A Code of His Own
FILM: Ghost Dog
DIRECTOR: Jim Jarmusch
STARRING: Forest Whitaker
|
|
GHOST DOG (FOREST WHITAKER) KILLS PEOPLE FOR A LIVING, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN HE'S A BAD GUY, RIGHT?
|
A giant black man, staring unblinkingly at the world through his one good eye,
communes with pigeons and practices Japanese swordsmanship on the rooftop of
the decaying highrise in which he lives his Spartan life. Nearby, mobsters are
addicted to cartoons. Around the corner at his parkside stand, a Haitian
immigrant hawks ice cream in a French patois that nobody can understand but
nobody needs to. The license plates on cars declare that we are in the
Industrial State, the urban neighbor of the Highway State, which beckons in
verdant splendor just across the way. In sundry such details, the inimitable
Jim Jarmusch creates in his current Ghost Dog a world of such delicious
quirkiness that we are prone to overlook its otherwise disturbing notion that
it's OK to be a hitman if you follow the rules you make for yourself.
Written and directed by Jarmusch, Ghost Dog (subtitled
The Way of the Samurai) is the story of the titular hired killer (Forest
Whitaker) who has decided to conduct his life according to the 18th century
Japanese warrior text Hagakure. Ghost Dog works for a mobster
named Louie (John Tormey), and, according to samurai tradition, he works only
on retainer, receiving his payment, in advance, but once a year. In this
capacity, he has performed perhaps a dozen murders for Louie over a period of
several years. Now, Louie asks him to whack Handsome Frank, a fellow "made man"
who has shown the indiscretion to conduct an affair with Louise Vargo (Tricia
Vessey), the languid daughter of Ray Vargo (Henry Silva), the godfather of
Louie's mob cell. Ghost Dog executes the hit as commanded but almost
immediately afterwards discovers himself with a contract on his own head.
The reasons Ghost Dog suddenly finds himself in a defensive posture
are part of the twisted fun of this film. In short, Ray Vargo and his mob
associates are just about the most illogical people you could meet this side of
George W. Bush explaining his speech at Bob Jones University or Al Gore
defending his trip to that Buddhist temple. Vargo is mad because Louise was
present when Handsome Frank was murdered and is in no way mollified that Ghost
Dog didn't do anything to Louise other than borrow her book. Mysteriously,
Vargo isn't mad at Johnny Morini (Vince Viverito), a henchman who was supposed
to make certain that Louise was out of town. Blithely ignoring the fact that
they ordered the original hit, Vargo and his chief spokesman, Sonny Valerio
(Cliff Gorman), declare that Ghost Dog must be wasted because Handsome Frank
was "one of us." And if Louie doesn't see to it that Ghost Dog is eliminated,
Louie can take measurements for his own pine box.
So the crusade is on. Everybody in the organization is charged with
putting Ghost Dog in his grave. Only because their quarry keeps such a low
profile and communicates even with Louie only by carrier pigeon, nobody knows
where to find him. And that, unfortunately, puts a lot of other people in
jeopardy. Pretty soon, large men of color are dodging budgets on roof tops all
over the Industrial State.
Near the end, Jarmusch provides a giddy, dirty pleasure in an
exquisitely bizarre execution. Other delectable moments in the film arrive via
its riffs of outlandish comedy -- Vargo mooing like a moose, or his attendant
Old Consigliere (Gene Ruffini) snapping off an idiot's invective against anyone
in any way different from himself. The best passages, though, detail Ghost
Dog's two personal relationships: his quiet, caring interchanges with Raymond
(Isaach de Bankole), the ice cream vendor who speaks not one word Ghost Dog can
understand, and his nascent mentoring of Pearline (Camile Winbush), the school
girl with books in her lunch box who shares Ghost Dog's love of reading.
Jarmusch is always thematically elusive, and never more so than here. Ghost Dog
is a hero only in the sense that he's not as vile as those around him. He
believes in duty and fealty, whereas his opponents are too dim to believe in
anything at all. He is willing to die for his principles, whereas his enemies
are willing to kill because it's Thursday. The closest this film comes to
having a point is expressed in one of Ghost Dog's samurai aphorisms; it holds
that the world in which we live is like a dreamscape, and that the world into
which we eventually will pass is like the relief of waking from a nightmare.
Not a full plate of wisdom, perhaps, but nonetheless nourishing food for
thought.
|
