VHS : Dead Man [1996]

Rating: - A soul's journey from this world into the next
This is one of the most unique pieces of cinema I've ever had the pleasure on encountering. It is not dream 'like', it is as near you can get to dreaming without being asleep. And what a dream. Beautiful and haunting but brutal, insane but real. The William Blake reference is not just used to stick on some mystical aphorisms - Johnny Depps character could come straight from a Blake prophetic book, and big themes such as body and soul, when life begins and ends, innocence and experience sit on your shoulder - whilst you are engrossed and entertained by the wit, strangeness and vision before you.
I've never felt closer to a truly different world-view than in this film - it shows the european savages for what they are. And the blakean visionary view and the American native sense of of place in the universe somehow become the same thing. Do not underestimate this - it's not flippant or tricksy, or deliberately weird or cult, it is a detailed, visionary, brilliant work of art.

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Rating: - Digital Insanity!
This film is a total trip. Johnny Depp in war paint, Iggy Pop dressed as a pilgrim woman, it doesn't really get more random than Dead Man!
Black and white, with an almost silent movie quality this is a crazy, crazy, seemingly pointless film, but it's great! Johnny Depp gets lost in the desert (After murdering a guy for murdering a girl...) and is found by an Indian who thinks he's William Blake, the poet of the same name. Which in turn means the Indian thinks he's dead. With a warrant out for Blake's arrest and a hundred bounty hunting scally wags out to get him the Indian takes him on a random as hell spiritual journey, culminating in Depp being put into a canoe and sent off the edge of a waterfall. It's a mental film and left me with a complete sense of confusion, but in the positive I've-got-to-watch-that-film-until-I-get-it kind of confusion : ) And Johnny's really hot in his wee bowler hat and spectacles!!

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Rating: - ... inspired and by William Blake & by the wisdom of Nobody.
Most viewers rate this film 4-5 star as it should be ... many of the words and sentences that Nobody (the Indian who escorts William Blake to his death) are improvised (& sometimes direct) quotes of William Blake, the English (early 19th century) poet.

For example a quote that repeats itself at intervals between Nobody and William Blake...

"Every morning and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night."

... is from Blakes "Auguries of Innocence."

And there are several other places where Blake is quoted in the film.

Some of the reviews indicate they found the text/atmosphere in the film invocative (as Blakes poetry can be) -- without giving indication that they know Blake...

There is one review that seemed to not "get it" ...and it was Tom Keogh's, the Amazon.com reviewer. But this sometimes can happen ... actually viewing the film would probably change his opinion...

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Rating: - The Thinking (Wo)man's film
What a fantastic film!!! The opening sequence is magnificent with the long train journey which enables you to truly sense the distance travelled by the changing passengers on board. William Blake "fits in" to begin with, gradually turning into a very obvious "outsider"...very cleverly done. If all you are interested is action action action and can't cope with silence in a film, you probably won't enjoy this ... there is action aplenty in places, but it's more a comment on the character's changing fortune and personality than a gratuitous need to blow people away. The crux of the film, for me, is in the ultimate message that if you tell someone they ARE something for long enough...they become it. In addition to this, it points out how we are shaped by our personal experiences and circumstances. Now think of all the people we write off socially as useless or stupid and watch this.

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Rating: - Dead Man
Believe the Amazon review at your peril...This is one of the most overlooked films of Depps' career and in my opinion one of his best performances. A great film with slick cinematography and one of the best soundtracks ever recorded. Not to be missed