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.

Casparcritique #9: interviewing John Frusciante (1994)

It was May 1993, the biggest popfestival of the Netherlands (at the time) Pinkpop was on it's way, and I was watching it on the telly. One band called Thelonious Monster got on stage and within no time the singer did all sorts of crazy stuff. Trying to cellotape his gitarist, lying on the floor pretending to be dead (or something like that), and finally he climbed into the high side of the stage on top of the speaker boxes. About to break his leg when he fell of, I just remember thinking what kind of drugs he would be on, and remembering absolutely nothing from the music itself.

Shortly after, VPRO television aired an interview they did with former Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante. He had left the band about two years before and hadn't been seen for some time. Immediately you realize why: the man was completely addicted to heroin. Now that I watch the interview again, I realize that back then I was just absorbed by what horrors drugs do to really talented men, that I just didn't pay attention to what they were saying, or the music they were making. Frusciante talks about leaving the band and makes complete sense explaining the reasons why. He talks about Kurt Cobain's death, and calling him stupid for not wanting to see his child grow up. I mean, he is completely lucid, intelligent and straight forward about things.The music he still composes sounds lost in space, off tune, lacks structuring. This way, the documentary is essential stuff for anyone interested in, let's say, rock music from the eigthies, or drug abuse in the music scene.

A real treat of watching the interview comes after as a sort of a bonus track. The interviewer discovers that Frusciante contributed to a short movie made by the singer of the band Butthole Surfers, and a young actor called Johnny Depp. The movie is called Stuff, and is basically a filmed tour around a completely messy, chaotic house, that apparently burnt down shortly after the movie was made. What I enjoyed about it, was that Frusciante's music all of a sudden makes complete sense! It fits like a glove when the camera swings through piles of dirt, slowmotion filming of the graffiti on the walls and ending up filming Frusciante lying on a couch thinking about what it would be like being dead, flowing around space and his words in his scrap book making sense, finally.

Bram van Splunteren is the journalist from VPRO who documented RHCP already in the 80'ties, he made this interview with Frusciante, and afterwards, with Frusciante back in the group doing the stadium tours he so detested, he again filmed and interviewed the band. This way he has become the axis filmmaker on the band. You can watch his own compilation on youtube. But my suggestion is to watch the Frusciante interview still available on www.hollanddoc.nl. My rating would be 4 out of 5, and a half for the bonus track!