Ghost Dog The Way of the Samurai
USA/Japan/France/Germany 1999
Reviewed by Xan Brooks
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
The US, the present. Ghost Dog keeps pigeons, consults the samurai code Hagakure and works as an assassin for the Mob. He has two friends: Raymond, a Haitian ice-cream vendor, and Pearline, a bookish little girl he meets in the park. Ghost Dog is commissioned by Mob foot-soldier Louie to kill another gangster, Handsome Frank, who is having an affair with Louise, the niece of Mafia don Vargo. But when Louise witnesses the hit, Vargo and his underboss Sonny decide Ghost Dog must be killed.
Aided by a reluctant Louie, Sonny and Vargo send their goons to Ghost Dog's home where they destroy his pigeon coop and shoot a man by mistake. Ghost Dog tracks down Louie but refuses to kill him because his samurai code forbids a retainer from killing his master. Later, he drives out to Vargo's country home where he kills his guards and shoots the don as Louise sits watching. Returning home, he also shoots two hunters who have killed a bear out of season. He then kills Sonny. Ghost Dog travels to the park and gives his Hagakure book to Pearline and his personal effects to Raymond. Louie arrives and Ghost Dog allows himself to be shot dead. At home, Pearline begins reading Hagakure.
Review
Jim Jarmusch once remarked that his films are made up of the bits that other film-makers would cut out of their movies. His pictures have traditionally been comprised of the time between big events, the moments when the characters are either in transit or idling in a lugubrious neutral. The inhabitants of Down by Law are prison break-outs with no particular place to go. In Mystery Train the setting is the low-rent hotel where a crop of Memphis tourists cool their heels. In Night on Earth a series of taxi cabs ferry their respective passengers between points A and B. At its best, Jarmusch's work circles so deliberately around conventional Hollywood notions of drama as to evolve a new drama all of its own.
What is one to make, then, of Ghost Dog The Way of the Samurai? Face it head-on and this urban thriller signals a startling volte-face. Where Jarmusch used to score his films to avant-garde punk or white guitar music (his last picture, The Year of the Horse, was a documentary on old friend and collaborator Neil Young), Ghost Dog comes powered by a spare, trip-hop soundtrack from Wu Tang Clan frontman RZA. And where Jarmusch's previous pictures were contemplative and unimpeded by straightforward narration, Ghost Dog teems with action. Its lead character is a hitman hounded by the Mob. Its body count is epic. It builds to a Scarface-style shoot-out. It is, in short, a very different breed of Jarmusch movie.
Except it's not really. Much as he did with his unloved but ambitious Western Dead Man, Jarmusch has taken hold of a genre template and remade it in his own image, sprinkling in some incongruous ingredients. As a result, Ghost Dog comes across as an eccentric salad of styles (a hip-hop Mafia samurai thriller, no less), its core pure Jarmusch. This, it turns out, is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, Ghost Dog is underpinned by the film-maker's familiar blend of warmth and cool-eyed distance, a mix as disarming as it is eccentric. It allows Jarmusch to poke gentle fun at his characters (and much of Ghost Dog is very funny) while simultaneously regarding them with a genuine affection. In this, he is helped by some fine performances, most notably from Henry Silva's gimlet-eyed Mob boss and Forest Whitaker's stoic, soulful hitman with a heart - stereotypes but likeable ones, with just enough kinks to keep them interesting.
But in its broader picture, Ghost Dog can be frustratingly lazy. The transplanting of old eastern codes to the present-day west is a device that's been attempted by everyone from John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) to Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Samuraï, 1967) to John Frankenheimer (Ronin), but in adopting the same tack Jarmusch instigates a debate he can't quite resolve. Ghost Dog offers some intriguing insights on the melting-pot US, a place where Sicilian mobsters mouth Flavor Flav lyrics and the black underclass study Japanese philosophy. But it complicates matters by drawing a link between both old-school Mafia codes and ancient samurai honour and (more crucially) between black urban culture and ancient samurai honour. The first link is credible; the second less so. Jarmusch offers no illumination as to why Ghost Dog feels an affinity with samurai teachings, nor why he insists on passing those teachings on to an Afro-American child. Instead, he tosses in bland Hollywood shorthand. Ghost Dog is black, ergo he is soulful.
Not that Jarmusch has ever been known for his rigour, and Ghost Dog is no exception. This is a picture by turns amusing and melancholic, sweet-centred and dark-edged. Jarmusch clearly finds observations easier than analysis, and the trip more satisfying than the destination. Ghost Dog's shoot-out is not a climax; just another port of call in its creator's endless voyage around himself.
Credits
- Director
- Jim Jarmusch
- Producers
- Richard Guay
- Jim Jarmusch
- Screenplay
- Jim Jarmusch
- Director of Photography
- Robby Müller
- Editor
- Jay Rabinowitz
- Production Designer
- Ted Berner
- Music
- RZA
- ©Plywood Productions, Inc.
