In a film of great supporting performances, Gary Farmer walks away with DEAD MAN (’95) by Thomas Davant
When a wounded William Blake (Johnny Depp) stirs from a feverish sleep, he finds the tip of a blade digging around the bullet hole in his chest. The knife’s owner is one enormously round Native American man, who works with precision and determination. After a few moments, he stops and addresses the shocked patient: “There is white man’s metal next to your heart. I tried to cut it out but it’s too deep inside. And I would cut your heart instead and release the spirit from within.” He smiles and shakes his head. “Stupid fucking white man.”
Such is our introduction to “Nobody,” “Exaybachay,” or “He Who Talks Loud, Saying Nothing,” the son of two members from opposing tribes, banished as an outcast, kidnapped by the English and toured around cities for exhibition where he mastered the language and absorbed the culture. Now he roams his homeland, a man without a home, caught between two worlds, understanding both but misunderstood himself.
Jim Jarmusch’s DEAD MAN (’95) is one of the filmmaker’s greatest works. It’s also the best of an exhausted genre’s postmodern or “revisionist” spins, one of cinematographer Robby Müller’s finest moments (and boy were there a lot of those) and… well, I can go on and on about this film. Revisiting the transfer streaming in Criterion’s full edition, I stand by the opinion that it’s one of the finest films of its decade.
Its story of an innocent man on the run might be familiar, but it’s structured in a picaresque form that remains playful, curious and deeply transcendent, with Jarmusch favoring a dreamy fade to black between episodes. The director is a self-proclaimed culture junkie, and he suffuses his films with an insatiable interest in different music, photography, literature and paintings. Here, he pulls from the landscapes of Ansel Adams, the poetry of William Blake and the deeper details of Native American culture.
The latter is what sets this film apart. With modern films still being criticized for their use of white actors in Native American roles, DEAD MAN made the right move, both in its well-researched care of Native American culture and the casting of Gary Farmer, who turns in the performance of his career. Farmer was born into the Cayuga tribe, which today has pockets around Ontario and upper New York.
Now, the film isn’t short on great performances. Crispin Glover plays a somewhat deranged boiler-man on a train. Robert Mitchum is a lion-maned, cigar-chewing industrialist and a stringy-haired John Hurt is his assistant, for God’s sake! And that’s not including the appearances of Jared Harris, Iggy Pop and Billy Bob Thornton (near unrecognizable behind a thick beard) as a trio of cannibals!
But Farmer is the film’s heart and soul, its simple voice of reason. Emanating from a face of kindness and bear-like roundness, his expression is gentle, all-knowing and wise. He speaks in strange sayings, offering advice encased in cryptic messages about nature and life. Yet he’s not without his human cravings. His love for the pipe (“Do you have any tobacco?” becomes his recurring, symbolic inquiry throughout the film), his occasional roll in the pine-straw and his peyote ritual make for beautiful scenes that keep his character grounded.
Farmer earned laurels for his early work in POWWOW HIGHWAY (’89) alongside Native American actors Wes Studi and Graham Greene. When Jarmusch was casting his film, he drove to the deep woods of Ontario and spent the afternoons walking with Farmer, discussing the story and character. The actor’s one stipulation was that any scenes of Native American inebriation should be removed, as he had made a promise to an old friend on her death bed that he would steer clear of those portrayals of his people on screen. Jarmusch obliged.
In the interview provided as part of this edition’s special features, Farmer explains that in preparation for his role he fasted for three days atop a mountain. A friend explained that he should always face east, to keep his eyes towards the rising of the sun. On the last morning he faced west and swears that he saw a vision. A green fog drifted through the trees before disappearing into the hillside. Farmer never forgot that moment.
The inexplicable happens in the wilderness. Perhaps it’s a merging of one’s soul with the soul of the forest, a gradual return. Here Nobody’s observation echoes: “Things which are alike, in nature, grow to look alike.” It’s all about process, time and journey. In the combination of its haunting soundtrack and deep-focus photography, which lets us peer through the enormous oaks and lush pockets of fern, DEAD MAN will take you back to those sensations you had as a child, when the forest was a place of sounds, sensations and spirits.
The additional features streaming on FilmStruck makes me rejoice. Footage of Neil Young performing the soundtrack as he watches the film (Ebert, not a fan, wrote that it sounded as though Young was continually dropping his guitar on the ground—a pretty hilarious image); a recent Q&A with Jarmusch; and photo montages of locations playing beneath recitations of Blake’s poetry by Alfred Molina and Iggy Pop—it’s all here, and adds to the film’s growing legacy as a truly original western.
But in a film that thrills me to the core with every frame, every humorous character and every twang of Young’s electric guitar, Gary Farmer’s performance speaks to me on another level entirely. When he addresses Depp’s character for the last time he offers his own goodbye: “This world will no longer concern you.” Tears stream down his face, but he’s smiling. It’s a haunting line, but a reassuring one, too.
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