Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a 1999 film written and directed by
Jim Jarmusch. The film takes place in a fictional Northeastern city and its environs in the
present day United States.[1] Forest Whitaker stars as the title character, the mysterious
"Ghost Dog", an African American hitman in
the employ of the Mafia, and who follows the ancient code of the samurai as outlined in the book of Yamamoto Tsunetomo's recorded
sayings, Hagakure.
Plot
Ghost Dog (Whitaker) sees himself as a retainer of Louie (John Tormey), a local mobster, whom Ghost Dog believes saved his life years ago. Louie tells Ghost Dog to
kill a gangster who is sleeping with the daughter of the mafia boss Vargo (Henry Silva).
However, Ghost Dog kills the man in the girl's presence. The aging mobsters decide to get rid of Ghost Dog to cover up their
involvement. The Mafia group are hardly the big-time mobsters of the type seen in The
Godfather: they are incapable of paying the rent for their meeting place and have little social collateral. Louie
knows practically nothing about Ghost Dog, and the hitman further communicates only by homing
pigeon. The mobsters start by tracing all the pigeon coops in town. They find Ghost Dog's cabin atop a building and kill
his pigeons. Ghost Dog realizes he is forced to kill the entire mafia or, otherwise, they will kill him and his master.
During the day, Ghost Dog frequently visits the park to see his best friend, a Haitian
ice cream salesman named Raymond (Isaach De
Bankolé) who speaks only French. Ghost Dog doesn't understand French and Raymond
doesn't understand English, but the two seem to understand each other. One of the recurring events in the film is a
running gag when Ghost Dog and Raymond talk. One of them says something and the other,
having not understood a word, rephrases it in his own language.
Ghost Dog also makes friends with a little girl named Pearline (Camille Winbush) to
whom he lends a book he received from Vargo's daughter, titled Rashomon and Other
Stories, which gets Pearline interested in ancient Japan. Paralleling a
major theme of Rashomon, Louie and Ghost Dog have different accounts of the circumstances of their meeting: In Louie's
flashback, we see him shoot Ghost Dog's attacker in self-defense, while in Ghost Dog's
flashback, Louie shoots the attacker just as the attacker is about to kill Ghost Dog. Eventually Ghost Dog performs a one-man
attack on boss Vargo's mansion and kills everyone inside, sparing only Vargo's daughter and his "master" Louie. Though Louie
feels some loyalty to Ghost Dog, he also feels that he must avenge the murder of boss Vargo. Louie finally confronts Ghost Dog at
Raymond's ice cream stand with Raymond and Pearline watching. In the final showdown, Ghost Dog is unwilling to attack his master
and allows Louie to kill him. His last act is to pass Louie the copy of Rashomon and encourage him to read it. Immediately
afterwards, Pearline picks up the silenced pistol that Ghost Dog used throughout the film and
cast aside at his death, aiming it towards Louie and pulling the trigger of the empty gun. As she pulls the trigger, Louie
stumbles; implying that all though the gun was empty Pearline's strong will to kill affected him (this is another concept from
bushido).
In the end it is revealed that Vargo's daughter now leads the outfit and it was she who commanded that Louie kill Ghost Dog,
completing the chain of events from Ghost Dog's first assassination of a made man, the mafia's pursuit of him, Ghost Dog's
"vengeful retaliation," and finally, Louie killing the man "responsible" for the events of the film. In the denouement, Pearline is shown reading Ghost Dog's prized copy of the Hagakure (which he had given her prior to his death), and the movie closes with a voiceover of her reading
from it, implying that Pearline might follow the bushido code that Ghost Dog introduced to
her.
Themes
Ghost Dog is about clashing cultures: the movie stresses the conflict between the codes of conduct embraced by two
"ancient tribes": the Mafia and the Samurai. There is a certain sense of inevitability in the movie, illustrated by Ghost Dog's
acceptance of his eventual death by his master, and also of honor, illustrated by Ghost Dog killing two poachers he encounters on
the road with a dead bear (the black bear is imagery associated throughout the movie with Ghost Dog himself). Communication and
miscommunication are also dominant themes.
Cross-culturalism is represented through various characters adopting
lifestyles and cultural interests outside their traditional milieu. Ghost Dog lives
by the ancient code of Bushido, boss Vargo recalls the tribal names of Native Americans, and Sonny Valerio has a passion for rap music and the monikers
of rap artists. An additional example of characters adopting philosophies incongruent to their lives is shown when Raymond and
Ghost Dog witness a man building a full-scale boat atop his apartment building, with no conceivable way to move it to a body of
water. Between each act of the film, a quotation from Hagakure is screened and read by
Ghost Dog, usually associated in some way to the scene immediately before or after the caption.
Ghost Dog is seen embracing the ritualized ways of the samurai in the way he returns his pistol to his holster, which is reminiscent of the way a katana is sheathed.
Another ritual for Ghost Dog is when he is driving a stolen car, he uses the same motion to place one of his CDs into the car
stereo. He always sets the volume to 21. Ghost Dog shoots Handsome Frank first in the stomach, then in the chest, then in the
head. These shots follow the same pattern as seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide, in which the
first cut with a sword or knife is made across the belly, the second cut up towards the sternum, and finally the suicide dips his
head and is decapitated by his assistant.
