Ghost Dog, a professional hitman played by Forest Whitaker, adheres to the strict warrior codes of the samurai, and maintains a loyalty to his retainer, a mobster who once saved his life. He lives a solitary existence, with homing pigeons as his only constant company, while discreetly fulfilling contracts for the Mafia, only to disappear into the shadows after each killing. When his latest job results in the witnessed death of a made man in the organized crime family, however, our antihero is targeted by his master and must find a way to govern his fate on his own terms.
On a surface level, the 1999 crime film,
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, is a direct homage to Jean-Pierre Melville's 1967 French masterpiece,
Le Samouraï, about a killer, played by Alain Delon, whose routine is dictated by a meticulous attention to detail along the lines of the Bushido code. Director Jim Jarmusch, whose previous leisurely-paced works, namely
Stranger Than Paradise (1984),
Down by Law (1986),
Mystery Train (1989), and
Dead Man (1995), superimposed deceptively simple narratives over understated atmospherics of music and art, has more tricks up his sleeve. By way of an exceptional score and soundtrack by Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, this endeavor follows its own beat to what Stephen King's The Gunslinger might refer to as “the clearing at the end of the path.”
As if to accentuate the insanity of its titular character and the effects that a hitman profession might have on a person in real life, Jarmusch guides us through one deliberately absurd scenario after another. The Italian gangsters, played by the likes of Henry Silva (
The Manchurian Candidate) and Richard Portnow (
The Sopranos), are brought to the screen with distinctly offbeat mannerisms, as though these characters know all the while that they are starring in a Mafia movie. Ghost Dog's acquaintance with a French-speaking ice cream man, played by Isaach De Bankolé (
Casino Royale), is fascinating, because the two men understand each other perfectly despite their language barriers. Finally, Ghost Dog lends a copy of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's
Rashōmon to a girl, played by Camille Winbush, in a city park, as a way of placing the tale in a framework of moral ambiguity.
Whitaker, usually a supporting actor extraordinaire in films ranging from
Platoon to
Black Panther, delivers perhaps the most poignant role of his career. When actors and filmmakers create tangibly detailed worlds, they do not need to explain every little plot detail to audiences. Because of Whitaker's effectiveness at conveying emotion without dialogue, we do not bother to question why his character delves so deeply into the samurai lifestyle after a pivotal incident during his younger years. We simply accept at face value that Ghost Dog roams the city streets as a legendary specter of death, even as hip-hop artists make up rhymes about him while he watches from a park bench.
Like Quentin Tarantino's
Pulp Fiction, Jarmusch's
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai defies any fixed chronological setting, and seems to take place in an alternate universe of its own accord. In this world, where vintage cartoons play on every television screen, where old gangsters rap Flavor Flav lyrics, and where people build boats on rooftops for no reason, we are ushered through sights and sounds of violence, sadness, beauty, loneliness, unlikely camaraderie, vibrant energy, and luxurious stillness. In the same sense as the interactions between the lead character and Isaach De Bankolé's ice cream vendor, this movie shares its musings with an intuitive clarity. Ghost Dog, like Delon's hitman in
Le Samouraï, lives a life that none of us want to live in order to create a story that we all want to watch.
This Criterion Blu-ray is a filmic treat, with top notch video and audio alike. The black levels, in particular, hit the right bases. I am thoroughly enjoying the supplements right now, particularly the Jarmusch Q&A and the video conference with Forest Whitaker, Isaach De Bankolé, and Michel B. Gillespie.
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