A few nights ago I watched on Criterion the 1999 film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, directed by Jim Jarmusch. I hadn’t seen it in years, and it still held up pretty well. It’s an odd film, a slow-paced crime drama that mixes in old Italian mob guys that watch old kids’ cartoons, a laid-back hip-hop score by the RZA, Forest Whitaker as a quiet and remote assassin who follows a samurai code from an old book, Issach de Bankole as a talkative French-speaking ice cream man who is Ghost Dog’s best friend despite that they don’t speak the same language, and Camille Winbush (of The Bernie Mac Show) as an inquisitive little girl who carries her novels around in a lunchbox.
It feels like a fairly unique movie, that combines being a mob movie with a hip-hop vibe. I like the little moments in it. Like when a little red bird just randomly perched on Ghost Dog’s sniper rifle while he’s got a bead on mobsters and he just looks so happy and charmed by it. The instrumental of Raekwon’s “Ice Cream” playing in the park as the ice cream man is introduced and protégés of the Wu-Tang Clan are freestyling. The incredulous reactions of the mobsters hearing about the unconventional methods that Ghost Dog goes by (“He only wants to be paid once a year on the first day of autumn? OK, we’ll get back to that . . . He sends his messages by fucking bird?!”). How Whitaker was perfect for this role because in interviews, he comes off as very soft-spoken and a slow talker, and how it’s a contrast that works well with de Bankole’s energetic fast-talking, and the warmth that the two best friends have, who just get each other as outsiders on an unspoken level.
I know that Jarmusch’s slower pace in his films isn’t for everyone, but between this and Paterson, I generally find these movies to be peaceful and relaxing, it’s comforting and I feel more still and can breathe more easily when watching chilled-out movies like those.
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