Cartoons
In the film, cartoons are also used as a metaphor to scene or plot dynamics:
- Handsome Frank watches a cartoon featuring Betty Boop corralling her pigeons moments
before Ghost Dog, a fellow pigeon raiser, arrives to assassinate him. Ghost Dog is later seen handling his pigeons in the same
manner as Betty.
- Boss Vargo watches a Felix the Cat cartoon wherein the Professor voices his
frustration at capturing the elusive Felix and his magic bag, mirroring the mafia's inability to find and eliminate Ghost Dog,
who carries his weapons and equipment in a black briefcase.
- Vargo and his daughter, Louise, watch a Woody Woodpecker cartoon in the car, immediately after Ghost Dog has been distracted by a woodpecker whilst sniping in the
woods. The cartoon features a staring and intimidation
contest between Woody and a ghost. This can symbolize both the conflict between Ghost Dog and the mafia, as well as the
personal conflict between Vargo and his daughter.
- During the mansion shootout, Louise watches a black and white cartoon wherein a hunted moose takes cover, then through the
aid of hammerspace, pulls a gun on his attacker and overpowers him.
- Louise watches an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon in the car where Itchy
overkills the corpse of Scratchy, while Vinny bleeds to death in the front seat.
- Valerio's bodyguard watches a cartoon where a police officer fires up a drain pipe and the bullets flood out through the
shower, pelting the suspect. This mirrors the way that Ghost Dog assassinates Sonny Valerio.
- In the second to last scene, Louise watches an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon where the eponymous duo duel with progressively larger revolvers, until their actions eventually destroy
an opponent, mirroring how the events of the film eventually killed Ghost Dog.
Reception
Critical response to the film was mixed, but largely positive: on the Rotten Tomatoes
review site, the film received a 78% favorable rating. The critical consensus was that the movie is "An innovative blend of
samurai and gangster lifestyles."[2] The film was nominated
for a few awards but did not win any of them. Among the nominations were the César Award for
Best Foreign Film on 2000 and the Palme d'Or award on 1999.[3] The film grossed a total of $9,380,473 in the world, $3,308,029 of which in the
United States.[4]
Cast
Casting notes
- Gary Farmer is credited as playing a character named "Nobody", the same name of his
character in Jarmusch's 1995 western,
Dead Man. After he is confronted by some mob hitmen on his roof, Nobody says one of his
lines from Dead Man: "Stupid fucking white man".
- Forest Whitaker's younger brother Damon Whitaker plays the role of "Young Ghost Dog"
in the flashback sequences.
- RZA has a cameo in the film, playing a camouflage wearing, cross-bearing "street
crusader" counterpart to Ghost Dog's samurai. As Ghost Dog and RZA's character meet on the
street, he and Ghost Dog bow and exchange greetings:
- RZA: Ghost Dog, power and equality.
- Ghost Dog: Always see everything my brother.
After the greeting they both pass each other and continue on their way. RZA is credited as "Samurai In Camouflage" in the end
credits.
Cultural references
- The film could be seen as an homage to Le Samouraï, a 1967 crime-drama by Jean-Pierre Melville starring
Alain Delon. That movie opens with a quote from an invented Book of Bushido and
features a meditative, loner hero, Jef Costello. In the same manner that Ghost Dog has an electronic "key" to break into luxury
cars, Costello has a huge ring of keys that enable him to steal any Citroën DS.[5] [6] The ending also shares a key similarity with the ending of Ghost Dog.
- The Film contains a number of references to Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill. Most obvious the point when a bird lands in front of Ghost Dog's gun sight, referencing
the incident in Suzuki's film with a butterfly. Ghost Dog shooting Sonny Valerio up the drain pipe is taken directly from Branded
to Kill.
- The story of Ghost Dog is similar to that of the heroic bloodshed film
The Killer. The Killer was also a homage to Le
Samourai.
- When Ghost Dog introduces himself to the mafia guards at the mansion, he says his name is "Bob Solo," a combination of two
Harrison Ford characters, Bob Falfa (from American
Graffiti) and Han Solo (from Star
Wars).
- The movie was adapted into a role-playing game by Canadian game publisher
Guardians of Order. The game focused on two person (one player and one
Game Master) group play and resource information about the movie and the real-life Mafia.
[7]
- Ghost Dog drives past a club called the Liquid Sword; this is a reference to the GZA album,
"Liquid Swords".
Soundtrack
The Japanese release of the soundtrack album has different tracks from the US release.
-
The film's score and soundtrack is the first produced
by the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA.
US and Japanese versions of the soundtrack album have been released, each with a different set of tracks. The Japanese release
also has some songs not in the film. [8] Songs in the film
that don't appear any either soundtrack album include From Then Till Now performed by Killah Priest, Armagideon Time performed by Willi Williams,
Nuba One performed by Andrew Cyrille and Jimmy Lyons and Cold Lampin With Flavor performed by Flavor Flav.[9]
Literature referenced in the film
References
External links
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