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+ Best New Jersey Movie of the Year + Best Samurai Movie of the Year
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| The cool poster for Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai |
Ghost Dog is the 7th feature from American master writer-director Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man (1995)). It is an urban samurai movie.
Ghost Dog is a lone samurai, who's a retainer for a mob guy. When a hit he carries out gets witnessed by the boss's daughter, the boss sets out to kill the strange man. But that is easier said than done.
The film opens slowly and starts by driving us into the meditative pace of its title character, as he cruises around New Jersey in a stolen car. The hang-low mood is nicely in line with the chilled beats that are produced by RZA (of The Wu Tang Clan, who also has a cameo towards the end), who makes a deft composer debut here. He has since composed scores for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and other things.
Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland (2006)) is Ghost Dog, and Jarmusch also makes good use of his younger brother Damon Whitaker (Bird (1988)) in two flash-back scenes. Ghost Dog has a wonderful row of faces in secondary parts: John Tormey (The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)) as the hero's complexed employer Louie; Henry Silva (Thirst (1979)) as the reptile-like boss; Cliff Gorman (The Boys in the Band (1970)) as his son, and Victor Argo (Bad Lieutenant (1992)) as a strong-arm. - There are many more, and the gangster ensemble is pretty hilarious; most of them play them straight-faced, as heaving, idiotic fatsoes.
The film also features Isaach De Bankolé (The Limits of Control (2009)) as our hero's French-speaking best friend and Camille Winbush (Eraser (1996)) as the nice literate girl from the park.
The details:
Ghost Dog is infused with several quotations from a samurai book (Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Hagakure (1709-16)), many of which are thought-provoking, (a few nonsensical.) The film sends a warm reference to samurai movie master Akira Kurosawa (through the use of the book Rashômon, which is also the title of his great 1950 film.) It also references Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967).
Depending on your analytical powers, at some point you will realize that Ghost Dog has a symbolic meaning beneath its cool, violent, wry surface: Ghost Dog symbolizes the profound, ancient traditions and values, while the gangsters symbolize the depravity and indifference and stupidity of today. Ghost Dog carries out his justified vengeance as a kind of blast from the past, especially poignant in the scenes with the racist poachers.
It isn't necessary to buy into the samurai philosophy or way of life to treasure Ghost Dog. For most who love samurai movies and Jarmusch pictures, Ghost Dog is simply a wonderful gift that came as perhaps the last great samurai movie before the arrival of the new millennium.
Related posts:
Jim Jarmusch: Broken Flowers (2005) - Hip search for son and self with Jarmusch and Murray
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) - Pleasant, precious vignette sit-down with some wonderful people
1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Cost: 2 mil. $
Box office: 9.3 mil. $
= Big hit
[Ghost Dog made 3.3 mil. $ or 35 % of its gross in the States. It was popular in many countries, especially France, where it also was nominated for the Palm d'Or in Cannes, (but didn't win.)]
What do you think of Jarmusch's samurai movie?
What's your favorite samurai movie?
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