Senses disjointed until the end. He's being carried, between consciousness, Muller really looks through Blake--around Blake--for the first time. the music works THEN. it was all about him, now reality comes into relief, gets dragged through the mud; not just a glance or a quip. and the white man coming to kill just to kill. Just to kill--sneaks round the shore, the squalid bastion not yet burnt.
Pathos and focused sense of journey in the gaze, the character, and the music.
Favorite cameo?
Iggy Pop. He tries so hard!
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From Cineaste, Spring 1996. — J.R. wrote:Cineaste: It’s interesting how Blake picks up bits and pieces of his identity from other people in the film, including Nobody.
Jarmusch: Yeah. He’s also like a blank piece of paper that everyone wants to write all over, which is why I like Johnny [Depp] so much as the actor for that character, because he has that quality. He’s branded an outlaw totally against his character, and he’s told he’s this great poet and he doesn’t know what the hell this crazy Indian guy is even talking about. Even the scene in the trading post where the missionary [Alfred Molina] says, “Can I have your autograph?” and then pulls a gun on him, and Blake stabs him in the hand and says, “There, that’s my autograph.” It’s like all these things are projected onto him.
When Nobody leaves him alone after taking peyote, Blake is left to go on his own vision quest briefly, whether he knows it or not, because he’s fasting — not because he wants to but because he doesn’t know how to eat out there. That’s a really important ceremony of most North American tribes — a vision quest where you’re left alone to fast, usually for a three-day period.