Dead Man

Dead Man is a 1995 film directed by Jim Jarmusch. It has been described as a "psychedelic western." It's main character, William Blake, travels from the industrialized civilized north east to the untamed and lawless west. William is young, like the United States, and he has a lot to learn about his country. The first scene William is riding a train across the country, and the passengers progressively grow more savage looking. He is slowly becoming more and more out of his element. A fireman sits across from him and asks where he is going. William tells him his destination is the town of Machine for a job as an accountant, because he has nothing left back home. The fireman seems worried. When he arrives at his destination he finds that his position has already been taken, and his would-be employer, Dickenson, greets him at gunpoint. William goes to the local bar and buys a bottle of liquor. While outside he meets a beautiful woman who he goes home with. She shows him her gun, paper flowers, and then they get into bed. The woman's ex-boyfriend bursts in, and after the couple argues a bit he pulls out a gun and attempts to shoot William Blake. She shields him and takes the bullet, but it still passed through and injures William. William grabs her gun and after missing a couple times, finally kills the ex-boyfriend. He then escapes through the window, steals a horse, and rides into the wilderness. Dickenson happens to be the father of this ex-boyfriend and the horse William stole was Dickenson's. So he hires 3 outlaws who have reputations of cold-blooded killers to hunt down William Blake and return the horse. William passes out and wakes up to an American Indian tending his wounds, but the bullet is too close to his heart so he calls William a walking dead man. They travel together and the Indian tells William his name is Nobody, and that he is exiled from his tribe. This is because as a child Nobody was taken by white men to Europe as a show attraction and eventually educated. He escaped and came back to America, but during his education he learned of the poet William Blake. So when our William tells Nobody his name, he mistakes him as the spirit or reincarnation of the poet. Although William does not know who this poet is, Nobody calls him a dead man and continues to make references to the poet and his poetry throughout the film. Through their travels through the wilderness, William kills two US Marshalls, and a man who attempts to turn him in. He also joins Nobody on a vision quest. At the end of their travels William is a changed man. He is wounded and Nobody sets him on a boat and sends him off into the water. This is Nobody's way of sending him back into the afterlife. The whole time he was telling William that he was taking him home, and this is what he meant. So as William Blake lay dying on the boat, he watches one of the outlaws kill Nobody, and Nobody kills him.

This is my favorite film. It was like that the first time I watched it though, for many reasons. The depth to all the characters and the fact that such a simple plot could hold so many themes and explain so much
about life blows me away. At the beginning of the film, the fireman is speaking about coming over to America from a boat and he says to William that the water in his head matched the water outside the boat, and that "the landscape is moving, but the boat is still." This was a metaphor for the changes that William would experience in his journey. The setting changed, and although William appeared to change as the story progressed, he was essentially the same person. Just presented with new experiences that he had never had to react to before. He lost a lot of his innocence, and found out a lot about himself. When he came to Machine he was shot, and his Eastern self died. His western self came to surface and when he realized who he was he could die. His journey through the wilderness was representative of life, and since you're essentially alone, who's a better guide than Nobody?

Besides the depth of the plot, the cinematography and music were amazing. Neil Young improvised the entire soundtrack on his guitar, which is pretty unique. The entire film was black and white, which added to the western vibe. The scarcity of main characters allows you to really get to know William Blake and Nobody.

Jaws

 Police Chief Martin Brody is new to Amity Island. The citizens there, while welcoming to tourists and newcomers, have a great pride in their town and aren't very welcoming to change. Which becomes a problem when Brody wants to close the beaches after a young girls body parts wash up on shore. The islanders argument is that they are a "summer town" and depend on tourism, and plus they are all passionate beach-goers. The citizen's minds change however, when a child is eaten by a massive shark in front of hundreds of people on the beach. A town meeting is held, and the mother of the dead boy offers a reward. Everyone with a boat is out on the water trying to claim the reward and a tiger shark is caught. The mayor, convinced the chaos is over reopens the beaches. Brody hired an oceanographer who says the attacks were not done by a tiger shark. Even after they scuba dive a wreck and finding the tooth of a great white, the mayor is not worried. After another man is killed, the mayor is finally convinced. Brody and the oceanographer, Hooper, team up with an old fisherman known as Quint, the only man willing to take on the great white. After battling this creature at sea, Brody shoots a tank that is lodged in the shark's mouth from his sinking ship, and the shark explodes.

All I can say is that if massive sharks mutilating beach-goers isn't enough to keep your attention (unlikely), then the brilliantly created characters and eye catching camera angle will. The content of the film alone brought in ticket sales and made it a blockbuster in the summer of 1975, but without the touch Spielberg added to this film, it wouldn't be such a classic. The characters all played their roles in the plot very well, each introduced at the right time, and with perfectly formulated yet believable personalities. The subtle placement of the camera added the correct gaze and mood to each shot, and the editing/special effects were just enough to be eye catching yet still realistic. Well done for 1975.

The ending Spielberg chose seems to be the point of controversy around this film. In my opinion it was 100% his decision to blow up the shark, anything less dramatic just wouldn't have done the build up to that point justice. Sure, that was a little far fetched, but no one is watching Jaws expecting to get an education on marine biology or physics. It's a keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat style film, that still maintains an artistic appeal. A masterpiece in my opinion, but I believe if this same film was released today it would not have been as popular or impressive.

