Untypical Western Genre in Jim Jarmusch’s Film Deadman :: Movie Film Essays

Untypical Western Genre in Jim Jarmusch’s Film Deadman In the film Deadman by Jim Jarmusch we follow the character of William Blake, who shares his name with a nineteenth century British poet, as he travels on a train to the town of Machine where he has promise of work. Upon arriving Blake finds that his accounting job is already occupied and when he tries to confront the boss he is greeted with a shotgun. Deciding that leaving with his life is more important than leaving with a job, he quickly leaves the office, though not the premises as he gets lost in the many twists and turns of the building. After spending the last of his money on a bottle of alcohol he meets a former prostitute turned flower girl. He returns home with her as he has no where else to go and they are found in her bed by her fiancà © who proceeds to shoot her and Blake and Blake returns the favor. Blake is the only one to survive, although he is gravely injured. Blake proceeds to steal a horse and leave town before he passes out only to wake up to find an Indian name d Nobody tending to him. Blake and Nobody then seem to go on a skewed version of a vision quest while they are pursued by three bounty hunters who want Blake’s head. After quite a time of journeying and killing by Blake, who appears to have turned into a strange sort of Billy the Kid, he finally drifts into the sunset. Deadman appears to be a play on the typical Western genre. It opens with a train scene, a familiar enough scene in a Western, and uses such expected devices as the use of the moving train wheels and pistons to represent the movement of time as well as quick blackouts which permeate the movie. We watch Blake as he views the other characters on the train, at first attired as we would expect in frontier type clothing, but slowly the characters and their clothing change. At first there are men and women, but slowly we get more men and then nothing but men. As this change continues the people begin to wear more clothing and appear more rugged as is proven by the scene of Neanderthal like men who wear bear skins and shoot buffalo from the train window.