitatively input. And despite the expressed desire of Miramax’s Harvey different, most of all in the scant degree to which it has been Weinstein to make further cuts prior to the film’s release, acknowledged. Jarmusch was contractually protected from any such interference. If America. . .is haunted by the genocide that presided By contrast, Tarantino has welcomed Miramax into his cutting over its conquest, one thing that makes Dead Man a haunted film room and relinquished final control over his work for the sake of is a sense of this enormity crawling around its edges, informing the distributor’s full support. He’s even been rewarded for his every moment and every gesture, without ever quite taking centre cooperation with his own distribution subsidiary at Miramax, stage. This makes it all the more appropriate that its title Rolling Thunder, whose first two releases were Chungking character is played by Johnny Depp, one of the most haunted Express (1994) and Switchblade Sisters (1974). beautiful actors in American movies—a presence whose Jarmusch, on the other hand, appearing at the New York brooding quietness and mystery suggest Buster Keaton. Film Critics Circle’s annual For even though awards to accept a prize for Depp is called upon to play Muller’s cinematography on an archetypal white man Dead Man, publicly blamed with the name of an Miramax for the relatively archetypal English poet, it is disappointing performance worth noting that the actor of Dead Man at the box- had a grandfather who was a office, and has im[plied Cherokee Indian whom he elsewhere that his refusal to felt very close to as a young re-edit the film led to a child. (He died when Depp relatively indifferent was seven, and although of promotion of the film. course we never see this in (Within my own experience, the film, an Indian man with one prominent programmer a full head-dress is tattooed planning a Jarmusch on one of Depp’s forearms.) retrospective that year told me that, when he requested a Interview: print of Dead Man, he was informed, ‘You don’t want to show ROSENBAUM: A subjective impression I had when I first saw that, it’s a dog’—or words to that effect.) Dead Man at Cannes is that it’s your first political film. The view of America is a lot darker than in your previous films. I would define the political and ideological singularity of Dead Man in two ways: that it is the first Western made by a JARMUSCH: I think it is a lot darker. You know, you can define white film-maker that assumes as well as addresses Native everything as being political and analyse it politically. So I don’t American spectators, and that it offers one of the ugliest really know how to respond to that because it wasn’t a conscious portrayals of white American capitalism to be found in American kind of proselytising. But I’m proud of the film because of the movies. fact that on the surface it’s a very simple story and a simple metaphor that the physical life is this journey that we take. And I After showing us New York, Cleveland and rural wanted that simple story, and the relationship between these two Florida through the eyes of a Hungarian, Jarmusch then guys from different cultures who are both loners and lost and for presented and the wilds of Louisiana through the whatever reasons are completely disoriented from their cultures. eyes of an Italian ( in Down by Law) and That’s the story for me, that’s what it’s about. But at the Memphis and its rock shrines through the eyes of a Japanese same time, unlike my other films, the story invited me to have a couple (Masatoshi Nagase and Youki Kudoh in Mystery Train). lot of other themes that exist peripherally: violence, guns, Two films later, it is Gary Farmer’s robust, charismatic Nobody, American history, a sense of place, spirituality, William Blake a Plains Indian who is half Blood and half Blackfoot, who plays and poetry, fame, outlaw status—all these things that are the ‘foreign’ role in Dead Man—a fact touching on the scandal certainly part of the fabric of the film, that maybe unfortunately, that Native Americans are treated in the United States as if they at least for the distributors, work better when you’ve seen the were foreigners. Indeed, Dead Man is one of the few Westerns to film more than once. Because they’re subtle and they’re not see through the cheesy mythology—irrational yet implicit in intended to hit you over the head with a sledgehammer. diverse aspects of American life and behaviour—that white people were the first ‘real’ or ‘true’ North American settlers, but Jarmusch—DEAD MAN—6

