Dead Man (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112817/), of the wonderful year 1995, is a wonderful film. It's dark, austere, and Western, and keeps a solid cast with Johnny Depp as the lead and a brilliant, steel-blue, gritty Western-esque soundtrack by Neil Young.
It's focused in the later 1800's around a man christened William Blake who heads from the city of Cleveland to the distant "pioneer" town Machine, seeking a job as an accountant. He's refused on the grounds of being late by the owner of the business at which he sought said employment, and heads to the local saloon. He meets a girl he proceeds to take to bed, only to soon after have this girl's ex bust through the door, gun in hand, inebriated on loneliness. This man shoots the girl and wounds Will, after which Will shoots him (the girl kept a revolver under a pillow). Later it turns out this now dead man was the son of the business owner who had refused Will, apparently a locally powerful man. THIS man puts a price on Will's head and sends three bounty hunters after him. Will steals a horse and flees before falling asleep, after which he wakes up with a Native-American Indian named Nobody tending his wounds. Basically, they team up (Nobody is convinced Will is the famous writer by the same name, who he is, in fact, not) and run from the ravenous killers. Eventually, after a helluva bloody journey, Will is fatally wounded and sent on his way to die on a canoe by Nobody as a sort of respectful death rite, after which the last remaining bounty hunter shows up to shoot him (Will). I believe Nobody shoots the hunter, though my memory is failing me. That's it.
-I loved it because, first of all, it has a great style. Aesthetic. The soundtrack is cold and steely... Amazing, really. All steel-string guitar, sometimes electric... Then there's the black-and-white... Not always a good thing, but it was a must for this, somehow. It's got its own intrinsic feel with this color scheme. Of course, Johnny Depp is also awesome.
-How do I connect with it? The more I watched it, the more I familiarized with the protagonist, in a mental sense. At least in the beginning. The sense of confusion, alienation and disorientation is one I'm no stranger to. Then, as things went to hell in the film, the protagonist acted just as I would have... It wasn't predictable, but familiar. Then there's just the plot all-in-all... It seemed a deal like a film I might make. Not very happy, with a morose, inexorable conclusion and plenty of somewhat manic, morbid, hostile characters along the way. So, all in all, it felt like a film I would make. Like, REALLY. It was somewhat frightening, actually.
-I only watched it this last summer... Its real meaning hasn't changed much for me.
This trailer pretty much sums the thing up:
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