Forest Whitaker hasn’t played too many lead roles in his career, but when he does — as in Clint Eastwood’s Bird, for example — he absolutely holds the screen in the palm of his hand. Jim Jarmusch wrote Ghost Dog with the actor in mind, and exploring interests like Asian philosophy, samurai culture, hiphop, post bop jazz and the decline of the mafia crime families in New York City — “but always with Forest at the centre.” Ghost Dog is a professional assassin for the mob, but he’s also an existential loner who adheres to his personal code (like Alain Delon in Melville’s film Le Samourai). And he’s a bit of an intellectual. Someone engaged by art and ideas. Despite the thriller trappings, this is really a lampoon of that genre, and a melancholy reverie for the cultural melting pot that we call home.
Ghost Dog has retained all of the cool, the quirk, the profundity it captured in a bottle in 1999…
Ed Travis, Cinapse
Less a pastiche than a mastermix from a cinematic DJ at the height of his formalist powers.
Glenn Kenny, Premiere
Media Partner
Jim Jarmusch
Forest Whitaker, John Tormey, Cliff Gorman, Henry Silva, Victor Argo
USA
1999
In English and French with English subtitles
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Friday August 28
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Credits
Producer
Richard Guay, Jim Jarmusch
Screenwriter
Jim Jarmusch
Cinematography
Robby Müller
Editor
Jay Rabinowitz
Original Music
RZA
Production Design
Ted Berner
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Unforgiven
Bill Munny (Clint Eastwood) is face down in pig shit when we first see him. He's a bad farmer, but has a natural facility for killing people – a vocation to which he returns in a quest that combines both profit and justice. Or so he chooses to believe.
Malcolm X
In an indelible role, Denzel Washington give us a layered, compassionate, conflicted man who finds the strength in Islam to transcend his demons and confront the inequity and racism in America head-on. Along with Do the Right Thing, this is Spike Lee's greatest film.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.
Dazed and Confused
The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.
Short Cuts
Altman's adaptation of Raymond Carver short stories, Short Cuts weaves between 8 or 9 overlapping storylines and 22 characters. it's a teeming, caustic and compassionate human comedy; a singularly astringent, often cynical view of America and Americana.
Three Colours: Blue
The first of Kieslowski's acclaimed Three Colours Trilogy, inspired by the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity and the French flag, the Tricolour. Blue stars Juliette Binoche as a young woman grieving her husband and child.
Schindler's List
One of the most acclaimed films of the 90s, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark is the story of a German industrialist whose conscience is stirred to save his Jewish workers from the camps.
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Three Colours: Red
Irène Jacob plays Valentine, a runway model living in Geneva, who crosses paths with a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who's a bit of an eavesdropper. Initially repelled, she becomes intrigued by this man, as do we... Kieslowski's sublime adieu.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings begins with an onslaught of fucks. It's the first signal that this rom-com will break from tradition, despite the ritualized structural conceit described in the title. The witty screenplay is by Richard Curtis — it's still his best.
The Lion King
With its beautifully drawn East African setting, its humour, pathos, and engaging characters, as well as its stirring songs, The Lion King stands as the pinnacle of traditional Disney family entertainment.
Image: © Disney, 1994
To Die For
Buck Henry (The Graduate) wrote this acidic black comedy about a ruthless weather girl on the make (Nicole Kidman in her breakout role). A young Joaquin Phoenix is the dim teen she seduces on her way to achieving stardom.