Writer-director Jim Jarmusch melds mob, samurai and hip-hop life in “Ghost Dog”
Only the mind of maverick writer-director Jim Jarmusch could spawn a film that fuses Eastern philosophy, hip-hop music, urban desolation and mob culture.
And only Jarmusch could make the cinematic melding of these seemingly disparate genres — memorably titled “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai” — sound like the most logical union in the world.
“I see connections between them all,” says the 47-year-old director, whose latest effort opens this Friday. “Maybe that’s just me weaving them together, but in some ways the connections exist already.”
Jarmusch, his head-to-toe black garb offset by a signature shock of silver hair, sits in a Midtown hotel suite, a cigarette artfully dangled between his long fingers.
He speaks slowly and deliberately, with his eyes downcast, but occasionally he’ll fire off a sly sideways glance to emphasize one of his absurd observations.
The writer-director’s off-the-wall sense of humor colors most of his movies, and “Ghost Dog” is no exception.
The film stars Forest Whitaker as Ghost Dog, a loner who is saved by a low-rent mobster and then becomes his quiet assassin — until something goes awry and he, in turn, becomes a target of the mob.
Ghost Dog lives by the teachings of the 18th-century warrior text, “Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai” (an actual book). He lives in a ramshackle hut on a New Jersey rooftop, communicates only by carrier pigeon and twirls his pistols as if he were an ancient Japanese warrior.
The film is underscored by the hypnotic hip-hop of Wu-Tang Clan member the RZA, who makes a cameo appearance.
Jarmusch is not alone in mining the Mafia for creative inspiration. Like HBO’s smash hit “The Sopranos” and films such as “Analyze This,” “Mickey Blue Eyes” and “The Whole Nine Yards,” he depicts mobsters as flawed and vulnerable, a trend away from the reverential tone of earlier films like “GoodFellas” and “The Godfather” trilogy.
The proliferation of mobster comedies — many of which treat members of the “family” as bumbling dinosaurs — seems to reflect the gradual erosion of the real-life Mafia’s influence and power.
“I would be very quick to say that the crime family in (-ssq-)Ghost Dog’ is not in any way intended to be a portrait of the Mafia in its entirety at this point in time,” says Jarmusch.
“But I do think that the corporate criminals have usurped a lot of the areas in which the Mafia used to flourish. Things have changed, for sure.”
Jarmusch, born in Akron, Ohio, came to New York in the mid-’70s and immediately established himself at the heart of the thriving downtown art scene.
His interest in the mob lifestyle was piqued during the years he spent living in Little Italy.
“Through the late-’70s and mid-’80s, I lived near the Gambino family,” he says. “John Gotti, Sammy the Bull — I used to see those guys around a lot.
“I have respect for criminal organizations that choose to be outside the law,” he says. “They’re not criminals because of some stupid thing they did and got caught or because they were desperate. They pledged a code of allegiance to an organization that is completely outside the laws of the state.
“I don’t respect all the things they do, obviously, but the core of that is something I respect.
“In the same way, I don’t condone everything about street-gang life but I do respect the fact they choose to be organized with their own rules that come from within themselves and not from society.
“The character of Ghost Dog — although he’s a loner, not an organization — also adheres to a code that comes from within himself rather than one imposed on him.
“I think people believe too much in everything they’re told to believe in without deciding for themselves what is valuable, what works for them.”
It’s easy to see why the outsider is so appealing to Jarmusch, who has always been something of a boundary-rider himself, refusing to be part of the money-making machine that is Hollywood.
From his seminal 1984 comedy “Stranger Than Paradise,” which won him the Camera d’Or (for best first film) at that year’s Cannes Film Festival, through existential classics such as “Down By Law,” “Mystery Train,” “Night on Earth” and “Dead Man,” Jarmusch has stuck to his own film-making code.
It’s so distinct that “a Jim Jarmusch film” has become a brand name for oddball product.
“Ghost Dog” was hailed as a triumph at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, and there’s talk of it sparking a new trend, making the way of the samurai hip for the masses.
But Jarmusch begs to differ.
“I think [urban youth] have already jumped on the subculture,” he says. “There is a lot of Eastern philosophy in the so-called urban culture already. I’m not a sociologist, but I think it started in the 1960s, when ghetto movie theaters mostly showed marital arts films.
“I think it’s something I got influenced by. Maybe I synthesized it in my way in (-ssq-)Ghost Dog,’ but I don’t think it’s something entirely original in that sense.
Forest Whitaker, who gives a magnificent, Zen-like performance in the central role, says there’s been a general increase in soul searching with the arrival of the new millennium.
“I can see people reaching out to ancient cultures in the contemporary world,” he says. “With the advancement of the computer age, humanity is trying to balance itself by reaching to the past. And they want to watch films that deal with spirituality and mysticism and contemporary myths.”
Whitaker has studied martial arts and Eastern philosophy since he was 10 years old, and it was the combination of his gentle disposition and physical size and strength that Jarmusch used as a jumping-off point for this film.
“I started off just wanting to make a film about a character who was a contradiction — a killer we could like and respect,” Jarmusch says. “And the actor I thought could embody that contradiction was Forest.”
Whitaker agrees he has much in common with his character.
“With regard to trying to live my life by a code and trying to have a moral character and imbue that in everything I do, that’s a part of me,” he says. “The meditation, the philosophy, looking at religious texts for principles and ways of living life, that’s a part of who I am.”