Dead Man – an encounter with the unknown past

Abstract

Jim Jarmusch’s feature film Dead Man, apparently a Western, exceeds the genre’s traditional boundaries and shows ambivalence, unclear roles in an environment existing between the times of the nation’s founding and the success of civilisation. It shows a world in transformation where change is happening, not managed. The film is a provocation for adherents to traditional Western movies. But a closer look at this world offers a surprising insight into a dynamic involved in change processes that also occur after mergers or take‐overs in contemporary business organisations. The charm in using the film as a metaphor is at least two‐fold. The interpretation with the help of Lyotard and Baudrillard shows a double edged dynamic where the successful new owner after a take‐over is not necessarily in charge of the game. Beyond that the use of a movie from outside the mainstream offers a non‐mainstream argument inside the core of a mainstream management topic.