- Production Companies
- JVC/Le Studio Canal+ and BAC Films present in association with Pandora Film/ARD-Degeto Film a Plywood production
- Co-producer
- Diana Schmidt
- Production Supervisors
- Lonnie Kandel
- Victor DeJesus
- Unit Production Manager
- Diana Schmidt
- Location Manager
- Ged Dickersin
- Post-production Supervisors
- Gabrielle Mahon
- Stacey Smith
- Assistant Directors
- Jude Gorjanc
- Cindy Craig
- Jessica Piscitelli
- Script Supervisor
- Chiemi Karasawa
- Casting
- Ellen Lewis
- Laura Rosenthal
- Story Consultant
- Sara Driver
- Camera Operator
- Chaim Kantor
- Steadicam Operator
- Rick Raphael
- Wescam Operator
- David Norris
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Drew Jiritano
- Art Director
- Mario Ventenilla
- Set Decorator
- Ronnie Von Blomberg
- Costume Designer
- John Dunn
- Wardrobe Supervisors
- David Davenport
- Amy S. Habacker
- Make-up
- Judy Chin
- Special Effects Make-up
- Neal Martz
- Hair
- Cliff Booker
- Title Design
- Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc
- Digital/Optical Effects
- Don Nolan
- The Effects House
- Opticals
- John Furniotis
- Film Effects
- Music Editor
- Jay Rabinowitz
- Soundtrack
- "Ice-Cream (Instrumental mix)" by Robert Diggs, Corey Woods, arranged by RZA, featuring Ghostface Killah, Cappadonna, Raekwon; "Fast Shadow" by/arranged by RZA, featuring Wu-Tang Clan; "Raise Your Sword (Samurai Showdown)" by/arranged/performed by RZA; "From Then till Now" by Walter Reed, Earnest Aye, D. Black, J. Barry, W. Warwick, performed by Killah Priest; "Armagideon Time" by Willie Williams, Clement Dodd, performed by Willie Williams; "Nuba One" by Andrew Cyrille, Jeanne Lee, performed by Andrew Cyrille, Jimmy Lyons; "Cold Lampin with Flavor" by William Drayton, Hank Shocklee, Eric Sandler, performed by Public Enemy
- Sound Mixer
- Drew Kunin
- Sound
- Chic Ciccolini III
- Re-recording Mixer
- Dom 'The Dominator' Tavella
- Re-recordist
- Keith Culbertson
- Dialogue Editor
- Thomas A. Gulino
- Sound Effects Editors
- Chic Ciccolini III
- Daniel Pagan
- ADR
- Recordists:
- Alex Raspa
- Joan Chamberlain
- Mixers:
- David Boulton
- Ann Hadsell
- Editor:
- Jason Canovas
- Foley
- Artists:
- Brian Vancho
- Ryan Collison
- Recordist:
- Joseph Dohner
- Editor:
- Yvette Nabel
- Philosophical Consultant
- Jim Sotet
- Gun Consultant
- Alfredo Martinez
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Jeff Ward
- Manny Siverio
- Norman Douglass
- Animal Wrangler
- Steve McAuliff
- Cast
- Forest Whitaker
- Ghost Dog
- John Tormey
- Louie Bonacelli
- Cliff Gorman
- Sonny Valerio
- Henry Silva
- Ray Vargo
- Isaach de Bankolé
- Raymond
- Tricia Vessey
- Louise Vargo
- Victor Argo
- Vinny
- Gene Ruffini
- old consigliere
- Richard Portnow
- Handsome Frank
- Camille Winbush
- Pearline, the little girl
- Dennis Liu
- Chinese restaurant owner
- Frank Minucci
- Big Angie
- Frank Adonis
- Valerio's bodyguard
- Damon Whitaker
- young Ghost Dog
- Kenny Guay
- boy in window
- Vince Viverito
- Johnny Morini
- Gano Grills
- Touché Cornel
- Jamie Hector
- gangstas in red
- Chuck Jeffreys
- mugger
- Yan Ming Shi
- Kung Fu master
- Vinnie Vella
- Sammy the Snake
- Joe Rigano
- Joe Rags
- Roberto López
- Salvatore Alagna
- Jerry Todisco
- punks in alley
- Dreddy Kruger
- Timbo King
- Clay Da Raider
- Dead and Stinking
- Deflon Sallahr
- rappers in blue
- Gary Farmer
- Nobody
- Clebert Ford
- pigeonkeeper
- José Rabelo
- rooftop boatbuilder
- Jerry Sturiano
- Lefty
- Tony Rigo
- Tony
- Alfred Nittoli
- Al
- Angel Caban
- social club landlord
- Luz Valentin
- girl in silver
- Rene Bluestone
- Jordan Peck
- club couples
- Jonathan Cook
- Tracy Howe
- bear hunters
- Harry Shearer
- voice of Scratchy
- Vanessa Hollingshead
- female sheriff
- Sharon Angela
- blonde with Jaguar
- The Rza
- samurai in camouflage
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Film Four Distributors
- 10,419 feet
- 115 minutes 46 seconds
- Dolby digital
- Colour by
- DeLuxe Laboratories