In conjunction with England’s Black Star celebration of black actors in film and televison, BFI published an article in praise of Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai on Monday, and I couldn’t agree with its assessment of the genre-bending hip-hop-hit-man flick. This piece focus’s on Forrest Whitaker’s performance as the title character. Here’s a teaser…
When I first saw Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Jim Jarmusch’s urban crime-drama about a self-styled samurai who’s fond of pigeons, my eyes widened and my jaw slackened. Here was a hip-hop movie, a mob movie, a martial arts movie, all rolled into one. Different genres twirled together like spaghetti. I was 15 years old and I honestly didn’t know what to make of it. But I knew it broke all the rules. And that excited me.
In the genre-bending film, Forest Whitaker plays the eponymous street samurai who lives by an ancient Japanese warrior code. He lives on a rooftop with his pigeons and, though he keeps himself to himself, is deeply respected in the community (“Ghost Dog, knowledge to knowledge, baby,” a street gang salutes him).
His ‘master’ is a shady mobster who once saved his life. To show his gratitude, Ghost Dog performs a number of untraceable hits, one of which leads the wider mob family to turn on him. They have no idea who they’re dealing with, however. This is Ghost Dog. With his quiet bring-it-on demeanour, the silent assassin casually takes them down one by one, as if all in a day’s work.
On paper, that probably sounds like a Steven Seagal shoot-’em-up. But the film’s resistance to bang-bang-bang titillation is part of the reason why I love it. For a start, Ghost Dog is not your regular hitman. He’s a bookworm, he loves chocolate ice cream, and he talks to pigeons as if he can read their minds. Yes, he’s a killer, but he’s a loveable killer. He’s soft, gentle, totally huggable – his best friend Raymond even compares him to a big bear – yet won’t think twice about pulling the trigger.
I love this movie, and with Jarmusch’s new Iggy Pop doc about to hit theaters it’s a perfect time to revisit this dog. Here’s a great making of doc that delves into this complex film and the amazing performance of its star…
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