The Movie Mystic

Profusely sweating men, nihilistic violence, widescreen cinematography capturing barren landscapes, an unforgettable background score, an iconic Mexican standoff and a man with no name come to mind when one thinks of the ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’.   Italian auteur Sergio Leone’s 1966 masterpiece, the third and the final installment in the Dollar’s Trilogy (after A fistful of Dollars and A Few More Dollars) of Spaghetti Westerns, is now considered one of the greatest films ever made. Three men -- a relentless mercenary (Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes aka The Bad); a Mexican bandit with a devil-may-care attitude (Eli Wallach as Tuco aka The Ugly); and a cigar-smoking, poncho-sporting, mysterious bounty hunter (Clint Eastwood as Blondie aka The Good aka the Man with No Name) – are on the hunt for Confederate gold buried in a cemetery at the peak of the American Civil War. The story unfolds as they try to outsmart one another in their quest for the yellow metal and enc...

“It is preferable not to travel with a dead man.” --- Henri Michaux Jim Jarmaush’s 1995 release which subsequently gained a cult following among Indie movie lovers is the auteur’s best known work. The movie subtly presents the spiritual journey, though on the surface it appears temporal, of one William Blake. And our William Blake is an accountant, not the great English mystic poet. The naïve, educated Blake (played to perfection by Johnny Depp) arrives at the frontier town of Machine, which is too cruel for his mild mannered nature, for a job in a company he has been assured of. After learning it the hard way from the firm’s megalomaniac owner that the position of accountant has been taken, he has a chance encounter with a former prostitute named Thel Russell who takes him home. There he finds himself in a quagmire after Thel’s fiancé, who happens to be the son of the firm’s owner, appears in the scene. The confrontation leaves Blake mortally wounded even as he shoots Thel...