Jim Jarmusch’s Bold Fix for a Failed Dead Man Scene
When Jim Jarmusch sensed a crucial scene in Dead Man was falling flat, he made a daring creative choice to save it. Discover how the director turned a lack of chemistry between Johnny Depp and Mili Avital into a memorable moment.
Instinct often guides the best artistic decisions, and for Jim Jarmusch, that intuition proved essential during the making of Dead Man. While filming, he quickly realized that one particular moment just wasn’t working. The freedom that comes with independent filmmaking allowed him to pivot and reshape his vision on the fly, a luxury not always afforded in the studio system.
Dead Man, released in 1995, stars Johnny Depp as William Blake, a mild-mannered accountant who finds himself in a violent spiral after killing a man. Wounded and on the run, he’s cared for by a mysterious Native American who believes Blake is a reincarnated poet. Shot in stark black and white, the film draws inspiration from the poetry of its namesake, delving into themes of identity and duality. Though it didn’t make a splash at the box office, losing $8 million, the movie has since earned a devoted following for its unique portrayal of Native culture and its unconventional approach to the Western genre.
On-Set Tension and a Creative Dilemma
During production, Jarmusch encountered a major hurdle with a scene featuring Depp and Mili Avital, who played Thel, a former prostitute trying to protect Blake after he’s shot. The two actors simply didn’t connect on screen, and the lack of chemistry was impossible to ignore. Jarmusch later recalled,
“and it was terrible. It was just bad,”
recognizing immediately that something had to change.
He explained,
“So I realised, ‘I’m gonna make a love scene tomorrow with them, and they’re not gonna be in the same room together. So how am I gonna do that? I’m gonna do it all in close-ups. I got along with both of them. So it was me with Mili giving her a flower, saying things to her, letting her react, and getting moments from her that I loved.”
This unconventional approach allowed him to capture genuine emotion, even if the actors never shared the same space during filming.
Turning a Misstep Into a Memorable Scene
Jarmusch admitted that the original staging was part of the problem.
“I think, because I had staged it in a bad way. It was very comical and silly. It was inappropriate, and I knew it while I was shooting it. It was not in the style of the film, but I filmed it.”
Realizing the scene clashed with the film’s tone, he decided to reshoot it using only close-ups, working individually with each actor to draw out the right reactions.
The next day, he brought Depp in, lightened the mood with jokes, and filmed his close-ups, later removing the sound. With these separate shots, Jarmusch was able to piece together a scene that felt intimate and authentic.
“So then I had two close-ups to cut, and a scene to make of them. I was happy at the end, because I think I got a very beautiful little scene. That one was an example that I knew at the time, ‘Wrong! Not working!’”