Poetry and War: Thoughts on Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
“Forest Whitaker in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999).” IMDb , https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165798/mediaviewer/rm4267680513/ . Accessed 3 Sept. 2021. The moment in Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) that best captures the essence of the whole piece is the one where the titular Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) is in the process of sizing up a mob hideout from the woods with a scope. His plan seems to be to take out the leader of the operation, Ray Vargo (Henry Silva), from a distance, but his gaze drifts from the building and the men in front of it to locate a noisy woodpecker in the trees nearby. Looking down the scope of his lethal weapon, Ghost Dog watches the woodpecker going about its animal business. Later, when Vargo does arrive, Ghost Dog loses his opportunity to kill the man from a distance when another bird lands on his weapon. This is Ghost Dog —this violent film “distracted” by meditations on nature, nighttime cityscapes, the mundanity of ...