Luke A. Fuszard
RHE 309K
Dead Man Talking
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Many of today’s Hollywood films depict Native Americans
as very spiritual people. Unfortunately, audiences are interested in seeing
Indians represented as shamans to perpetuate their imagined existence of Native
Americans, but have little or no interest in watching real, everyday Indian
characters. Therefore American films bombard us with these mystics, who may
be good people, but as Shari M Huhndorf in her book Going Native states, “They
are nevertheless as unrealistic as the bloodthirsty savages populating other
narratives” (Huhndorf 3).
The film Dead Man uses an Indian for a spiritual guide, but
the mythological representation of the Native American is intentional rather
than uninformed. The Western uses its characters to clarify the state of God
during the Industrial Revolution, when many sought tangible goods, and distanced
themselves from religion. The title character of the film, a white man named
William Blake, was taken from a famous poet with the same name whose works dealt
with the quest for spirituality and the “gradual de-creation of humanity
and loss of contact with the eternal” (Fuller 53). The film is a chronicle
of William Blake - an accountant who has recently lost all family - and his
journey from a life devoid of meaning, to a reconnection with God through the
help of a mysterious Indian friend. The two men’s journey is a spiritual
quest away from the materialism of the world, toward a reconnection with divinity.
The opening of the movie is Blake’s seemingly endless train
ride to the West, where he hopes to find a new job and life. As scenes of a
desolate landscape pass him by, he stares out the window and silently contemplates.
The film fades in and out of darkness, indicating a long passage of time. This
train ride is used to symbolize the life of the character William Blake –
desolate, lonely, and mindlessly boring, a life unfulfilled and without substance.
The first scene ends with the train’s passengers opening gunfire upon buffalo
running alongside the boxcar, signifying man’s carelessness for life. All
of these passengers, like Blake, have led desolate, meaningless lives. They
are all passing on to the “end of the line”, representing the end
of life, or purgatory.
The train ride ends at the town of Machine, an obvious connotation
of materialism and its dangers at the time of the Industrial Revolution. The
souls that inhabit this town roam in a state of limbo, living in poor conditions
and working tireless hours for the endless quest for money. In William Blake’s
poetry, machines are making life and work more advanced and technology has replaced
God as the driving force behind humanity. Dead Man is showing the inhabitants
of this town felt that if man created the machine, then surely man controlled
his own fate. This produced a feeling of invincibility, perhaps insinuating
the embrace and fear of God was unnecessary. Yet with all these new innovations
and this sense of invincibility, the streets of Machine are lined with coffins
and other warnings of death.
In Machine Blake is lost, a wandering spirit searching for meaning.
He has no connection to God or any guiding force, and finds himself among the
masses in Machine of people wandering in limbo. However, after an unexpected
gunfight with a drunken local, Blake is mortally wounded and collapses in the
middle of the forest. His eyes open to the site of Nobody – a fat, vulgar
Indian whose speech is often in the words of the poet William Blake. The name
Nobody is a variation of the character Nobodaddy, whom Blake created as a synonym
for God. Blake wrote that Nobodaddy often “farted, and belched, and coughed”
(Johnson 185), showing Nobodaddy had human flaws. Blake’s poem To God is
a dictation to Him where Blake challenges: “If you have formed a Circle
to go into/Go into it yourself and see how you would do” (Johnson 183).
In this poem he dares God to make Himself human, to try and live in the world
that he has created that is full of sin and temptation.
Dead Man’s Nobody is a response to Blake’s challenge.
He may not be God Himself, but he is assumes the role of a guardian angel to
William Blake, becoming his spiritual leader. In contrast to other Hollywood
films with stereotypical Indian characters dealing with spirituality, Nobody
does not possess any mystical powers. Also contrary to many other films, Nobody
is very well read, especially on the poetry of William Blake, and other issues
including the purposeful destruction of the Indian race by the whites. He comments
that he has seen the cruelty of the white man, through the introduction of smallpox
infested blankets. From this and other similar quotes, the viewer gets the idea
that he comprehends the fate of the Native Americans following the further colonization
of the West, yet he makes no mention of any measures to prevent this from happening.
Inevitably, God, or Nobodaddy, does not interfere in our lives. He is merely
a casual observer, a wanderer from the forest who sees the problems that exist,
but does nothing to correct them. He leaves the realization of these problems
to mankind. So as these tragedies begin to occur across the land to these people,
Nobody appears more preoccupied with the spiritual assistance of William Blake.
As Nobody leads Blake on a journey from Machine, towards the
“Valley of the Spirits”, or Heaven, Blake grows physically weaker
from the gunshot inflicted earlier. The film once again fades in and out of
darkness showing Blake’s weakened state. In the last scene of the film,
Nobody lays a weakened William Blake into a canoe and lets him go into the Pacific
Ocean to be taken up among the spirits. Blake’s ascension into Heaven marks
the end of his spiritual journey that began on the train ride to Machine.
Despite his role as a spiritual being, the character of Nobody
defies previous Hollywood conventions in the portrayal of the American Indian.
Dead Man does not “tell a story that leaves stereotypical visions of Native
life intact and the radically unequal relations between European Americans and
Native Americans unquestioned” (Huhndorf 3). In fact, it is the smart and
brave Indian Nobody that leads the naïve and white William Blake. Nobody
and William Blake are characters used to describe the state of being around
the 1870s. Blake is the materialistic journeyman who is lost and believes that
answers are found in money and prosperity. Nobody is the spiritual being who
has been abandoned during this time. In fact, Nobody travels alone, telling
Blake that he was cast off by his tribe many years before. This symbolizes God
being forgotten by His people during the time of great technological advancement.
Nobody is a highly unrealistic character, but Dead Man does not make the claim he or anyone like him ever existed. Instead the film uses this broad character to encompass the abandonment of God and the embrace of the machine during the nineteenth century. These themes also have relevance today, as the world becomes more advanced with each passing moment, the question arises of where God fits into such a rapidly changing society. According to Dead Man, the answer is to those who accept their flaws call out for spiritual assistance, He will answer; perhaps not in a way to be expected.
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Works Cited
Fuller, David. (1988). Blake’s Heroic Argument. London: Croom Helm Press.
Huhndorf, Shari M. (2001). Going Native. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Johnson, Mary Lunn. (Ed) (1979). Blake’s Poetry and Designs. New York:
W.W. Norton and Company.
updated 3. April 2002