This Beloved Psychedelic Western Is On Max/Hulu Right Now
By Ted Pillow
Dead Man is my favorite work from auteur Jim Jarmusch—a “psychedelic western” (as Jarmusch himself called it) that follows William Blake (no, not that William Blake—this one’s an accountant, played by Johnny Depp). Duped into traveling to the rugged frontier of 1800s America, Blake endures a series of increasingly strange and horrifying calamities.
Beautifully shot in Jarmusch’s signature black-and-white style, the film boasts an all-star cast of eccentrics: Depp, Billy Bob Thornton, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Robert Mitchum, Iggy Pop, Lance Henriksen, Gabriel Byrne, Alfred Molina, and more. Adding to its singular atmosphere is Neil Young’s unsettling improvised score, which underscores the film’s poetic contradictions—lyrical yet crude, haunting yet darkly funny.
Dead Man feels like a movie that holds infinite layers within it, daring you to uncover its mysteries while reminding you that you probably never will
