Sep
26
Dead Man (USA 1995 Jim Jarmusch)
Where Ben and I squabble a little over Jarmusch's intent.
Ben:
In the scene near the end at the trading post when he blows away yet a couple more characters, Jacob laughed out loud and said, "Man, it's like Tarrantino." Odd as this may sound, the kid is on to something. Pulp Fiction came out the year before DM and it does appear that Jarmusch was as smitten with it as everyone else at the time, at least with regard to tapping into it's droll approach to (so-called) gun-play; the presentation of violence as comedic, not through cartoonish conventions but rather through an ironic detachment towards banal realism. I don't mean to reduce DM down to this mere derivative aspect, however, as the film just as much perpetuates the film-maker's own idiosyncrasies.
Where Ben and I squabble a little over Jarmusch's intent.
Ben:
In the scene near the end at the trading post when he blows away yet a couple more characters, Jacob laughed out loud and said, "Man, it's like Tarrantino." Odd as this may sound, the kid is on to something. Pulp Fiction came out the year before DM and it does appear that Jarmusch was as smitten with it as everyone else at the time, at least with regard to tapping into it's droll approach to (so-called) gun-play; the presentation of violence as comedic, not through cartoonish conventions but rather through an ironic detachment towards banal realism. I don't mean to reduce DM down to this mere derivative aspect, however, as the film just as much perpetuates the film-maker's own idiosyncrasies.
