Ghost Dog, The Way Of The Samurai

Having briefly checked out Jim Jarmusch and his film Broken Flowers I wanted to see a bit more of his work. I saw Ghost Dog in my local DVD store and picked it up. If Jarmusch's name wasn't on the front I would have walked on by and completely ignored this film, I don't particularly like modern gangster flicks, I tend to like the romance of the older stuff like The Godfather and Goodfellas, having said that I really enjoyed Ghost Dog.

I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of what I liked I just want to comment on Jarmusch's style of film making and how much I like his minimalist approach. The film plays out in a very slow fashion, very similar to Broken Flowers and the story doesn't really go very far, which I've come to expect from a Jarmusch film, but the film was incredibly engaging, the characters all seemed peculiar in their own unique way, Jarmusch's use of cartoons to foreshadow future events was a subtle triumph and very clever, it added a layer of strangeness to the film even though the themes were dark and serious, it also made me see that cartoons themselves can have hidden messages and meaning. The Itchy and Scratchy clip at the end became very powerful within the context of the film.

I went on IMDB and checked out the Ghost Dog forum to see what others had thought of the film and how they interpreted it all. The most obvious point made was that each character was pretending to be a somebody. All the gangsters in the film were old, past it, acting like the big cheese when all they really are a group old men playing mobsters who have no money. Even Ghost Dog, a man following the code of the samurai acts strange; the movements he makes when walking and using his weapons all seem to be over acted, flamboyant, like a child fantasizing he's a hero. These are some of the subtle features in the film, the story is simple but the themes are many and complex, it's a thoughtful film but doesn't really try to say anything I don't think. Jarmusch clearly has his own unique way of telling a story and I really have enjoyed both his film so far.

From what I can see Jarmusch is a very talented story teller, his films visualize his stories. This is what interests me so much about him. His films are not for everybody, if I wasn't so interested in writing and creating fiction then I'd probably pass up on his films. I don't think they are intelligent films, I don't think they are art house films, I don't think they have a life changing meaning hidden with the frames, his films in my view are just stories about people and perhaps people's perception of the world. Jarmusch may twist and change common perception within his films but I just think he's having fun playing around with it.

This style runs very close to the way I see myself making films. Now that I'm working on The Tower, and having worked on The Drop's script, with all the influences I have I do think I'm slowly developing my ability to tell stories that are unique, that do perhaps say something about the world around us, about human nature and sometimes I just want to write a great little twist that takes people off guard. This is what I want to do, I want to tell stories.

I must keep an eye our for more of his films and see if my own understanding of his work is right.