"Dead Man" Film Blu-ray Reissue [Criterion Collection] w/ Neil Young Soundtrack

"Dead Man" Film Blu-ray Reissue  [Criterion Collection]  Directed by Jim Jarmusch

In 2018, Criterion Collection reissued the film "Dead Man" (1995) in Blu-ray format with a new 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Jim Jarmusch.

 

Johnny Depp as Bill Blake

 

From Dead Man Blu-ray review: Dir. Jim Jarmusch [Criterion Collection] |critical popcorn by Nick Bartlett:

 

"Johnny Depp’s only collaboration with the brilliant Jim Jarmusch, Dead Man is one of the most striking modern westerns ever made, a stylised, fatalistic fable following the timid Bill Blake (Depp) as he arrives in the town of Machine to start a new life, only to be implicated in a murder and pursued across country by various bounty hunters and law enforcers, while suffering from a mortal bullet wound. Accompanying him is Nobody (Gary Farmer) a Native American who believes that Blake is the reincarnation of the poet William Blake, and decides to help him on his journey to the afterlife.

Neil Young‘s hypnotic, foreboding score gives the film the momentum of a train, constantly moving, and as the characters move further from civilization, the melody slowly fades, giving the impression of a slowing pulse, or a death rattle. "

 DIRECTOR-APPROVED DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

-New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Jim Jarmusch
-New Q&A in which Jarmusch responds to questions sent in by fans
-Rarely seen footage of Neil Young composing and performing the film's score
-New interview with actor Gary Farmer
-New readings of William Blake poems by members of the cast, including Mili Avital, Alfred Molina, and Iggy Pop
New selected-scene audio commentary by production designer Bob Ziembicki and sound mixer Drew Kunin
-Deleted scenes
-Jarmusch's location scouting photos
-PLUS: Essays by film critic Amy Taubin and music journalist Ben Ratliff

 

"DEAD MAN SESSION" - Directed by Jim JarmuschNeil Young Archives | HEARSE THEATER

Neil Young writes the following on recording the soundtrack:

While I watched the movie and played along live. 

Jim Jarmusch filmed me. He cut this together. That’s how we did the soundtrack for DEAD MAN too . . . I think that movie is a masterpiece. 

The soundtrack is available on Vapor records.

 

The Recording Of Dead Man - Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Hearse Theater | NYA

Directed by Jim Jarmusch, "The Recording Of Dead Man" documents the scoring of the 1995 film "Dead Man" by Neil Young (more below).

This is also a good time to look a little closer at the creative relationship between filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and Neil Young.

Jim Jarmusch & Neil Young

Jim Jarmusch discussed his masterpiece DEAD MAN starring Johnny Depp in a Q&A during Film Society of Lincoln Center's complete retrospective "Permanent Vacation: The Films of Jim Jarmusch" in 2014. (Thanks Hounds That Howell!)

Be sure to check first ~10:00 minutes of session where Jarmusch discusses recording the film soundtrack with Neil Young.

Jim Jarmusch: "You can not trick Neil Young! Don't even try, trust me. He is way ahead of all of us!"

(More on Jim Jarmusch on Recording Neil Young for 'Dead Man' Film Soundtrack.) 

Director Jim Jarmusch's film Dead Man -- with a Neil Young soundtrack -- was considered by critic Greil Marcus in Salon Magazine to be "the best movie of the end of the 20th century." Among reasons that Marcus cites are: "For a film set more than a century ago, an electric guitar, playing a modal melody, surrounded by nothing, sounds older than anything you see on the screen."

In an interview, Jim Jarmusch said of Neil's efforts:

"What he brought to the film lifts it to another level, intertwining the soul of the story with Neil's musically emotional reaction to it - the guy reached down to some deep place inside himself to create such strong music for our film."

Also, see:

• Dead Man Film Reviews
• Dead Man on YouTube: More on Neil's Tone
• Year of The Horse Film
• trailer for the film "Year of The Horse"
• Jim Jarmusch interview on directing Neil Young and Crazy Horse in a concert film
• Jim Jarmusch & Neil Young
• Jim Jarmusch: "I thought Neil (Young) might burn psychic rays through my skull..."
• Bible Study with Neil Young & Jim Jarmusch
• Neil Young Films

 Jim Jarmusch & Neil Young

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