Jim Jarmusch ’s 1999 thriller Ghost Dog : Way of the Samurai is a arresting meditation on wash , death , cultural cross - pollination , and Forest Whitaker kill gangsters . But what ’s most challenging about Ghost Dog is how Jarmusch transforms the film ’s flesh - and - blood samurai into a nigh mythical shade . Here ’s why this picture has become a must - see classic in just twelve short twelvemonth .
First off , a speedy primer on the film ( X - old spoilers ) . Forest Whitaker stars as Ghost Dog , a bushido - obsessed , Hagakure - quoting hitman who works for Louie ( John Tormey ) , a wretched and forever harried diminished - meter mafioso . After one of Ghost Dog ’s hit fail lopsided , Louie ’s bosses call for that he take Ghost Dog out . This is n’t prosperous , as A. ) Ghost Dog only communicates with Louie via pigeon ; and B. ) is an abattoir on two legs .
At first flush , Ghost Dog miss the quality of speculative cinema . It force on martial graphics themes , but there ’s no grillwork , forbidden art , orgiant flying smasher . It ’s an understated film ; it looks like a Victorian period dramatic event compare to other RZA - scored productions like Kill Bill and Afro Samurai . bar Ghost Dog ’s anachronic ways , his transcendental allergy to go bad , andone particularly off-the-wall assassination , the movie ordnance for verisimilitude .
https://gizmodo.com/acid-zits-laser-peaches-and-dracula-the-most-inexpli-5766631
But what pull in Ghost Dog such a fascinating film are the subtle , multifaceted way Jarmusch show the shadowy hitman as a live fabrication . The film is a inner look at an urban legend , a man who cloaks himself in plain sight , whose smoke screen is the American city itself .
The film proceed out of its way to portray him as a phantom who slips through back street and the day-to-day bureaucratism . He ’s all Walter Kovacs ( no Bruce Wayne ) , an extension of the metropolis thanks to nonentityness , an uncompromising moral computer code , and undiagnosed mental illness .
And Jarmusch does n’t simply limn Ghost Dog ’s phantom status free-base on his interactions with other characters . The motion picture ’s setting , cinematography , and soundtrack all contribute themselves to Jarmusch ’s cryptoanthropological investigating . Let ’s take a look at how Ghost Dog creates Whitaker ’s urban phantasm :
Only RZA can see you
One of the hallmarks of Ghost Dog is that he seldom talk to anybody ( his pseudonym at one head is “ Mr. Solo ” ) . Those people with whom he does converse come with qualifications . His best booster is the Haitian ice cream man Raymond , who only verbalize French ( Ghost Dog only speaks English ) . He also speaks with Perline ( an inquisitive but naive elementary schooler ) andsome designate bear hunters . Almost all the gangsters who see his face twist up dead .
Isolation and blemished or one - sided communication define Whitaker ’s character . At the film ’s rootage , he ’s acknowledged by a group of young men on the street ( “ Ghost Dog , knowledge to noesis , babe ! ” ) , but he ignores them . The only person he unequivocally communicates with is Ghost Dog composer and rapper RZA , who cameos as “ Samurai in Camouflage . ”
We can record this scene a duad of room . RZA could be a ally of Ghost Dog , but we bang the bravo does n’t talk to just anyone . RZA could be a clandestine bushido practitioner like Ghost Dog ( hence “ Samurai in Camouflage ” ) . We can also view this as the metatextual coming together of a fabrication with his author .
Ghost Dog ( the movie ) in all likelihood would n’t exist if it were n’t for the Wu - Tang Clan ’s blending of pelvic girdle - record hop ethos with easterly iconography and myth ( the only full-grown stylistic common law I can think of isThe Last Dragon , and that was moreDeBarge ) . The only one who can “ see ” Ghost Dog is his “ maker . ” Is RZA the god of the Ghost Dog universe ? possibly . Ol’ Dirty Bastardcertainly did n’t cast Ghost Dog out of a lump of clay .
Side Note 1 : It ’s also interesting that Gary Farmer , the star of Jarmusch ’s 1995 surrealist Western Dead Man cameos in Ghost Dog ( indeed , the mobster mistake him for Ghost Dog ) . His role in Dead Man ? The Indian guide “ Nobody . ”
Side Note 2 : For several years , the grade to Ghost Dog was n’t useable in America — you had to beat out out for the enigmatical , not inexpensive Japanese version . This was absolutely maddening , as RZA composed one of the fine film scores in cinema account . Listenhere .
Phantom Geography
It ’s never specified where Ghost Dog takes place . It was film in Jersey City , New Jersey ( you may see the industrial sprawling of the Meadowlandsfrom his cap ) . When Ghost Dog switches license plates on a stolen car , the plate read “ THE INDUSTRIAL STATE ” and “ THE HIGHWAY STATE . ” There are some trivial indicant that Ghost Dog fall out in the New York metro ( the Holland tunnel appears briefly ) , but the film could take place in any labyrinthine US metropolis . Ghost Dog could be mosey through your neighborhood .
In the film ’s opening sequence , Ghost Dog drive through his neighborhood in a boosted gondola . His surround are generic — the row house , retail ( an Asiatic restaurant and a store dubbed “ ACTION VIDEO ” border each other ) , and faceless footer could be from Baltimore , Los Angeles , or St. Louis . There ’s a netherworldly constituent to Ghost Dog ’s drive . For example , a board - up service post ( around the 2:22 bull’s eye on the above snip ) conjure the woebegone temple fromAkira Kurosawa ’s Rashōmon .
speak of Kurosawa …
Rashōmon is central to the thematic structure of Ghost Dog — in the film , the hitman impart Perline his transcript of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa ’s short story , which is about a Isle of Man whose moral code imperil his own well - being . Most viewers are likely more conversant with Kurosawa ’s version , which also borrow from Akutagawa ’s unretentive story In A Grove . Kurosawa ’s Rashōmon focuses on the mutability of verity and the shipway in which reality can become fabrication . To most of the motion picture ’s character , Ghost Dog — a hulking , glum world — might as well be a poltergeist with a katana , some real Weekly World News shit .
Ghost Dog came out over a decade ago — since then , surveillance and forensics engineering science have rendered the whimsy that a samurai hitman walks amongst us less and less plausible . But as the celluloid ’s premise acquire more dated and divorce from reality , the depiction of Ghost Dog as an urban legend is progressively seductive .
In his ( positive ) review of Ghost Dog , Roger Ebert notes that the protagonist istoo nuts , too unearthly for this realness . That ’s kind of the point . Jarmusch ’s advise that there really are Ghost Dogs are out there . They ’re minotaurs in the city , and the residual of us are too wrapped up in our own daily gimcrackery to see them .
picture show
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , skill , and acculturation intelligence in your inbox daily .
news show from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
