Jim Jarmusch’s “Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai” is a preposterous film about an insane African American samurai in modern New York, working as a hitman for a mafia family unable to come to terms with modern culture. Resting on that premise is a focused commentary on communication: between people, cultures, and eras. The film opens with a carrier pigeon, flying through the skies of New York to the rooftop bird-coop-slash-shack in which Forrest Whitaker’s titular character resides. Completely disconnected from the world around him, Whitaker’s Ghost Dog has modeled his life after the guidance found in “Hagakure — The Book Of The Samurai.” He follows his whims, and justifies them through his adherence to samurai code.
As a samurai, Ghost Dog needs a master, so he does contract killing for a made man, Louie, who anonymously saved his life years prior. He communicates with Louie solely through his passenger pigeons. His best friend is a Hatian ice cream truck driver with whom he shares no common language. He communicates with Pearline, a young girl he meets in the park, by giving her books to read, on the condition that she shares her opinions when she gives them back. Ghost Dog communicates silently with young gang members — groups of Bloods and Crips he occasionally encounters in the city — through a familiar nod of mutual understanding. In one scene, he frees all of his birds from their cage and guides them as a kit through gestures with a flag, almost as an orchestral conductor.
While Ghost Dog resourcefully communicates effectively with everyone he encounters, Louie’s mafia family is characterized by miscommunication. In the modern world they can no longer use violence and intimidation to take what they need, and they’re having trouble making the rent. They fail to understand Ghost Dog’s pigeon messages, they can’t understand each-other, and they can’t understand the world they live in.
In addition to personal relationships, Jarmusch took an interest in cultural communication and appropriation. Ghost Dog himself combines hip-hop culture with Bushido—wearing bling, listening to rap jazz and reggae, yet living according to an understanding of ancient Japanese custom. In addition, though, the movie is full of brief scenes of cultural juxtaposition.
In one scene, the Italian gangsters are apparently searching for Ghost Dog by checking every roof in the city for birdkeepers, and they encounter a large Cayuga man and shoot one of his birds. His response: “Stupid white man.” Later, the titular character sees a pair of hunters with a dead black bear. He stops and asks whether it’s bear hunting season, and when they respond with some racist insinuations he immediately shoots them both.
One of the mafia bosses, too, is infatuated by Hip-Hop culture. He raps along to Public Enemy in the shower, and professes familiarity with Method Man, Q-Tip, and Flava Flav. When Ghost Dog sends them a pigeon with a quote from Hakagure, “Even if a samurai’s head were to be suddenly cut off, he should still be able to perform one more action with certainty,” he is the only mobster to respond not with bewilderment but understanding: “It’s the poetry of war,” he observes.
In another scene, the Francophonic ice-cream seller Raymond takes Ghost Dog to his roof where he looks down upon another Frenchman building an arc, Noah-style, on his own roof. Ghost Dog asks how he plans to get it down, and the two Frenchmen joke about the apocalypse. When the young girl Pearline meets Ghost Dog in the park, he introduces her (and us) to his friend Raymond and describes their relationship. He explains that while Raymond is his best friend, he speaks not a word of English and Ghost Dog can’t speak French, but they remain friends because they understand each-other. Raymond comments to Pearline (in French) that they’re friends because Ghost Dog is extremely fat and he sells ice cream.
The film uses the story of Rashomon both as an inspiration and as a plot arc. In Ghost Dog’s first onscreen contract, he takes the book from a young girl present at the scene, which is then of course interpreted very differently by each relevant party. He then gives the book to Pearline, who describes her favorite story in it as, “the one where one thing happens but everyone sees it a different way.”
Taken on literal ground, Ghost Dog is a preposterous film—more of a stack of cross-cultural appropriations, contrived cinematic tropes, and absurdity, transcending magical realism into the realm of the fantastic. However, Jarmusch uses the bizarre and fantastic as a frame onto which he drapes his interesting discussion of humanity.
References
- http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000317/REVIEWS/3170305/1023
- http://www.jim-jarmusch.net/films/ghost_dog/read_about_it/jim_jarmuschs_flying_ghost_.html
- http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=24&sid=69348443-e892-4857-ae89-1d54e8a 5b6b7%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#
- http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=24&sid=ed19e9f0-f449-4dc2 -b463-f328bae42be6%40sessionmgr11#
- http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/article.php?id=60&feature