Analysis Of William Blake, The Dead Man

One could also claim that Blake, the dead man, represents a movie genre: the western. The film was shot in the 1995, when the western has been dead. There were lately no new western movies on the mainstream stage. However, Jarmusch chose some basic forms of this genre to tell this story. (Aurich et al. 240)

Nobody, a Native American character in the movie played by Gary Farmer, can be considered as highly important for the transformation of Bill Blake. His name is Xebeche, which means He Who Talks Loud, Saying Nothing, but prefers to be called Nobody. His mother and father are from different tribes. He tells Blake that mixed blood is not respected by Native Americans. As child he was taken east to Toronto, Philadelphia and New York and finally to England by white people. There he received western education. Nobody is the one who sees in Blake the reincarnation of the English poet and painter William Blake (1757 – 1827, London (Bataille 67)) and also a killer of white men. These are the two forced roles that Bill Blake adapts in the course of the film. It is an amusing fact that the Native American does know the poet while Blake does not. In the film sequence at the fire Nobody asks Blake for his name. When he hears the answer William Blake, Nobody cannot believe it, reacts very excited and cites a few lines of the William Blake poem Auguries of Innocence: “Every night and every morn’, some to misery are born. Every morn’ and every night, some are born to sweet delight.