ROSENBAUM: How long was the rough cut that Neil Young Young’s brilliant of ‘music from and inspired by’ improvised his score to? Dead Man, lasting slightly over an hour, which often registers like an alternate version of the film—a composer’s cut, as it JARMUSCH: Two and a half hours. He refused to have the film were—reconfigures this relation between past and present by stop at any moment. He did that three times over a two-day periodically including the sounds of cars passing on a highway. It period. Neil asked me to give him a list of places where I wanted also features not only patches of dialogue from the film, but also music, and he out-of- used that as a character kind of map, readings by but he was Johnny Depp really focused of other Blake on the film. poems that So the score were never kind of part of the became his film, even on emotional the script reaction to the level. movie. Then Neil came to New York to premix the stuff and we thought in a few places we’d slide it around a little, but it almost never worked—in general it was married to where Without picking up on the Japanese element, the first he played it. four of Greil Marcus’s ‘Ten reasons why Neil Young’s Dead Man is the best music for the dog days of the twentieth century’ ROSENBAUM: Was your final editing influenced by what he point to comparable meditative qualities in this score: did? 1. For a film set more than a century ago, an electric guitar, playing a modal melody, surrounded by nothing, sounds older JARMUSCH: No, oddly enough. Or maybe it was, than anything you see on the screen. subconsciously. The final movie is two hours long and very little 2. The modal melody is never resolved, never completed. It feels of Neil’s music is missing so we didn’t cut much where there less like a song than a fanfare, a fanfare for a parade no one ver was music. But it wasn’t a conscious decision. got around to organizing. 3. The fanfare is stirring nevertheless. It’s life and death from the As Jarmuch recalled, Young’s own conceptualisation start—or rather life staring death in the face. Death is going to for this [partially improvised score was, “To me, the movie is my win, but not even death knows how long it’s going to take. rhythm section and I will add a melody to that,” and he compared Nobody, the Indian who tries and fails to dig a bullet out of Young’s method of performing live to a projection of the two- Depp’s William Blake. . .speaks of ‘the white man who killed and-a-half-hour rough cut to the musical accompaniments of you’; ‘I’m not dead,’ Depp says. Nobody doesn’t laugh. Young’s silent cinema, though one could also cite the recording of certain guitar speaks for him, just as Nobody insists William Blake will improvised scores in the 50s and 60s—most notably the now make his poetry with a gun. improvisations done for ’s Ascenseur pour 4. Young doesn’t laugh either. His guitar l’échafaud (Frantic, 1957) by , Barney Wilen, René doesn’t even crack a smile. Urtreger, Pierre Michelot and , and for John Cassavetes’s Shadows (1960) by Charlie Mingus, Phineas Nobody’s Indian nickname, ‘He Who Talks Loud Newborn Jr., and Shafi Hadi. Like these precedents, Young’s Saying Nothing’, derives from ’s ‘Talkin’ Loud and noodling and needling on the soundtrack function as a kind of Sayin’ Nothing’, and even the line ‘My name is Nobody,’ which impromptu Greek chorus, responding directly to various on- some commentators have linked to the 1973 Italian Western screen events and providing a laconic commentary. produced by Sergio Leone, is for Jarmsuch a reference to Elsewhere in our conversation, Jarmusch elaborated that Conway Twitty. the film’s odd, generally slow rhythm—hypnotic if you’re captured by it, as I am, and probably unendurable if you’re not— “This is the Western Andrei Tarkovsky always wanted was influenced by classical Japanese period movies by to make.” J. Hoberman Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, and the tendency of scenes in those movies to exist in isolation from one another as complete units, like beads on a string. JARMUSCH: I recently came across this interesting quote from Sam Peckinpah: ‘The Western is a universal frame within Jarmusch—DEAD MAN—7 which it’s possible to comment on today.’ Of course, I only saw as expansion and progress) forgotten, yet not dead: a history of this quote after I made Dead Man. the dead.

In Hollywood Westerns, even in the 30s and 40s, history was Gregg Rickman: “The Western Under Erasure: Dead Man,” mythologised to accommodate some kind of moral code. And in The Western Reader. Edited by Jim Kitses and Gregg what really affects me deeply is when you see it taken to the Rickman. Limelight Editions NY 1998 extent where Native Americans become mythical people. I think it’s in The Searchers where John Ford had some Indians who Born in 1953, the writer-director [Jarmusch] told were supposedly Commanche, but he cast who spoke interviewer Charlie Rose on PBS “When I first read Blake it kind . It’s kind of like saying, ‘Yes, I know they are supposed of blew my mind to read this kind of thought from centuries to be French People, ago.” Blake’s but I could only get revolutionary impact Germans, and no one is suggested by one will know the scene in Dead Man: difference.’ as a child Nobody, captured by British It’s really soldiers and taken close to apartheid in across the Atlantic as America. The people an exhibit, “mimicked in power will do them. Imitating their whatever they can to ways,” until the boy maintain that, and by chance discovers TV and movies are Blake’s poetry. We perfect ways to keep see Nobody’s story in people stupid and cameo-like flashbacks brainwashed. In accompanied by his regards to Dead narration. As he Man, I just wanted to speaks we see an make an Indian character who wasn’t either (a) the savage that Indian in English clothes of the period open one of Blake’s must be eliminated, the force of nature that’s blocking the way books. Nobody says of that moment: “I discovered the words that for industrial progress, or (b) the noble innocent that knows all you—William Blake—had written. They were powerful