A Dead Man Meets a Nobody
Written and directed by: Jim Jarmusch
Released: 1995
Genre: Western, drama
Starring: Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer
The industrialization of life and what it brings about is a theme that many writers and filmmakers have developed in their works. From "Wuthering Heights", by Emily Bronte, in which Heathcliff is the character who is the symbol of the harsh industrial world to "Unknown Citizen", by Auden, which demonstrates how a human being has lost his individuality in a soulless world and reduces into a confined being. In cinema, one of the most outstanding films with this theme is "Modern Times" by Charles Chaplin. Undoubtedly "Dead Man", written and directed by Jim Jarmusch is another conspicuous movie which takes the decline of humanity as its central theme. Dead Man in a symbolic manner focuses on the diminishing of emotions, ethics and conscience in humans and the transformation of humans to soulless and mechanistic beings.
The film begins with a quotation from Henri Michaus: "It's preferable not to travel with a dead man." The first question that this sentence brings to mind is whether it is possible to travel with a dead man. The sentence shows that the viewer should expect to encounter a world of symbols. Elements of the film have a metaphorical meaning: From the beginning of the film we see the names of the cast and the makers of the film which fade out. The train which William Blake is on, the sound of the friction of the train on the rails, the scene turning dark and then bright which could be a symbol of night and day, traveling to the west which is the symbol of inexistence, people who are sitting side by side in the train without any dialog, all have a connotative meaning as well as an overt meaning. The name of the city is also metaphorical: The iron city of Machine, not a city of kind and hospitable people. In other words, one has to be harsh and tough to be able to enter this city, one has to be soulless and mechanistic to find a place in this city. This trend is what William Blake goes through: He, whose name reminds the viewer of the emotional English poet, at the end turns to a dead man. He learns that to survive he has to kill life in himself and is obliged to kill and destroy, he learns that human emotions are not welcome in the city of Machine, and that if you choose a way different from the ordinary way of the people, it is as if you don't exist at all (this is well displayed by Nobody).
Perhaps at the beginning of industrialization it was believed that human is the creator of the machine and they are worlds apart. But the passage of time gave rise to a different phenomenon. As we see in Dead Man, the creator of machine has become similar to his creation, and machine, instead of being a tool to help promote humanity, has dressed humanity with mechanistic characteristics. This human being is not full of compassion and emotions, but rather is a corpse lacking any feeling who is struggling to continue his deadly life. However the situation does not stay like this. At the end of the film, the main character reaches the end of his life, but this end is a new beginning. This time he is lying on a canoe which is moving with the river stream. This time he is in line with nature, and he is going to die and return to it. Once again he is called "William Blake", his real name. But now Dead Man is really "dead".
Released: 1995
Genre: Western, drama
Starring: Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer
The industrialization of life and what it brings about is a theme that many writers and filmmakers have developed in their works. From "Wuthering Heights", by Emily Bronte, in which Heathcliff is the character who is the symbol of the harsh industrial world to "Unknown Citizen", by Auden, which demonstrates how a human being has lost his individuality in a soulless world and reduces into a confined being. In cinema, one of the most outstanding films with this theme is "Modern Times" by Charles Chaplin. Undoubtedly "Dead Man", written and directed by Jim Jarmusch is another conspicuous movie which takes the decline of humanity as its central theme. Dead Man in a symbolic manner focuses on the diminishing of emotions, ethics and conscience in humans and the transformation of humans to soulless and mechanistic beings.
The film begins with a quotation from Henri Michaus: "It's preferable not to travel with a dead man." The first question that this sentence brings to mind is whether it is possible to travel with a dead man. The sentence shows that the viewer should expect to encounter a world of symbols. Elements of the film have a metaphorical meaning: From the beginning of the film we see the names of the cast and the makers of the film which fade out. The train which William Blake is on, the sound of the friction of the train on the rails, the scene turning dark and then bright which could be a symbol of night and day, traveling to the west which is the symbol of inexistence, people who are sitting side by side in the train without any dialog, all have a connotative meaning as well as an overt meaning. The name of the city is also metaphorical: The iron city of Machine, not a city of kind and hospitable people. In other words, one has to be harsh and tough to be able to enter this city, one has to be soulless and mechanistic to find a place in this city. This trend is what William Blake goes through: He, whose name reminds the viewer of the emotional English poet, at the end turns to a dead man. He learns that to survive he has to kill life in himself and is obliged to kill and destroy, he learns that human emotions are not welcome in the city of Machine, and that if you choose a way different from the ordinary way of the people, it is as if you don't exist at all (this is well displayed by Nobody).
Perhaps at the beginning of industrialization it was believed that human is the creator of the machine and they are worlds apart. But the passage of time gave rise to a different phenomenon. As we see in Dead Man, the creator of machine has become similar to his creation, and machine, instead of being a tool to help promote humanity, has dressed humanity with mechanistic characteristics. This human being is not full of compassion and emotions, but rather is a corpse lacking any feeling who is struggling to continue his deadly life. However the situation does not stay like this. At the end of the film, the main character reaches the end of his life, but this end is a new beginning. This time he is lying on a canoe which is moving with the river stream. This time he is in line with nature, and he is going to die and return to it. Once again he is called "William Blake", his real name. But now Dead Man is really "dead".
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