DEAD MAN (76)

Directed by: Jim Jarmusch

Starring: Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer

The Pitch: In the Wild West a timorous accountant accidentally becomes an outlaw, but is gradually dying of a bullet wound.

Theo Sez: An irresistible non-movie that's clearly caviare to the general (which admittedly is some - though not all - of its charm), but finds Jarmusch in such likable shaggy-dog form that thoughts of elitism seem almost inappropriate. Only one scene (Iggy Pop in drag!) is explicitly comic, which is fair enough as this is a dark comedy about Death, in much the same way that Jane Austen books are comedies about Love. Death is everywhere here, the casual killing that's the hallmark of Westerns (which was also the point of Sam Raimi's THE QUICK AND THE DEAD) and which our hero must rise above to reach Valhalla, his true Death - or at least a hauntingly lovely image of a drifting rowboat on a misty lake. Those who feel this to be insufficient and/or unacceptably fuzzy will think little of the film, which is like a beautiful garden without a house - a feast for the senses, but not at all functional. There's no plot and little (forward) movement, nothing to hold on to; just a moody Neil Young score, a hilariously deadpan lead performance, a rich landscape of shifting moods, and a blessedly languid lull in a non-stop age of determinedly busy movies.