Dead Man

Young accountant Bill Blake arrives from Cleveland to the Wild West to start a new job. He fails to secure the position, finds himself penniless in a strange town, and after killing the son of a wealthy railroad magnate in self-defense, must flee from hired assassins. His guide and protector becomes a solitary Native American named Nobody, who sees in him the English poet William Blake and prepares him in his own peculiar way for a mystical departure from this world.

Screenwriter and director Jim Jarmusch used the framework of a western to express a sense of rootlessness and loss of traditional values. The story, shot in black and white, combines obscure events with strange frontier figures and music by Neil Young. The lead role is played by Johnny Depp.