When I first saw Dead Man, I wasn't sure about it. I'd loved Jarmusch's other films - especially Down By Law, which was one of my all time favourite films. I saw Dead Man at a flea pit cinema in London's Piccadilly Circus on a terrible bunker-like screen and thought it was a bit willfully artful. But then about a year later, I had to write an essay on Westerns for my degree and chose to do Dead Man (mostly because I loved Jarmusch and Depp). So I had to watch the film about 3 more times in a week. And now I totally love it. It gets better with every time I watch it.
If anyone's interested, there's a good book by Jonathan Rosenbaum about it in the BFI classic collection. Unfortunately this was written after I wrote my essay, so didn't help me, but it's still very information ( ike all Rosenbaum's stuff).
And I got a 1st for my essay. But now I'm jyust bragging.
I now think Dead Man is by far Jarmusch's best film. And along with Unforgiven, is the best Western made after 1980.