words, and is another cliché. I wanted him to be a complicated human and they spoke to me.” Nobody is so moved by Blake’s words being. that he escapes his captors and eventually returns home. Blake’s westbound journey with Nobody also falls into a classic literary pattern found in some of the most famous Jarmusch claims that Dead Man might be the first American novels: a biracial male couple bonding, escaping black-and-white Western since The Man Who Shot Liberty civilisation together and moving back towards innocence, a Valance (1962), John Ford’s elegy to the passing of the Old pattern famously outlined by Leslie Fiedler in what is probably West. his most influential essay. Unlike these revisionist works [Little Big Man, and the Indians, Heaven’s Gate] Dead Man is built around a the return of a repressed western history in Jim Jarmusch’s classic journey across the entire American West, from Blake’s Dead man” train ride from the East into Machine in the film’s prologue through to his flight from Machine to the Northwestern shore, It is widely believed that the Myth of the Frontier aided and accompanied by his spiritual guide Nobody. We last constitutes the single most important frame of reference for glimpse Blake traveling further west in his canoe, traveling America’s self-understanding. The frontier myth alloys two across “the mirror of water,” as Nobody calls the ocean. major themes. On the one hand, it depicts the territory lying Yet—and this is perhaps Dead Man’s key difference beyond the frontier as an abundant and unappropriated land that from the classic (spiritual, psychological, moral) journey is simply there for the taking. On the other, it conceives of western—Bill Blake is a protagonist who never learns anything American history as a heroic and necessarily violent war against from his ordeal. He is a traveler across a mythic landscape who the Indians for possession of the land. remains oblivious to it. At the very end of the movie, after A curious blend of scholarship and popular culture Nobody tells him of his impending trip “back where you came (which may explain its versatility and lang-standing popularity from,” Blake’s response—“You mean Cleveland?”— with establishment and populace alike), the frontier myth in its demonstrates just how ignorant he is of where he’s been, where duality came to represent the essence of American history. he’s going, or even his own fate: death in the sea canoe Nobody Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man functions as an innovative will shortly launch. This comic deflation of the very notion of a by highlighting and relativizing various spiritual quest may be one of the most offputting elements of the taken-for-granted conventions and, through this makes way for film—at least to those who prefer goal-oriented as opposed to the dreaded return of history (of conquest and genocide masked absurdist narratives. We are thus forced to consider Dead Man not as a classic western, a mythical western, or as a revisionist Jarmusch—DEAD MAN—8 variant of same, but instead as a comic western—an approach mythical spiritual journey western. . . .With his droll humor and which may prove instructive. seemingly magical skills. Nobody further suggests the Trickster legends of many indigenous cultures. Johnny Depp’s performance in Dead Man is redolent of Dead Man evades every attempt to affix a positive another actor who made his share of comic westerns, Buster meaning to its narrative. Keaton. Complete to the chapeau suggesting the flat hat Keaton wore in most of his films, the long hair he wore in the Civil War In one of her songs Laurie Anderson defines a detective western (of sorts) The General (1926), and the dudishly out-of- story as one in which “the hero is dead from the beginning.” It’s place suit Keaton sported in another quasi-western, Our easy to see this fatalism in such classic noirs as The Killers Hospitality (1923) Depp in Dead Man seems at times to be (1946), Out of the Past (1947), and D.O.A. (1950). Dead Man continuing the Keaton pastiche he had already attempted in the extends this spirit to the western genre. contemporary comedy Benny & Joon (1993). Blake’s scene in A final remains, however, in this paradoxical Machine’s bar, seeking the solace of whiskey with his last few work: even as Dead Man erases its genre it confirms its ongoing coins and having a larger bottle replaced with a smaller one when vitality, dependent as this very interesting film is in so many the bartender sees the size of his fee, strongly suggests Keaton’s ways on the genre’s form and conventions for its very existence. ill-luck while buying supplies in the opening scene of Go West What’s always half “not there” and always half “not that” is by (1925)—both scenes employing the same basic joke, shrinking its very definition at least still half present, “there,” and “that.” resources purchasing less and less. What’s alive is dead, but also what’s dead is alive. Keaton’s films too can be thought of as critiques of traditional masculine roles. . . .a sustained challenge to the notion Shane Cudney: DEAD MAN: “” meets noir of masculinity as brutality. Man (1995) is a very strange, haunting, even hallucinatory film, Keaton took full advantage of the western genre to both of which have been dismissed for a host of similar, not so expand on this critique. His