CasparCritique: Dead Man

This blog is a-long time coming. Somehow it has been on my mind for some time, without concretizing. So now here it is, a critique on Dead Man, a great movie by Jim Jarmusch, but even more importantly to the CasparBlog: with a score by one of Caspar's favorites: Neil Young.

Now, maybe one of the reasons on hesitating to write this particular critique, was the question on my mind if I should go into Jarmusch' body of work, or stick by Young's music, because this blog is about music. But hey, I can write about my passions, right? And, so far the blog has written substantially about music in combination with documentaries. So, Caspar, don't hesitate, just rattle on! From the eighties onwards I have been following Jarmusch' carreer from a distance. Back then I remember seeing Down by Law, with Tom Waits in one of his character roles as a runaway convict. Shortly after I learned that Waits was actually a singer-songwriter, and my first encounter with his talent was his live album Big Time, starting with the unforgettable words 'good evening' in his hoarse, low voice. Another Jarmusch film I remember vividly was Night on Earth, with Roberto Benigni impersonating a sodomized sheep, getting the priest in his cab to die from a heart attack. You can imagine Jarmusch made quite an impression on young Caspar...
As we discussed in an earlier CasparCritique (CasparCritique: Year of the Horse), somewhere midway the Nineties, Jarmusch and Neil Young made a deal. Young would provide Jarmusch' new movie with a sound track, and as a return of favor, Jarmusch would make a documentary of Neil Young and Crazy Horse. On a personal note, Caspar gave the documentary 4 stars, but apparently, Neil Young wasn't very happy with the result. Do we think that Jarmusch was happy with the music score? I bet he did. The movie Dead Man was Jarmusch most expensive movie, and maybe his shot at becoming a bit more main stream (Caspar strongly advises not to take any of his apparent knowledge of movies too seriously), and the score made by one of the USA's big selling artists would certainly help in that respect.
Back to business Caspar, let's talk a little on the sound track. When I sat down the other day to watch the movie, I had no idea what to expect. As the movie is from 1995, I realized that Young's projects just before that were collaborations with Pearl Jam (Mirror Ball), and Crazy Horse (Sleeps with Angels). So, both band-, and rock oriented, although Sleeps with Angels was a bit more gloomier. But surprisingly Young's contribution to Dead Man is solo work. At the very start of the movie, you can hear Young's Gibson valve ampifier turned on loud. Then he starts hitting the strings slowly with the outer side of his hand, making a sort of thumping sound. With his pick, or plectrum, he scribbes notes and phrases, that because of the reverb in the amplifier, and probably some slight echo effect, gives a big sound like he'd be recording in a church. This is what continues throughout the movie, with the only, apparent, difference that he goes faster bit by bit, thus giving the movie a pace like a steam train slowly speeding up towards the end of the story. And I must say: a nice story it is. Leading character Johnny Depp as an accountant in the Wild West, getting into more and more trouble, and finally saved (or is he?) by an indian called Nobody.
I enjoyed the movie very much, and I thought the music accompanied it effectively. Also it fits in with Young's carreer for being different than the usual. If I'd had to give it marks, I'd give it five stars out of five. Not for being amongst Neil's best work, but for being the perfect accompaniment to one of Jim Jarmusch's master pieces.

A final thought would be on the accurateness of what you just read. Maybe what I just told you, on the technical side of things, and the substance of the sound track, could be wrong. The interesting part for me is that this CasparBlog is an account of watching a movie once, late night, and then telling about the score a few months later.