** only minor spoilers **
The publication on Bright Lights Film Journal of my essay brought to mind this Jim Jarmusch indie. In 1999, The Sopranos was briefly in the shadow of Analyze This, about a mobster (Robert DeNiro) in therapy. Less noted was the overlap with Ghost Dog, which could almost be The Sopranos as seen by an African-American, if a self-taught samurai. Here's more evidence of television's resistance to change: as HBO launched David Chase's novel-for-TV, the American New Wave was well into a second generation of (postmodern) gangster films: see also Miller's Crossing, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, The Boondock Saints, Summer of Sam.
Forest Whitaker is ideally cast as a reflective loner living off-the-grid in a modern U.S. city: no amnesiac, he's a spiritually awake hit man. He steals a car but prioritizes the sound system, pumping eclectic hip-hop. He'll break his meditative isolation for other noncomformists: a man building a boat on a rooftop; an elderly man who's a poor choice for a mugger. Perhaps most resonant: an encounter with white hunters who've killed a bear. When the bearish Ghost Dog objects, the elder hunter says, "This isn't an ancient culture." Ghost Dog: "Sometimes it is."
Even as conflict rises, Ghost Dog stresses its title character's mutual respect with the local mafiosi, for they too have a code. Arguably, these Italians are too comic: they watch cartoons, are fatter and older than The Sopranos, even more clearly on-their-way-out. But maybe that's why Ghost Dog is reading (the basis for) Rashomon: it's how he sees the Mafia. Consistent with the slowed pulse of his oeuvre, Jarmusch counters the chop of culture-change with Ghost Dog's Zen calm.
Like any Jarmusch film, Ghost Dog has cinematic cool and a great soundtrack (by RZA), while being not-for-all-tastes. If Analyze This was cute but disposable, Jarmusch tends to improve on second viewing, as we adjust to the intriguing protagonist aloof from Western society. As a substitute, Ghost Dog liberally quotes his dog-eared copy of "The Book of the Samurai": he's relation to the seekers in The Tao of Steve, Amelie, and The Matrix. And like Marlo on The Wire, he keeps pigeons, a chance to practice patience, even as he gently urges the birds home to roost.
The publication on Bright Lights Film Journal of my essay brought to mind this Jim Jarmusch indie. In 1999, The Sopranos was briefly in the shadow of Analyze This, about a mobster (Robert DeNiro) in therapy. Less noted was the overlap with Ghost Dog, which could almost be The Sopranos as seen by an African-American, if a self-taught samurai. Here's more evidence of television's resistance to change: as HBO launched David Chase's novel-for-TV, the American New Wave was well into a second generation of (postmodern) gangster films: see also Miller's Crossing, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, The Boondock Saints, Summer of Sam.
Even as conflict rises, Ghost Dog stresses its title character's mutual respect with the local mafiosi, for they too have a code. Arguably, these Italians are too comic: they watch cartoons, are fatter and older than The Sopranos, even more clearly on-their-way-out. But maybe that's why Ghost Dog is reading (the basis for) Rashomon: it's how he sees the Mafia. Consistent with the slowed pulse of his oeuvre, Jarmusch counters the chop of culture-change with Ghost Dog's Zen calm.
Like any Jarmusch film, Ghost Dog has cinematic cool and a great soundtrack (by RZA), while being not-for-all-tastes. If Analyze This was cute but disposable, Jarmusch tends to improve on second viewing, as we adjust to the intriguing protagonist aloof from Western society. As a substitute, Ghost Dog liberally quotes his dog-eared copy of "The Book of the Samurai": he's relation to the seekers in The Tao of Steve, Amelie, and The Matrix. And like Marlo on The Wire, he keeps pigeons, a chance to practice patience, even as he gently urges the birds home to roost.