Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) - Whitaker serves ancient samurai justice in Jarmusch's cool treat

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+ Best New Jersey Movie of the Year + Best Samurai Movie of the Year

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 

 

Watch the trailer here

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?

The Boys in the Band (1970) - Friedkin and Crowley's groundbreaking gay birthday party movie

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Curiosity-inspiring poster for William Friedkin's The Boys in the Band

The Boys in the Band isn't a musical, as its posters declare, nor a film about a band. It is a daring and taboo-breaking stage adaptation of Mart Crowley's (The Men From the Boys (2002)) off-Broadway play by master director William Friedkin (The Exorcist (1973)).

Michael and Donald are preparing for the party they are throwing in Michael's New York apartment for their mutual friend Harold's birthday, when an old college chum makes a tearful surprise-call to Michael. And soon, while the party of colorful 'queens' are having a ball, the perplexing, homophobic 'ghost of the past' friend arrives on the doorstep.

The revelatory evening and night that follows in Boys in the Band is structurally reminiscent of such films as Key Largo (1948), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and The Breakfast Club (1985) in that it feels like a heightened everyday drama, concept-driven around the idea of the evening of discoveries and confessions in a single location. We may call it the 'pot-boiler'-grip.
Forgetting this somewhat unnatural narrative device, Crowley's script contains poignant dialog and zingers en masse. There are several truly funny moments, mostly stemming from the original characters and the unparalleled performers: The film reutilizes all of the stage players, and it is hard to pick out who to highlight, because they all do an exceptional job, but here goes:
Cliff Gorman (Ghost Dog (1999)) is incredible as Emory, who gets compared to a chicken wing in one hilarious scene in the film. Peter White (Thirteen Days (2000)) is superb as the straight stranger, who maybe isn't so straight when it all comes down to it. Robert La Tourneaux (Pilgrimage (1972)) is well-playing and eye-candy as Harold's present cowboy. And finally, Leonard Frey (Tattoo (1981)) is legendary as birthday boy Harold, though his character's slithering sarcasm becomes, I think, a bit too rash at times.

The details:

Friedkin was only in the first stage of his film directing career with Boys in the Band, but already his talent is obvious. Besides handling a big theater ensemble who could have easily run away with 'his' film, he achieves making a great movie, which in its look and technical side is clearly not merely filmed theater.
This amusing and melancholic drama-comedy is renowned as one of the first major American movies to deal with homosexuality in an open fashion, and I found that, looking past the campy humor and aged references, the characters still feel real and truthful today. The self-flagellation and -hatred apparent in several of them has luckily lessened for most adult homosexuals in today's world, but the film in a way only attains higher value since things have (thankfully) changed since its making.
The despair is tangible below the frail surface, but the liveliness of the characters and performers and Friedkin's sure direction prevents The Boys in the Band from ever becoming a downer. At its finest, it is a moving portrait of human beings. It is often thought-provoking and has an ending that definitely sits with you after it has left the screen.

Watch the original trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly 5.5 mil. $ (although it seems very high)
Box office: 3.5 mil. $ (North American rentals only)
= Uncertainty
[Though the film is considered a cult classic in gay cinema today, besides a great film, it was received more coolly and even with disdain by some critics at its premiere. Due to its subject matter, it only played big cities in the States.]

What do you think of The Boys in the Band?
Other early gay-themed films that you want to recommend?