The movie “Dead Man” makes many references to the poetry of William Blake. In fact, it goes far beyond than mere quoting of his poems. Characters, themes and symbols are based of William Blake’s works.
“Dead Man” is a story about the journey of a young man to the unfamiliar terrain. This is both spiritual and physical journey. The main character’s name, played by Johnny Depp, is William Blake. The aim of his journey is the extreme western boundaries of the American borders. William Blake is not a poet, but a broke accountant from Cleveland. One of the characters, Nobody (Exaybachay) is not of much respect to William as he calls him a “stupid fucking white man”. (Dead Man) But after he knows that a man’s name is William Blake, he confirms: “Then you are a dead man!” (Dead Man) He really supposes that this white man is the poet William Blake who died in the beginning of the 19th century. William Blake is Nobody’s literary hero, whom he likes very much. Though the film Nobody recites several poems of William Blake, such as “Auguries of Innocence”, “The Everlasting Gospel” and especially “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”. Though he is a Native American man, he is grateful for knowing the works of William Blake as an aspect of Western education. Thus he strongly believes that this white man is reincarnation of English poet’s soul. So Nobody makes a decision to take William Blake to the Pacific Coast. Thus a poet’s lost soul will be able to return to its spirit-world. The director of the movie Jim Jarusch says that he used the poetry of William Blake on purpose so that to make a connection with the history of Native Americans which he studied specially for the film. The director considered that William Blake’s poetry style and such topics as life and death that he chose for his poems were an extremely right and nice fit with what he, Jim Jarusch, discovered about the Native Americans and the perspectives of their life and existence. So definitely through the character of Nobody the director manages to realign the legacy of Blake’s poetry to the Indian people by the violent break from the Europeans.
The film is an allegory that greatly represents William Blake’s anti-Western ideas. The film itself can be understood only in connection with Blake’s poems. The director paid attention to such themes as the quest for spiritual transcendence and preoccupation with death; the innocence of some people comparing with the other ones, the evil and wickedness of the industrial epoch. Thus, the film “catches the spirit of Blake’s irony and his negative views of matter, materialism, and human existence on earth, and touches on his positive, highly developed, and personal philosophy of religion”. (Thomas)
Works cited:
Dead Man. Not Just Movies. 18 October, 2009. 18 February, 2012. Available at
Thomas, T. William Blake and “Dead Man”. 18 February, 2012. Available at