short film The Paleface (1922) is a compelling reasons. But like most things in life, films such as remarkable early example of the “pro-Indian western”—Buster these are much more than what they appear to be. Thus, it’s safe playing s butterfly-collecting dude who becomes involved in a to say that Jarmusch’s “acid” (Rosenbaum), post-noir western is tribe’s efforts to keep their oil rights. Another short from that a particular frame used to explore larger, universal themes and same year, The Frozen North, is a ruthless parody of the ideas of issues. And chief among them, at least on my reading, is the masculinity the comedian found embodied in William S. Hart’s dualism inherent in the western worldview, a zeitgeist that has westerns. Keaton’s anti-hero knocks unconscious or kills various given rise to violence upon violence that arguably came to women, cries fake tears, and amorally proceeds on his way. Hart fruition in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. was reportedly deeply offended by the film which evidently If Jarmusch’s earlier films put a lighter, satirical (though struck home. Conversely, Keaton’s one overtly western feature still critical) finger on the vacuousness of contemporary Go West presents as its hero one Friendless, probably the least American culture, Dead Man is a much more “serious” (though traditionally masculine hero Keaton ever essayed, a lonely man still very quirky, even comical in an absurdist sort of way) in stark white clown makeup whose great love is a cow called critique that cuts to the heart of the Western myth of progress and Brown Eyes. The unsmiling Friendless parries a demand out of the accompanying American dream now dreamt by all good Wister’s The Virginian (“when you call me that. . .smile”) with a citizens. In Dead Man we find Jarmusch at the top of his game, gesture drawn from silent cinema’s great female victim, Lillian employing the western – that most traditional and sacred of Gish in Broken Blossoms. genres – in the service of a critique that subverts recalcitrant assumptions about “how the west was won.” It is, however, another largely comic western that may Adopting the western as he does, poetically, and then help us better place Dead Man within the context of its genre. filtering it through Robby Müller’s stunning black and white The title of this western is actually used as a line of dialogue in lens, Jarmusch is able “to utilize its own iconography against Dead Man: when Bill Blake first asks his new companion what itself to lay bare the spuriousness of its myths and ideology” his name is, the Indian replies “My name is Nobody.” My Name (Moliterno). But Jarmusch’s critique is not simply for the sake is Nobody (Tonino Valerii, 1973) is an interesting Italian western of critique alone because something oddly life giving, dare I say which parodies the major works in the genre by Sergio Leone, even hopeful, rises from the ashes of his approach. While the who’s credited as the film’s supervisor. The parallels between the overall effect of the film is initially quite destabilizing, the result two films are quite marked—in the Valerii film is that the audience, along with the film’s protagonist, are made plays an aging whose reputation (àa la the Gregory to “see” and “hear” differently as the genre utters forth a new Peck figure in The Gunfighter) has made him a target for every language. As Adrian Martin well characterizes it: “Although ambitious gunman in the West. Similarly, in Dead Man, Blake’s Dead Man is obviously some kind of western, it’s not one of poster begins appearing all over the forest he’s traveling through, those smart homages to a Hollywood genre (like Sam Raimi’s his toll of victims and the amount of reward for his capture The Quick and the Dead) – it’s more like the ghostly burnt-out increasing as the film progresses. Like Blake in Dead Man, shell of a Western, commandeered for sullen and obscure Fonda is aided by a fellow wanderer who latches on to him, also purposes.” called Nobody (). What we have is a late twentieth-century “psychedelic” (Jarmusch) western that foreshadows the noir nightmare to A focal shift to seeing Nobody as the film’s true hero emerge in the early part of that century in the form of genocidal might thus allow us after all to see Dead Man as a positive, violence, moral turpitude, and environmental devastation; and it Jarmusch—DEAD MAN—9 does so in a way that makes the traditional western appear trite first-hand about their myths, spirituality, or cultural ways. and one-dimensional. But Jarmusch’s film, I would argue, is less Instead, he employs very Western conventions in the service of a political commentary or critique, and more a poetic, even his critique that highlight the connective tissue between spiritual meditation that invites the viewer into a space of un- aboriginal and American cultures. Moreover, and importantly, knowing where difference abounds and the pseudo-certainty of this approach indicates a time when those two worlds co-existed dualistic thought recedes, giving way to reversals, repetition, (though awkwardly) ever so briefly, thus hinting at what might juxtaposition, contradiction, irony, hyperbole, and comic have been, but alas, never was. Significantly, Jarmusch achieves absurdity. Given the foundational character of Jarmusch’s all of this without