Dead Man (guest review by Bryce Wilson)

Thanks my good friend Bryce from Things That Don’t Suck for the following article.

‘Dead Man’ is an astoundingly pretentious movie. But don’t hold it against it.

Every now and again you come across a film that has seems not just odd but to have genuinely evolved along a separate evolutionary track. And that’s ‘Dead Man’ all the way, just your average Saturday Matinee on Alpha Centuri, where everyone watches B Movie Proto Mumblecore westerns that mix arch black and white style with, meandering quasi formed ideas about Native American Spirtuality and William Blake.

Even comparing it to Jaramusch’s other work offers little help. While his other movies inseredt sly signposts letting you know what level Jaramusch was putting you on, ‘Dead Man’ offers no such cheat sheet. Even comparing it to ‘Ghost Dog’, which has a similar schism between its offering of austere meditations on Bushido and its weird riffs on Seijun Suzuki and Tarantino, offers little help. It’s as if Jaramusch has gotten deeply invested in his mumbo jumbo, but is kind of embarrassed about it. It’s like having a conversation with someone who puts mocking air quotes around everything he says, and then concludes by going “Seriously though it was pretty deep.”

‘Dead Man’ follows Johnny Depp as a milquetoast accountant from Cleveland, who ends up on the run after killing the son of Robert Mitchum. Hunted by a gang of killers, and guided by the Native American Nobody who takes him for the (short lived) reincarnation of William Blake. However this makes the movie sound like it has a lot more form then it actually does. Most of the film consists of Depp simply wandering into weird shit.

‘Dead Man’ is at its best when it’s at its least self conscience, which isn’t often. There are the scenes with Robert Mitchum in full force of nature/wrath of God mode. Perpetually framed by a cheeky Jarmusch in front of stuffed Bears, Displays of guns, Giant Portraits of himself and other things that reflect what a bad motherfucker Robert Mitchum is. As well as the scenes following the trio of bounty hunters Mitchum hires to assassinate Blake, including a shockingly funny Michael Wincot, and Lance Henrikson as a man with more dark secretes then seem possible. Their sections resemble nothing so much as the laconic naturalistic bickering between the principles in the early Jarmusch masterpieces, like ‘Stranger Than Paradise’ and ‘Down By Law’. If one makes allowances for the fact that they occasionally kill people and eat one another. The particular punch line to their scenes is exceedingly dark.

This is one of those frustrating reviews. I know it doesn’t sound like it but I have some very real affection for this weird little mutant of a movie. Much like the Neil Young score that haunts it, the quality of ‘Dead Man’ all depends on your point of view. It’s either a sparse and haunting meditation, or as Ebert suggested the sound of a man dropping his guitar for two hours.

Then again who is to say that it can’t be both?

Coffee and Cigarettes

Think of the unlikeliest subject for a feature-length movie - the slowest, talkiest, most static premise imaginable - and you'd be hard-pressed to top Jim Jarmusch's 'Coffee and Cigarettes'*.

Having already redefined the portmanteau film with 'Mystery Train' and 'Night on Earth' - as well as stamping his quirky, indie sensibilities on the western with 'Dead Man' and the gangster flick with 'Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai' - 'Coffee and Cigarettes' sees Jarmusch assemble his most impressive cast yet for arguably one of his most small scale films.

All it is, essentially, is a sequence of eleven vignettes which throw together unlikely pairings in cafes, bars, hotel foyers and roadhouses, who sit and talk over a cup of coffee and a smoke.

Kinda boring, right?

Wrong! It's who these people are and what they talk about that counts. Variously satirical, cynical, charming, funny and poignant, each episode has its own flavour, its own mood. All the characters, most of whom we only get to meet for a few minutes, are vividly sketched and finely nuanced. The black and white cinematography is richly textured. During the last few episodes, Jarmusch revisits key phrases and themes from earlier in the movie, a device that would have felt contrived in the hands of many directors but here seems natural and unforced.

And then there's the cast. Bill Murray goes on a caffeine binge while GZA and RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan try to calm him down by suggesting herbal remedies; Cinque and Joie Lee (Spike Lee's children) try to enjoy a quiet cup of coffee while Steve Buscemi harangues them with Elvis-based conspiracy theories; White Stripes siblings Jack and Meg debate the scientific validity of the Tesla coil; Iggy Pop and Tom Waits conduct a chess-like game of one-upmanship over whose songs are represented on the jukebox in a grubby little diner; and Renee French patiently resists the bumbling overtures of diffident waiter E.J. Rodriguez.

The longest and most acidic scene has Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina essay a masterclass in actorly egomania and Hollywood insincerity. Elsewhere, in a vignette that neatly 'rhymes', Cate Blanchett plays both herself and a socially embarrassing cousin from the wrong side of the tracks.

A hymn to the simple addictive pleasures of caffeine and nicotine, 'Coffee and Cigarettes' constantly delights, surprises and rewards.

*Having said that, 'Tape' pretty much achieves this. For the unintiated (oh, you lucky lucky people), 'Tape' is a film by Richard Linklater wherein Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard sit around in a motel room and blather interminably. It has a running time of less than 90 minutes and feels longer than Wagner's 'Ring' cycle - played twice.