Dead Man |  | Director: Jim Jarmusch
Actors: Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Crispin Glover, Lance Henriksen, Michael Wincott
Studio: Miramax
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.99
Buy New: $7.69
as of 2/9/2010 18:49 EST details
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Rating:  312 reviews
Sales Rank: 4832
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 121 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: DISD21364D
UPC: 786936141788
EAN: 0786936141788
ASIN: B00004Z4WX
Theatrical Release Date: May 10, 1996
Release Date: December 19, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
This disappointment from Jim Jarmusch stars Johnny Depp in a mystery-Western about a 19th-century accountant named William Blake, who spends nearly all his money getting to a hellish mud town in the old West and ends up penniless and doomstruck in the wilderness. A benevolent if goofy Native American (Gary Farmer) takes an interest in guiding Blake on a quest for identity in his earthly journey, but the film is really just a string of endless shtick about inbred woodsmen, dumb lawmen, and a trio of irritable killers. With Robert Mitchum, Iggy Pop, Gabriel Byrne, Alfred Molina, and a noodling soundtrack by Neil Young. --Tom Keogh
Product Description
Movie DVD
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 312
 Worth One Watch for Scenery and Face Shots February 2, 2010
L. Taylor
Mr. Depp chose this role, in an attempt to escape pretty-boy flicks (goes to show you can take the boy out of the pretty...) -- and thusly, this is a beautiful black and white film, worth *ONE* watch, for its gorgeous scenery and Johnny-Depp face shots. The moral of the story isn't a new one: oppressive white people suck, but still win in the end. The twist -- which provides the film its cult status -- is that JD goes anarchist and joins the underdogs, with a couple gratuitous displays of badassness.
Don't be fooled by any "love triangle" DVD-case descriptions. The two minute "love scene" is as steamy as sawdust. The film is no crowd pleaser, either, so don't pop this in, in lieu of any alternate Friday night festivities; I've seen one-legged horses move faster than the plot. (No I haven't.) Other than that, if Dead Man were distilled to about a tenth of the time, it would be perfect. 2.5 stars for the film; +.5 for hot man candy.
 Deeply philosophical at Nobody's level January 2, 2010
PsyRC (USA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This movie parallels life beautifully, almost too beautifully... It takes a rather inane situation, as most of us live in our day-to-day lives, and tries desperately to suffuse it with meaning. Life has become too concrete, but we want to believe it's bottomless, so we stomp and stomp on the pavement hoping it will shatter under the weight of our frustration. It is almost a role-reversal in existential terms; it's usually about finding meaning in a meaningless world. The way people are reacting to this superficial film is trying to instill a sense of ethereal candor because they can't get over the fact that quoting Blake throughout and calling someone Nobody is not an essay on the meaning of life. So much so that all this kind of approach does is abandon the concept of nonverbal significance in life and focus on concrete words and moments... Now, it is easy to dismiss this kind of comment as someone who didn't understand the film... people become irritated because they are insecure about their own opinions, and feel that validation is needed for their own little psychic survival.. if someone told me I was green and had 4 heads, I'd laugh at them because it's completely untrue according to my notion of reality... if I take them seriously, it's because I'm second-guessing my own opinion. I realize I didn't comment much on the movie itself, but that's only because it was a wretched waste of time to watch.
 Excellent November 8, 2009
Anthony J. Groen (De Soto, KS)
This movie is a bleak masterpiece. Johnny Depp plays a city man whose life falls apart in the American Northwest. The film is incredibly cinematic and devastatingly haunting. A must see.
 Greil Marcus LOVED this shaggy dog story July 8, 2009
Bob Fake Name (Divided States)
Well famous rock critic Greil Marcus loved the hell outta this Jim Jarmusch flick. Somebody asks what the Amazon reviewer who called "Dead Man" "disappointing" was smoking. I might want to ask the same of Greil Marcus who's lavish praise influenced me to buy this DVD. I mean it really is an interesting movie. I liked it a lot, but "the best movie of the dog days of the 20th century"?? Why? Best is sayin' a lot, but it is best of the dog days. Marcus gave ten reasons (*spoiler warning*):
1. Made in 1996, it might as well be a silent. You can read the whole film off its faces.
2. I can never keep track of how many people Johnny Depp shoots.
3. The running Cleveland joke, which makes the whole movie -- not to mention the hero's whole life -- into a shaggy dog story.
4. There is no hint in director Jim Jarmusch's previous work that he was interested in anything but irony, and this movie has no irony.
5. Lance Henriksen reprising his head-vampire role from "Near Dark" -- as a bounty-hunting cannibal.
6. The fact that you agree with him that the only way to shut up one of the other bounty hunters is to eat him.
7. The sense of an undiscovered West -- a West that vanished before it could be incorporated into national myth. That's all there on the train ride from Cleveland to the Pacific, some time after the Civil War, as the white passengers shift inexorably into barbarism.
8. Depp is an accountant named William Blake; as he heads into the accursed little Northwest town to work at what almost smells off the screen as a tannery, you realize you are now seeing the dark satanic mills, and that it's no big deal.
9. I'm not sure it's Robert Mitchum or the painting of his character that has a stronger screen presence, but it was his last role.
10. But you know, when it comes to sweeping the century off the table, Ildik Enyedi's film "My 20th Century" (1989) might be the one.
ANd then Marcus goes on to list 10 reasons why Neil Young's "Dead Man" soundtrack is the best music for the "dog days of the 20th Century.
I can dig it, to an extent. It's a cool movie worth seeing. There are some other movies at the end of the 20th Century that are just maybe as good.
Moody June 29, 2009
Henry Alford (NY, NY)
I found this movie a little more mysterious than I think it intended to be. Johnny Depp is strangely flat, and some of the plot points went past me. But the black and white cinematography is never less than striking, particularly a scene of Depp and his Indian cohort riding pinto ponies through a forest of ferns.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 312
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