once pandering to the politically correct concerns, his choice to altogether abandon a traditional, plot- ideology that oozes sappy tolerance over our culture. driven, tension-charged, narrative structure, in favour of an open- But in spite of the film’s apparent preoccupation with ended, poetic framework, should come as no surprise. death and violence, the result, though sobering, is markedly Consider how different from that of the film opens and typical North American subsequently unfolds, film fare. As Jonathan as if we’re Rosenbaum puts it: “watching” a poem “Every time someone being read, one fires a gun at someone rhythmic stanza at a else in this film, the time. Consider the gesture is awkward, array of poetic unheroic, pathetic; it’s devices used to move an act that leaves a the story along as mess and is deprived of Johnny Depp’s Buster any pretence at Keaton-like character, existential purity, William Blake, creating a sense of journeys from his embarrassment and home in the east to overall discomfort in the promise of a job the viewer….” It is in the west. Consider completely “the reverse the strange and of what ensues from ominous utterances by the highly aestheticised the train’s fireman, forms of violence that brilliantly played by Crispin Glover, that not only foretell what is have become de rigueur in commercial Hollywood ever since the to come but also connect the beginning of the film to the end, and heyday of Arthur Penn and Sam Peckinpah, and which have been vice versa. Consider the early stages of Blake’s spiral into recently revitalized by Tarantino, among others.” In this way, worldview disintegration as he arrives at his destination and steps concludes Rosenbaum, “Jarmusch refuses to respect or valorise off the train into “a nightmarishly squalid settlement of festering bloodshed.” Jarmusch himself says that the violence in Dead pollution and nastiness” (Rosenbaum). Consider the ensuing, Man is “probably not that unrealistic, because boom! gun goes unpredictable and disorienting series of events that find Blake off and guys get hit with metal and fall down like puppets with without a job and then running from the law after an awkwardly strings getting cut – which is kind of what we wanted it to feel violent incident occurs through no direct fault of his own. like, shocking for a brief moment and then very still. Someone’s Consider, finally, Blake’s further spiral into noir hell where he, soul got taken.” as a “dead man”, is forced to relinquish everything familiar to an Indeed, everything about Jarmusch’s film calls into inscrutable person and process that are leading him inexorably to question mainstream, commercial filmmaking, and instead, in the his fate. tradition of classic film noir, focuses on the very things we love It’s no coincidence then that the poetic movements of the to paper over and avoid, the very focus that can liberate us from film stand in quiet contrast to the violence inherent in a rationally the grip of death and the cycle of violence. Paradoxically, driven, linear approach to filmmaking. In this way, Jarmusch “practicing” death, naming it, and thereby letting it in, allows us reaches in the direction of Native spirituality that honors both life to recognize that the only power death and violence have is the and death, recognizing as it does that one must be alive to death power we give to them. In the end, if one finds Dead Man in order to truly live. In so doing, he demonstrates a profound disquieting, unnerving, and more than a little disturbing, this is level of sensitivity to aboriginal culture, not only by assuming a not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s probably a very good Native audience, but also by not pretending to know anything thing.

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2013 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXVII: Jarmusch—DEAD MAN—10

November 5 Pedro Almodóvar Talk to Her/Hable con Ella 2002 November 12 Charlie Kaufman Synecdoche, New York 2008 November 19 Wim Wenders Pina 2011 November 26 Baz Luhrmann The Great Gatsby 2013

The online PDF files of these handouts have color images

COMING UP IN THE SPRING 2014 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXVIII: January 28 Josef von Sternberg, Underworld, 1927, 81 minutes February 4 Jean Cocteau, Orpheus, 1950, 95min February 11 Kenji Mizoguchi, The Life of Oharu, 1952, 136 min February 18 Satyajit Ray, Charluta, 1964, 119 minutes February 25 Metin Erksan, Dry Summer, 1964, 90 min March 4 Monte Hellman, Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971, 103 min March 11 John Cassavetes, Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1976, 135 min Spring break March 17-22 March 25 Agnes Varda, Vagabond, 1985, 105 min April 1 Gabriell Axel, Babette’s Feast, 1987, 104min April 8 Louis Malle, Vanya on , 1994, 119 min April 15 Wes Anderson, The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001, 110 min April 22 Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada, 2005, 120 min April 29 José Padilha, Elite Squad, 2007, 115 min May 6 John Huston, The Dead, 1987 83 min

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The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center and State University of New York at Buffalo with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News