The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is the classic adventure film directed by Rob Reiner and is based off a novel of the same name written by William Goldman. It's told by an omnipresent narrator that we can all relate to. Although the content of the plot is simple and predictable, the uniqueness and likeableness of the characters kept my interest. I'm not saying it's simplicity was a downside. It added a classic feel that made me feel comfortable, appreciative, and almost nostalgic: as if viewing this film brought out a childlike interest that had been lying dormant for a long time. This may also be due to the fact that the omnipresent narrator I referred to earlier was a classic grandfather figure reading the tale to his sick grandson. Without this aspect of the film, I'm not sure it would've had the same affect on me.

For me, the themes are love, honor, good triumphing evil, and all that good stuff. It's a classic rescue the girl movie. Some characters, such as swordsman Inigo Montoya, start off appearing to be against our rescuer, but by the end of the film all of the hero types come out on top. The rescuer's name is Wesley and the girl's is Buttercup. They grew up on a farm together and fell in love, but while Wesley was still young he goes off to sea in search of treasure where he dies (but not really). He grew up and took the place of the Dread Pirate Roberts. In the meantime Buttercup grew up to be a princess and is arranged to marry a typical noble asshole named Humperdinck. The obnoxious (yet somehow likable) wise guy/theif, Vizzinni, creates a three man gang with a giant and Inigo Montoya. They kidnap the princess in an attempt to hold her for ransom.  Dread Pirate Roberts hears wind of this and chases after them. After overcoming all three gang members through skill, strength, and wit, the pirate (Wesley) wins back Buttercup and they now have to escape her fiancé's search party. However, they're both captured. Buttercup is taken back to the castle to marry Humperdinck, and Wesley is tortured. Luckily, the swordsman and giant hear his cries, and with Vizzinni now being dead, they come to his rescue. Inigo needs to get into the castle to kill the man who killed his father, Wesley to rescue Buttercup. So that's what the three of them do, and they all live happily ever after.

This heroic adventure has a few abrupt interruptions when the grandson asks his grandfather questions about the story. He has familiar traits of young boys, complaining about the love scenes, wanting to skip to the end to see how it all turns out. So if the classic story isn't enough, the characters of the grandfather and grandson should make you feel right at home. Also, the quality of the film and editing is definitely good for 1987 and the scenes flowed smoothly. To this date, this film has proved to be timeless, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Harold and Maude

Meet Harold, a very strange young man living in a very normal world. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Either way, Harold does not fit in his surroundings and has an immense difficulty relating to other human beings. Harold's mother is caught up in a social, materialistic reality that Harold has no interest in. Throughout the film, she attempts to "normalize" her son (blind dates, military, replacing his hearse with a sports car). The director, Hal Ashby, makes Harold a likable character. This at first puzzled me, because I couldn't relate to this death obsessed kid's interests or personality. However, as I watched his interactions with different people and got to know Harold throughout the film, I realized that we are more alike than I first thought. His inabilities to fit in to his surroundings and live up to his mother's expectations is something many teenagers and young adults can relate to in this transitional phase of their life. Harold's a bit different from the average young person though, so instead of finding comfort in relating to his peers, he meets Maude. Harold's obsession with death takes him to many funerals around town, where he bumps into Maude, a zany old woman who threw away the limitations of society years ago. His second time running into her she offers him a ride home. This day they become instant best friends, despite their age difference and the fact that they seem to be polar opposite. Maude shows Harold how to find purpose in life and enjoy every moment, and he eventually falls in love with her. Despite the disapproval of a priest, psychiatrists, and his mother, he plans to ask Maude to marry her on her 80th birthday. However when the big day comes, Maude tells Harold she has ingested a pill that will kill her by the end of the day. She dies and leaves Harold to play his banjo and find happiness on his own.

Maude's death was foreshadowed earlier in the film when Maude claims that 75 is too young to die, but 85 is almost too old. She says her 80th birthday is approaching and that 80 sounds like a good age to perhaps die. This seemed insignificant at the time however, because it seemed to be slipped into the conversation so subtly, I didn't imagine it was a hint as to how this story would end. Maude's last words to Harold was probably her best line of the entire film in my opinion. Sobbing, Harold tells her that she can't die, because he loves her. Maude smiles and replies, "Good, now go love some more!"
This wraps up their relationship, and the entire film. Maude was near the end of her life and happily chose to leave. Harold's life was just beginning and he wanted to leave too, but Maude changed that. I think any doubts she had about killing herself were gone once she saw that she had changed Harold for the better. The ending where Harold lets his car fly off the cliff, then dances away playing his banjo was the perfect way to show the change that had taken place in him. The car flying off the cliff was a weight being lifted off his shoulders, and the banjo was his new found freedom/happiness.

I enjoyed this film very much. The plot, the characters, the theme, pretty much everything. There was a few parts where I thought that the editing could be better. I'd like to see a modern indie-ish interpretation of this film. I think the advances in not just technology but in style of film could really make this story popular with today's young people.