Dead Man

I had the pleasure of seeing Jim Jarmusch's film Dead Man, made in 1995. The cast is stupendous, with the lead played by Johnny Depp and appearances by Crispin Glover, Iggy Pop, Alfred Molina, Gabriel Byrne, and Billy Bob Thornton. Thornton is unrecognizable as latent homosexual bible-thumping trapper "Big George," living (presumably in sin) in the middle of nowhere with Iggy Pop wearing a dress as Salvatore "Sally" Jenko and another gruff male companion. In one of the more hilarious/disturbing scenes in the film, Depp's William Blake (yes, like the poet) happens upon them in the woods and Big George fawns over his hair, wondering how he gets it so soft because he can't seem to do anything with his.
Central, of course, is the character of Blake, of whom one of the film's taglines says it all: "No one can survive becoming a legend." I love his look: his prim plaid suit and glasses eventually deteriorate to a raggedy fur coat, no glasses, streaks of paint on his face and a crushed top hat. Blake had never heard of his namesake, the English poet and artist, until enlightened by Nobody, the Native American man who saves him in the wilderness. Later, when approached by two sheriffs who ask, "Are you William Blake?" he replies, "Yes. Do you know my poetry?" then shoots them in cold blood. Badass.

When the bounty hunters on Blake's tail find the sheriffs, one of them has fallen into the artistic arrangement of the image above. One of the film's most shocking and memorable moments follows, but I won't spoil it.
The film is beautiful, frightening, and funny all at once.
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As a side note, having seen Alfred Molina's name in the opening credits, I was looking for him throughout the film, and didn't realize that he played the priest at the trading post until the end--for some reason I thought Gabriel Byrne played two parts, because Molina looked so much like him in his scenes! I had never noticed a resemblance between them before, but it's something about those intense eyes...


Separated at birth?!?