Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai
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List Price: $9.98
Features
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• NTSC
In Theaters : 1999
Video Release : 19 December, 2000 |
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Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Treating small things with great importance
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To the casual viewer this may appear to be another "pigeons on the roof" movie out of ON THE WATERFRONT
with a lone wolf hero taking on the mob a la Marlon Brando. True, there are similarities. Both Terry Malloy and Ghost Dog are more connected to children and pigeons than they are to the adult world - but the former is so because he remains a childlike and illiterate palooka whilst the latter actually reads, takes children seriously, and communicates more on a "spiritual" or emotional level than he does on a verbal level. Apart from his pigeons, Ghost Dog (played by Forest Whitaker) connects or communicates best with a young girl with whom he discusses literature - including Rashomon, Frankenstein and Wind in the Willows - an ice cream vendor who only speaks French, a silent dog of the street, and intermittently with street rappers en passant. It is these elements too which remain central to the film, rather than the comical mobsters, who fumble and bumble their way through life and for recreation spend their time watching Felix Cartoons circa 1935. It is quite refreshing to see gangsters or mobsters treated like this instead of romanticised as they usually are in such iconic works as THE GODFATHER trilogy and THE SOPRANOS. Lets face it, there are similarities between "the captains of industry" and the so called mob in Western society - the means they use may differ but their purpose and intent may remain the same.
A marxist interpretation of this work is entirely plausible. Equally, Hasidic Jews of Brooklyn would relate to it and understand its themes whilst deploring its violence. Nevertheless, it seems to me one major theme is that of the Artist in a hostile and materialistic landscape attempting to survive. And surviving means self discipline, being true to one's beliefs, treating small things with great importance (his ice cream eating is undertaken with a reverence similar to a Japanese tea ceremony) and treating large things lightly (death is treated lightly).
But, the film is rich enough for the viewer to bring to it his or her own experience and enjoy on many levels.
Mr Whitaker holds the centre of the film with consummate skill - to me it's some of his best work. (To upstage Paul Newman as the laboratory experiment pool player in The Color of Money was pretty darn good too!)
Robbie Muller manages to capture the mood with his POV photography through the eyes of a pigeon - or God -and the feel of urban life. The music is all of a piece.
This is a rich film worthy of reviewing from time to time. |
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